Huge Survey Shows Correlation Between Autistic Traits and STEM Jobs (cam.ac.uk) 345
Bruce66423 writes: A survey of more than 450,000 people in the UK has shown there is a significant correlation between a higher score on the Autism Quotient and being a scientist or engineer. AQ scores are also higher for men than for women. "On average, the male AQ score was 21.6, compared to a female score of 19.0. People work in a STEM-related job had an average AQ score of 21.9 compared to a score of 18.9 for individuals working in non-STEM jobs. This suggests autistic traits are linked to both sex and to having a ‘systems-thinking’ mind." A professor involved with the work said, "These may shed light on why we find males in the population on average have slightly more autistic traits than females do, and why fathers and grandfathers of children with autism are over-represented in STEM fields."
Male privilege (Score:5, Funny)
Men shape the world so that they can earn more money. I demand equal access to autism for women!
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...after all, programming humans via socializing is way more fun than programming computers.
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...after all, programming humans via socializing is way more fun than programming computers.
Although much, much harder.
Re:Male privilege (Score:5, Insightful)
What you describe is an established "symptom" of ASD in women, but perhaps ASD is not an really appropriate classification for those symptoms. I know this is a controversial statement, but it's possible that men and women have different disorders. I mean, if we have to broaden the symptoms of one disorder to include symptoms which happen to be the antithesis of the "same" disorder, then perhaps we're actually looking at a something unique, and we should categorize it as such rather than trying to shoehorn it into an existing classification.
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..and there are some that don't. It runs in our family and I had a cousin that was un-diagnosed, she grew up on a farm which probably limited her opportunities to socialize.
She was quite the loner and ended up committing suicide.
Re: Male privilege (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. You don't get how this works. Through years of observation, compensation and learned responses we can become socially functional, but we are not nor ever will be socially intuitive, which is the real issue with ASD. It's like not having a graphics card - sure you can still play games, but you do it at .001% of the efficiency of everyone else because you had to cobble together some shitty emulation of the function they have built-in. We get better over time (if we try) at appearing normal, but the feelings of isolation never stop. If anything they get worse because the more normal people think you are, the more shocking it is to them and stressful it is for you when eventually the facade fails or you are tired and the weird comes out.
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No shit, that sounds just like me.
Makes me wonder how long it's worth continuing to live, if it's just going to get worse from here.
It's called the Barnum Effect. (Score:3, Interesting)
I got chills reading that. That's one of the most accurate descriptions I think I've ever read.
The description fits me very good aswell.
I'd bet it fits about 95% of the population [wikipedia.org]
It's called the Barnum Effect.
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"There are just as many aspie women as men."
So why do aspie men have so much trouble finding them?
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"There are just as many aspie women as men."
So why do aspie men have so much trouble finding them?
I have a theory. These men actually do run into their opposite number, but because they both have lower than average empathy, their meeting turns into a tragedy of errors. Maybe she mistakes his attempt to make conversation as sexual harassment, or maybe he mistakes his sexual harassment as still normal male dating behavior.
Re:Male privilege (Score:5, Interesting)
The CDC says that you are absolutely wrong. Autism is 5x more common in boys (interestingly, this is rather close to the male/female STEM ratio).
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html
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TFA dealt with the UK where circumcision is unusual. The CDC numbers are from the US where male infant circumcision is routine. There are other studies showing a pretty strong link between the pain & trauma of infant circumcision and a much higher rate of ASD. It's about 5x versus babies who remained intact.
CDC says males are about 5x more likely than females to land on the spectrum. You don't say...
Correlation != causation, but it should make you wonder a bit.
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No, it means that all the SJWs bashing on people as being misogynistic are actually making fun of people with mental disabilities.
Re:Male privilege (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. This is one reason programmers and gamers resent the suggestion that they're misogynistic: They treat everybody the same.
Just because it's not the way women want to be treated doesn't make it misogynistic.
I'm diagnosed with Aspergers, and I don't generally want to upset people. I've managed it with complete accidental ease. I mix with people that don't worry about the oddities and give me credit for my skills and abilities, instead of crying about those I lack.
