Originally posted by Scarlet Fox
There is an Autistic man who took a single helicopter ride over new york and then painted it perfectly upon a wall an hour later. I mean the whole freaking city down to the last building.Now I am the last person who wants to Agree with Dolos but I understand what he is asking at least!
If people who had no mental or health issues could develop memory and attention prowes as much as this guy has ,Despite being Autistic, we would be much better off as a society.
😄
Originally posted by Oliver North
so like, some kind of character-apraxia? Was it that you couldn't remember what the letter looked like or that you had trouble executing the movement? I imagine the only diagnosis anyone would have given it was dyslexia, ya?In grade 5 you are roughly 10. Children's language development varies dramatically across kids, but tends to all equal out at 10-11 years of age, so it might just be you were a little delayed in writing production.
I'm a terrible speller to this day, and my penmanship looks like a child's. This is unrelated to anything other than being a bit embarrassed when I have to fill in forms and applications.
No dyslexia to my knowledge, if I have it I actively tricked myself by learning to read and write in reverse of what I see, for so long I never noticed the problem. 😆
No but seriously English went from my worst subject to being an unparalleled subject in my class. For a few years my English was peerless, then I lost interest and remained only a few grade levels above my class.
with the exception of things like comprehension and fluency, language ability and IQ aren't related at all. (they are probably correlated, but they are different concepts entirely...)....errr, ok, not entirely, but a dyslexia is not an intellectual disability, it is a language disability, and even then, you say yours was related to character production. If you had issues with verbal reasoning or grammatical syntax, that would probably impact your IQ score (though it wouldn't mean you were any less intelligent). The only issue for you might have been the time taken if you couldn't produce written answers, but I'd assume you weren't taking a formal written IQ exam in kindergarten.
No, first it predicts me as average, then I practically get all f's later in life, trying to do the work mind you. Then all the sudden a switch flips and I get straight A's.
The IQ test really doesn't work for everyone.
lol, I'm just ****ing with you. I get what you are asking, but the fact is, the stuff you are describing is normal intellectual development, maybe with some language lag. IQ doesn't necessarily reflect grades if there are other issues, and in the end, it is arguable what IQ means anyways.
For instance, Micheal Jordan and Wayne Gretzky are almost inarguably the most "intelligent" athletes at their sports, many artists and musicians are not "intelligent" in the academic sense but show genius that can't be denied, however, we don't recognize that type of intelligence on IQ tests. so like, I wouldn't worry too much about IQ tests, unless you really want to join MENSA or something.
I am well aware of the fundamental flaw of the IQ test.
Look at it this way, asking for someone's IQ is sort of like asking for their bench. And just because you can bench press a lot of weight, doesn't mean you're fast or coordinated at soccer. Your IQ may be a strong indicator of intelligence in some cases, however most of the time it isn't because it doesn't give you but a specific series of "g", intelligence or skills at intelligence related tasks, mainly related to recognizing patterns.
However, I plan on retaking it one day, for scoring high. Because it is apart of intelligence, whether it gives you the whole picture or not, like me wanting to outshine others academically, regardless if it has to do with my future or not. I want to be smart for the sake of being smart. That's my thing, it's just something that's important to me.
Originally posted by Dolos
Look at it this way, asking for someone's IQ is sort of like asking for their bench. And just because you can bench press a lot of weight, doesn't mean you're fast or coordinated at soccer. Your IQ may be a strong indicator of intelligence in some cases, however most of the time it isn't because it doesn't give you but a specific series of "g", intelligence or skills at intelligence related tasks, mainly related to recognizing patterns.
👆
ya, thats actually a really good analogy
and like soccer, being "smart" is a combination of things, imho, the biggest being the ability to recognize other people's expertise, so, in a way, not even something that an IQ test could look for anyways.
Originally posted by Dolos
However, I plan on retaking it one day, for scoring high. Because it is apart of intelligence, whether it gives you the whole picture or not, like me wanting to outshine others academically, regardless if it has to do with my future or not. I want to be smart for the sake of being smart. That's my thing, it's just something that's important to me.
well, look man, truth be told, you are on an internet forum, in your spare time, considering issues of philosophy, politics, religion, etc. People may not agree with you always, but they certainly want to engage with you.
Compared to the average person who has almost no interest in this type of thing, you are empirically, objectively, smart. Whether it is other people or yourself that you are trying to prove that to, case closed.
Also, academics are overrated, unless you want funding in graduate school, then it is literally the only thing ever.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
"High functioning" is the term that some psychologist decided to use, although amusingly a google search suggests it means/meant "not (clinically) retarded," and I don't think its been challenged much. Being classified as Aspergers was something that mattered to me in elementary school, then I was very into autism culture in high-school as well, but since college I haven't really cared.The thing is there's no obvious way to separate what should be counted as "result" of Aspergers from what isn't. I still do the "little professor" thing but personality theorists could construct that as a defense mechanism. There's an element of Aspie culture that prefers to do away with the medical model but not the classification and characterize Aspergers as a personality or a way of looking at the world.
