Autism and intelligence

[SuZir]

Good to hear you found a quick and easy resolution.

I just sometimes wonder how much excess political correctness even helps different minority groups. There I live we have a problem that certain immigrant groups seem to commit much more than their share of certain type of crimes. And to avoid racism media often tries to not tell about suspects ethnic background and it just makes people suspicious and think that problem is not addressed at all. And of course it makes some rather absurd news stories. Recently there for example was an aggravated rape middle of the city, middle of the day and police was asking public if anyone saw the culprit after the fact. Media did print a description 'foreign, speaks English, jeans, white tee shirt, 6 feet tall, slender.' They did leave out one fact from the police announcement; that guy was black, and this in the area there population is over 90 % white. This kind of political correctness is not helping at all.

I see little bit same when we talk about different disorders and want political correctness. At times it is not that helpful in the end. Other local recent crime story was about the guy who stabbed other guy to death because he thought the other guy had stolen something rather insignificant from him. It seems he had lost it himself but anyway, he was hangovered and thought the guy who was visiting him had stolen it. Before he was convicted they evaluated his mental state (standard practise for serious crimes) and found him decreasedly compos mentis (we have three possibilities in this for criminal justice, either you are sane, decreasedly so or insane), because of several factors, main one being his asperger syndrome. News about this has collected lots of comments how this can not be right. How he has to be misdiagnosed, because people with asperger are not criminal but are rule followers and don't break rules or laws.

While it may seem nice that certain disability has a good reputation sometimes even that is not very helpful. Here for example people with asperger syndrome are thought to be very smart and very conscientious and very law and rules abiding. Nice stereotype if you are not having an asperger kid, who is not much like that and are having hard time making other people to understand that kid may have behavioural or academic issues even if they are with aspergers. I have a co-worker who has been very frustrated with 'good rep' asperger is having. She has a daughter with aspergers. She is high functioning but didn't do too well at school because she declined studying anything that didn't interest her. She has also never been much of the rule follower. Instead she is very righteous and follows the rules as she thinks they should be. She has been in a lot of legal trouble for eco terrorism-type of crimes and graffiti and stealing. She has already more damages to pay than she will ever be able to pay. And she doesn't think she is doing anything wrong, because she thinks laws are wrong, people should not have a right to kill animals for food but animals should have same rights as people, graffiti should be allowed everywhere and there should not be any private property but everything should be shared. So when she shoplifts, she doesn't think she is doing anything wrong, because in her rules no one should be allowed to sell anything. She is strict with rules and follows them, they just have to be her rules and she is very angry others are not following her rules, because they are so much better than other people rules. To be honest she is not an only individual with asperger I know, who seem to have that way of thinking. But popular stereotype here is that people with autism can not commit crimes. Frustrating for the parents of kids in autism spectrum.

 

[Malika]

Another thought-provoking post, SuZir
I too am very wary of political correctness, which in some cases is like a kind of fascism, banning all reflection, all presentation of opposing views on certain issues, etc. In this particular, case, though, I don't think it was respectful or sensitive to have a clearly mentally retarded character labelled autistic, particularly in a culture where there is a lot of stereotyping of people with differences already.
A difficult balance to achieve though, I agree.

 

[SuZir]

In this particular, case, though, I don't think it was respectful or sensitive to have a clearly mentally retarded character labelled autistic, particularly in a culture where there is a lot of stereotyping of people with differences already.
A difficult balance to achieve though, I agree.

You are right. I just went rambling off topic (what else is new? ) There is absolutely no reason why caricature character in light literature should be labelled to any real diagnosis or anything. It's not relevant in any way and there is no real reason to do so. And especially do so, when the label doesn't even make sense. Even when the character in the novel is an accurate presentation of some type of disorder, it is often unnecessary to mention that. And it even gives more real life feel to it. It's not common that people you meet come to say hello and start with "Hi! I'm Joe and I have dxs x, y and z." And of course then we can later discuss if Darth Vader has Borderline (BPD) and if Scarlett O'Hara is a narcissist.

 

[BusynMember]

All kids with neurobiological disorders have problems. Aspergers is no different. I think there is more understanding now about it, at least in the US. Often Aspergers is diagnosed when it should really be just plain autism because Aspergers sounds better. There are many kids who are lower functioning than Sonic who have an Aspergers diagnosis. Whatever. That doesn't stop him from being higher functioning. Words provoke stereotypes and thoughts. If being called Aspergers rather than autistic is helpful in society and the child still gets the same services, who cares?

I am really against stereotypes in general. I have heard really mindboggling stereotypes about Jews, blacks, muslims, hispanics, disabled people, the list is endless. There is no such thing as everyone in every category behaving one way and I find it dangerous to present "everyone" in a neat bundle. I don't see how pointing out stereotypes helps society. in my opinion it just fuels bigotry.

Parents of Aspie kids realize that "Rainman" is a rarity and that most Aspies do not get straight A's and that they do have issues that other people don't.