Others are less accepting. They can stay the fuck out of my profession.
Wow, er, really? (Score:2)
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Must have been somebody who's quite fond of statistics.
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And found an overwhelming ratio of "an average AQ score of 21.9 compared to a score of 18.9". Stop the presses, it's time to draw all sorts of wide ranging conclusions based on a single study finding a difference 3 points in AQ score.
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Not to be autistic, but...
Depends on the scale. If 21.9 represents the maximum on the scale, and 0 the minimum, then a difference of 3 would be ~13.7%.
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21.9 isn't the maximum. I just took the quiz online [psychcentral.com] and I scored a 36. The quiz I took said that anything 34 or above meant that Autism was likely. (My son was diagnosed with high functioning autism and we're sure I'm undiagnosed autistic as well.) When my wife (who is definitely not on the spectrum) took the test once, she scored about 10 or 11.
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34 here, but I definitely don't have autism, just a dysthymia and the avoidant personality disorder which got much better after I have started taking SSRI.
Some symptoms just overlap.
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My main issue is that with tests like the one used in this study, the same people taking it again a few weeks later would likely differ by
450,000 participants (Score:2)
So... (Score:5, Interesting)
I would much rather we classify conditions such as autism by the extent that someone is unable to lead a full and prosperous life. Rather than get all tangled up with low-level biases that may or may not say something about the disability. All this study really shows is that personality types are attracted to certain jobs. It does not advance our knowledge of autism. What would have been really interesting is whether there is a change in score over time as people enter various careers - to more autistic traits emerge in people who code for a living.
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
This.
It's weird that a lesser ability to socialize (high AQ) is considered a condition whereas a lesser ability to see patterns and handle information (low AQ) is considered normal.
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Yes. It's enough if one in the group spots the hungry tiger, if the rest of the group the cooperates well enough to kill it.
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We have to get away from this simplistic view that labelling is automatically bad. Autism is a scale, and at one end it makes it very hard for people to function normally in society. It's a good thing that we have identified it and found ways to help people who are affected in that way.
What I find more interesting is that STEM is somehow more attractive to people who are a little further along the scale than average. It actually backs up a lot of what has been said recently about social issues in STEM.
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Labeling is not bad. What people associate with labels is.
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Labelling/stereotyping is "bad" in that it is a simplification mechanism. Simplification is essential for us to deal with a complex world without becoming totally overloaded, but it also means that we have deliberately donned blinders and we often forget that just because we don't see something, that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And can turn around suddenly and bite you.
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When we were first getting our son's diagnosis, we were scared of labeling him - thinking, as many do, that sticking a label on him would harm him. Instead, getting that diagnosis let us get access to supports that have helped him to thrive in school when he would otherwise have floundered.
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It's not weird when you take into account the fact that you're using the popular (and incorrect) view of what constitutes autism. The DSM definition of autism [cdc.gov] details exactly what criteria are used to diagnose Autism Spectrum Disorder and it has nothing to do with seeing patterns or handling information.
While their are some autistics who excel at seeing patterns or handling information, the majority do not. You might as well say that having a big dick is a sign of autism spectrum disorder since there are
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To use the expression common in the autism community: "If you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism." In other words, every person is different and will have differing characteristics. Some will overlap but then others will have no overlap at all. What helps me get through my days doesn't always help my son.
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It's weird that a lesser ability to socialize (high AQ) is considered a condition whereas a lesser ability to see patterns and handle information (low AQ) is considered normal.
Honestly, I don't find it more surprising that a lot of people with autistic traits work in STEM than that psychopaths become CxOs or pathological liars work in marketing. The way the computer barfs on a single misplaced comma it takes a bit of OCD to write good code. Most things are fine in moderation and a problems in the extreme.
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If this is indeed saying that people with autistic traits are attracted to STEM jobs, and that men are more likely to have autistic traits, then we've at least a partial explanation for the problem of women in STEM. And explaining why men are taking up the higher paying STEM jobs helps partially explain why women aren't paid as well as men. Those things shape all sorts of poli
High correlation between nerotypical and slackers. (Score:5, Insightful)
What Is NT?
Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.
Neurotypical individuals often assume that their experience of the world is either the only one, or the only correct one. NTs find it difficult to be alone. NTs are often intolerant of seemingly minor differences in others. When in groups NTs are socially and behaviorally rigid, and frequently insist upon the performance of dysfunctional, destructive, and even impossible rituals as a way of maintaining group identity. NTs find it difficult to communicate directly, and have a much higher incidence of lying as compared to persons on the autistic spectrum.
NT is believed to be genetic in origin. Autopsies have shown the brain of the neurotypical is typically smaller than that of an autistic individual and may have overdeveloped areas related to social behavior.
Help find a cure!
http://isnt.autistics.org/ [autistics.org]
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W the brain of the neurotypical is typically smaller than that of an autistic individual
Both of which are one-fifth the size of a sperm whale brain. Got a point to make there or..?
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The plural of anecdote is not evidence.
Besides , a syndrome by definition is a-typical. Defining the typical as a syndrome robs the word of any meaning whatsoever.
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Don't dismiss it so lightly. Humans (and primates) are social creatures for a reason. Social groups are much stronger than individuals when it comes to conquering and defending resources. And building social groups takes political and social skills. At the individual level, if you have average intelligence and strength, your best bet for successfull
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And they say autistics don't get sarcasm.
THIS JUST IN (Score:4, Funny)
Dilbert (Score:2)
Bull (Score:4, Interesting)
Non-STEM people just can't concentrate because they have the attention span of a gnat, that's why they call the thinkers autistic.
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Concentration is usually task-related. Non-STEM people can usually concentrate just fine on tasks involving dealing with people. Autistic people can concentrate just fine on tasks that involve not dealing with other, especially Non-STEM, people.
Correlation? (Score:2)
Apparently whether correlation is very high or just statistically significant , it will always be reported as a correlation. Furthermore, while autism started out with some cliche cases gradually more and more cases occurred where people said 'we can't really call this autism so we'll call it autism spectrum then'. So you have this standardized test that checks for 'autism traits'. You know what it means? It measures how bad you are in human interaction and how good you are in understanding things and patte
So that is why there are more male in STEM ? (Score:3, Insightful)
If STEM favorize hiring autism spectrum disorder (high AQ) , since there are more men than women having ASD, it is then not a question of sexism as many pretend but at least partially just plain biology ?
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Obviously Biology is sexist. Time to end that science and all its subjects!
Re:So that is why there are more male in STEM ? (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the things I learned when we found out our son has autism, is that people with autism tend to think in an If-Then manner. "If this happens THEN do that." This works out great for programming - which can essentially be boiled down to "if this happens, then the computer should do that" - and other STEM-type careers. It doesn't work so well for social interactions which are a mess of shades of grey.
People with autism can "emulate" neurotypical by building up tons of social "if-then" rules that they follow, but (like computer emulation) it's not as fast as "running native neurotypical" and it can be tiring. I can get by in an office environment, but stick me in a party and I freeze up and don't know what rules to follow.
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It's a matter of how soon you give up looking.
Definitely a STEM worker. (Score:2)
Newsflash: Science Nerds good at Science! (Score:2)
So, apparently being the type of Person that can get all worked up in sich issues sich as IP4 vs. IP6 or String Theory makes you good IT Person or Cosmologist/Physicist respectively.
Next up: A study that proves girly, exalted and hysteric types are into fashion and sometimes really good at it.
Correlated by construction? (Score:2)
The AQ test has questions about social interaction and obsessiveness, but you are also asked to what extent you agree with "I am fascinated by numbers". Of course you are going to find more people fascinated by numbers in STEM fields. I wonder what results you get if you weed out the questions that guarantee correlation.
What about people who don't have autism? (Score:3)
No, seriously.
There's this speed these days to which people are labeled "autistic" when really it could just be that there's no underlying medical condition. It could be some people are just maladjusted.
At least, that's what it was when I was a kid.
I've said this before in this space (not looking for pity, just kind of a contrast), I was raised in an abusive environment that was detrimental to my ability to interact with people. I also just happened to have the right skill set to be able to get an engineering degree. No therapist in the number I've seen over the years has ever even so much as suggested to me that I might be autistic.
Other people haven't been exposed to circumstances like mine; they may just be introverts that aren't quite sure how to ask people how to interact with people so their unknown-unknown is "hey, there's a gap between their behavior and mine, but I don't know how to change things".
Now, I know that people who do these kinds of studies are well-intentioned (in a "gee that's sort of neat that it happens like that" way), but thing is, that's when the media looking for a story runs with it, and the meme becomes a tool used for labeling people and putting them in little intersectional boxes so that we can add words to the coded vocabularies of privilege and identity and whatnot that gets in the way of getting work done, because we need to cater to all of these little labels and associated feelings and other blah-blah.
But at the end of the day, who's getting the work done? I bet most of you that need to get stuff done in a day rarely even think about stuff like this because it's not part of your job to think about it. It's not relevant, and it taking time and energy away from what you feel is part of the discussion about your actual job.
TL;DR: Who the fuck cares? Be autistic on your own fucking time.
OK massive vaccination needed ... (Score:2)
First part of the article (Score:2)
I think it may be important to draw attention to the first paragraph in the article (yeah right, who reads it anyway?):
Autistic traits are not the same as having a diagnosis of autism
As well as:
It is important to underline that it is not diagnostic. A high score alone is not a reason to seek help.
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Also, when you do the test [psychcentral.com], a score of 0-29 is labeled with No autism, 30 - 33 = Possible autism, 34 & up = Autism likely.
It seems the scores of around 22 for men and 19 for women are much ado about nothing. Both those still fall squarely in the "No autism" range.
Nerd != austistic (Score:2)
Sorry, but being a nerd with all the social awkwardness that comes with it does not make one autistic.
Workplace fascism (Score:3)
Just think how great it would be for corporations if they could convince people that suffering is a desirable trait?
The "work ethic" will only take you so far. If you really want complaint slaves, you have to convince people that pain is good for you.
Re:Workplace fascism (Score:4, Funny)
Just think how great it would be for corporations if they could convince people that suffering is a desirable trait?
Been done already. Worked fine for almost 2,000 years. It's called "Roman Catholicism".
does aspergers give me an excuse then? (Score:2)
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Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.
Just as autism rises, STEM jobs evaporate (Score:2)
Great job, captains of industry...way to read the trends! Just as autism/ASD starts swinging up, suitable employment for these people gets offshored/marginalized. Can't wait to see the revolution brought about by millions of angry people without social graces...just kidding.
Seriously, I do see this as a problem. I don't know if ASD is overdiagnosed, but I do know that there are still people (like me) who are "normal" but not outgoing, don't like group/collaborative work, and would rather spend time solving
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The current hype around STEM jobs hides the fact that knowing people is still a much better way of being successful than knowing things. STEM jobs are like garbage pickup: It's very important that somebody does it, but you don't want your kids to end up doing the hard work for little money. Yes, I know that STEM jobs are considered well-paying, but with the same work ethic and intellectual ability that they require, one could easily make more money in other fields. An innate talent for science and technolog
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The current hype around STEM jobs hides the fact that knowing people is still a much better way of being successful than knowing things. STEM jobs are like garbage pickup: It's very important that somebody does it, but you don't want your kids to end up doing the hard work for little money. Yes, I know that STEM jobs are considered well-paying, but with the same work ethic and intellectual ability that they require, one could easily make more money in other fields. An innate talent for science and technology, which appears to be correlated with mild autism spectrum disorders and thus a much lower chance of getting along with people, is as much an evolutionary advantage as being on the other end of the bell curve: The world works best for the people in the middle, not for the outliers.
One of the real handicaps of being socially awkward is that employers can take advantage of you. Even if you are in a highly-skilled profession.
Doctors and lawyers are generally "people persons". It's practically a job requirement. They form professional organizations which can lobby governments and otherwise make the world more pleasant to them.
Techies are generally not people persons, even when they aren't actually autistic. They don't form protective organizations. In fact, they're often anti-union (and
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I don't know about lawyers, but doctors and nurses are taught how to manage people. Many of them are in the industry for the problem-solving aspects of the job, and the interaction with people is a side benefit at best, or else just the cost of doing business and getting access to those problems.
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They don't form protective organizations. In fact, they're often anti-union
Wait what? The reason they're anti-union (in california anyway, assuming you can even find anti-union folks here) is because the unions go all out to protect even the bad teachers, to the point of preventing the school districts from firing teachers for some truly outrageous and inappropriate behavior. They'll sometimes even shame the good teachers for making the mediocre ones look bad by contrast. Nothing to do with this Randian stuff you seemingly pulled out of nowhere.
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but with the same work ethic and intellectual ability that they require, one could easily make more money in other fields.
Definitely. But then given the choice between a job that's mentally unstimulating but socially demanding vs a job that's mentally stimulating where my co-workers and I are expected to be a bit odd, I'd go with the latter every time, even given significant financial motivation to do otherwise.
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They are negititve trade offs too. A big symptom of autism is the inability to adapt to change. This adaptability to change is one of our key evolutionary advantages. In a world where the effects of global warming is happening we really can't afford a society that is unable to change.
Sure they may be good at STEM jobs now, but what happens when they get older and the methods and technology have been altered.
A baby boomer with autism may get a job as a mainframe system administrator. He may still have a job
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A baby boomer with autism may get a job as a mainframe system administrator. He may still have a job today, but increasingly threatened as such systems are being retired.
I think you draw your lines too narrowly. I think it likely that an autistic mainframe operator would transition fairly naturally from big iron to distributed servers. What is more likely to be the case is that an autistic person used to running systems would have a hard time being transferred to a help desk.
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You are UNMUTUAL [youtube.com].
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Could be the opposite bias too. "Normals" that didn't found a .com have an excuse and something to be thankful for: "Well I'm not autistic that is why, and at least I don't have a disease." I agree with you though most techies are "well adjusted" they might have a tendency towards "nerdy interests" but is that any worse than a musician that goes to India to learn to play "weird" instruments, or a lawyer that reads cases in a different subspeciality because they are interested in the law? People have things
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...the shrill cry of the mundane.
"How dare you make me feel inferior!"
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It depends how it manifests. My friends 13 yr old isn't great at school and his autism makes him very emotional and socially awkward. He doesn't really like music though, haven't heard him play for a few years so I suppose he could be getting good. But say that is the way he "succeeds" with his autism? It doesn't stop the socially awkward and emotional bits. He'd probably end up being a musical "genius" in the Kobain sense not in the Handel sense, ie not able to cope with the things that cope with it and dy
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My friends 13 yr old isn't great at school and his autism makes him very emotional and socially awkward. He doesn't really like music though, haven't heard him play for a few years so I suppose he could be getting good. But say that is the way he "succeeds" with his autism? It doesn't stop the socially awkward and emotional bits.
Being ADD/ASD with hypersensitivity I am in a position to tell you how wrong you are.
First of all there is nothing wrong with being very emotional. Who sets the level of acceptability for emotional sensitivity? It's an advantage in some situations and a disadvantage in others, if you are hypersensitive you just have to learn to play to your strengths like anyone else. The main problem for a kid is that if other kids figure out they can upset you they will stop at nothing to do so. That's an asshole problem,
You are the one that doesn't understand Autism (Score:2)
Autism is just a preference for being alone from the Greek autos.
Low IQ has little to do with Autism. There are low IQ people that aren't autistic with all of the same issues.
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"Autism is just a preference for being alone from the Greek autos."
Horseshit. Go read up about it then get back to us.
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Wait, what's wrong with their cars?
Re:You obviously don't know what real autism is (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed.
I have a cousin with a severely autistic son. He's in his early teens now but is completely incapable of any kind of social interactions and has never shown any kind of interest in any kind of intellectual activity. He mostly just sits in the middle of the floor and requires day-round care for even his most basic needs. He has occasional screaming fits (sometimes physically violent), which tend to be triggered by visitors or other events that interrupt his routine. He's never spoken a single coherent word.
He shows a basic attention reaction to a handful of external stimuli (most notably, for some reason, that godawful Donkey Kong CGI cartoon show from a decade or so ago, which will get him to focus his eyes on a TV), but that's about it.
He doesn't scrawl complex equations on the wall. He doesn't paint pictures of indescribable beauty. His intelligence, as you suggest, is impossible to measure because he simply doesn't interact with the world.
This isn't a different way of being a functioning person. It's a very severe disability. He would have a better chance of living an independent life if he were quadriplegic rather than autistic.
I've seen lots of people claim to be "a little bit autistic" as a way of excusing and enabling their own anti-social behaviours. But there's a big difference between "I don't get along well with others" and "full-blown autism".
Re:You obviously don't know what real autism is (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen lots of people claim to be "a little bit autistic" as a way of excusing and enabling their own anti-social behaviours. But there's a big difference between "I don't get along well with others" and "full-blown autism".
Indeed. It's called tha autism spectrum for a reason. My 25 year old son is moderate to severely autistic. When he was first diagnosed it was at a time when autism wasn't the "mental disease du jour". Having lived with him for this long, I can clearly see behaviors in anyone that I would consider on the spectrum, myself included. And yes, some of those characteristics would be beneficial in a STEM career. But it bothers me when people who obviously don't say, "I have autism" or "that's my autism kicking in".
True, diagnosed, full autism isn't an evolutionary advantage because 95% (guessing, but it feels right) of those people will not reproduce, my son included. My son has a good life and even has his own apartment now (heavily supervised by case workers and us), but likely the only type of job he will ever be able to hold down is grocery bagger, which he does now. To me it feels like the disease of autism grossly over-amplifies a certain set of characteristics that are present in all people - to the point where it's debilitating.
You are not autistic because you like math or because you are socially awkward...
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He's in his early teens now but is completely incapable of any kind of social interactions and has never shown any kind of interest in any kind of intellectual activity.
That's clearly a mental impediment/disease. The trouble is when they start saying that functioning people are autistic, because they don't interact with others very well, or they're anxious and don't have the average person's ability to naturally respond in any social situation or ability to participate in a conversation the same way
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"Mental health" as it is defined by shiny happy people and effectiveness are two entirely orthogonal things. The real problem with "mental health" is that anything that isn't deemed normal by the shiny happy people is declared some sort of pathology.
"We don't suffer from mental illness, we rather enjoy it."
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"We don't suffer from mental illness, we rather enjoy it."
I've yet to meet anyone who sufferes from actualy clinical depression who enjoys it. Plenty of mental illnesses are in fact illnesses.
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I can't speak to your friend's exact situation because each child is different. I know someone who has a daughter that was very similar to your friend for a long time. She got some special help (county provided assistance - special therapy that I am not familiar with) and eventually started talking and behaving more like you would expect a child to behave. She still acts inappropriately at times and, despite being her neighbor for many years, does not know my name. She just calls me a generic name. She
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In years gone by, this would have been more accurately described as severe mental retardation. Unfortunately, society has decided to abandon the term "retarded" due to perceived stigma. I feel this is unfortunate, as the term is actually quite accurate. Any term can, and in fact historically has been, co-opted to become a pejorative describing people who don't actually fall under the classification of some disability.
Many parents, faced with having a child with a severe mental deficiency, leap to "autism
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Statistically significant correlations are, by definition, improbably explained as "just a coincidence". And the statement "correlation does not mean causation" doesn't mean you can dismiss all correlations as potentially a-causal; what the statement means is that a correlation between A and B does not mean that A
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I wish I had mod points for this.
Someone who is a mainframe admin has probably been around the block a few times and had probably seen a few iterations of the changing fashions in IT and in society in general. They are no longer impressed. They understand what's going on and they realize that it's not even new really. They may recognize it for the overhyped nonsense that it is. They may know not to get too excited and realize that "it too shall pass".
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You probably want to shoot for the high 20s or low 30s... Antisocial enough not to waste time chatting about stupid shit, but still able to effectively collaborate with others (when absolutely necessary).