I used "higher functioning" as a comparative: Dolos.
Regardless, I appreciate you responding. 👆
Originally posted by Oliver North
My own opinion is that anyone functional enough to entertain such arguments about "medical models" and autism as an issue of identity politics is probably not autistic
Typical "if they can't complain then I was talking about those" pseudo-scientific idiocy, I don't even see how any arbitrary attitude such as that one can be accepted by a reasonable and critically aware human being.
You animal haters uhuh
Originally posted by Bentley
Typical "if they can't complain then I was talking about those" pseudo-scientific idiocy, I don't even see how any arbitrary attitude such as that one can be accepted by a reasonable and critically aware human being.
I'm sorry, are you accusing me of being "pseudo-scientific" for drawing a distinction in how the medical community should treat people with profound cognitive impairments versus those that are otherwise completely functional?
There certainly may be some grey zone as to where the line between "functional" and "non-functional" lies, but considering we are talking about a condition with a range of severity from what would generally be unnoticeable idiosyncrasies to complete detachment from the social and physical world, that point is moot when, specifically, I was talking about the extremes in the line you quoted.
Originally posted by Bentley
You animal haters uhuh
did you just equate autism with being non-human?
Originally posted by Oliver North
not at all
Well, it certainly seemed as if you did, even if you were jesting. I don't see how you get me stating "autistic people aren't human" without putting some uneeded distinction between humans and animals. Autistic people are animals. Did I miss anything? Maybe we weren't speaking in the same terms.
ANYWAYS, my dib wasn't at all about the distinction of social functionality, it was about the use of the term as you presented it and the reasoning behind it to justify it, because it sounds as a term prone to hyper-humanisation which tends to be an issue with many social "sciences". You're not pseudo-scientific -I don't even know how that applies to animals like us-, but you were employing a term that I can picture as pseudo-scientific. It seems we're having troubles with the terminology, which is an absurd kind of trouble to have in any discussion, so I apologize. Either way, being pseudo-scientific it's not an insult, the violent tone I used was just to put emphas is in my joke, sorry if I offended you.
@Symmetric Chaos: Darling, what are you even saying? My criticism is about animality and there he goes inmediately to state animals are non-human, how is THAT not in topic?
Sorry this took a while to respond to, I've been busy and wanted to give it a good reply.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I suppose "clinically significant stress or anxiety" isn't very detailed. A broader question might be why we're only willing to classify things when they're a disability.
that is a fair question. I think there are a couple of reasons, the most prominent being that clinical psychology is an applied science rather than a mainly research or theory driven one. People get into the field with the desire to work with people with handicaps to help them, and to facilitate this try to identify clusters of symptoms as different disorders. It would be similar to why we have conditions and diseases associated with harmful bacteria in our bodies, but not with the our gut flora.
The other big issue I see is more societal than anything. Modern society is very hesitant to point out individuals as being better or more capable than others (at least within social institutions, the business world might be called meritocratic, at least in comparison). One of the last places where this type of thing was actually allowed was in sports and athletics. People are labeled, ranked, ordered and excluded based specifically on their abilities being greater than those of the general population. However, a good deal of effort is being put into eliminating this, and stories of children's sports leagues no longer keeping score or having championships are not hard to find. When I was a day camp counselor, we were instructed not to play games with the kids where individuals could win or lose, or where skill determined outcome. I'm not trying to make an anti-PC rant (though I do believe failure is a major part of a child's development [or even an adult's]), just pointing to a social trend that works against us labeling those who perform above average as having specific "conditions" or "labels".
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Yeah, I've wondered off and on whether it make sense for me to identify as Aspergers anymore.
Interesting. I'm sure it has come up before, but until this thread I can't say it's anything I'd associate with you (and why would I?).
Does the condition play a major role in your day-to-day life? would a distinction between having "issues with X" versus "X disorder" be a more adequate way of describing it? (my actual knowledge of Aspergers is even less than autism, so I'm not sure if that question even makes sense)...
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Ah, but that isn't how we think of mental illness. We think of it as something that impinges on one's proper state of being.The "person with trait" phrasing is meant to do more than remind you that they're a person (you can do with with "trait people" phrasing) it is also meant to separate the person and the illness. This is why we talk about "people with cancer" or "people with schizophrenia" but not "people with black" or "people with male".
At least that's how social theorists look at it. I don't think exact wording is quite that important. In the case of "person with trait," however, the wording is very deliberate.
but you can talk about "people with African lineage" or "people with genes associated with a certain race" (actually, that point may be a better criticism of the subjective categorization of race and gender in most psychological studies).
I do get what you are saying, though. In terms of identity, their experiences as an autistic person are what they feel defines them as an individual, or at least, they identify with it in that way. And as a person, I would never want to take that away from them.
From the medical/psychological community, however, we are much less interested in how a person identifies themselves than with how we ethically identify them. Looking at people as data points has lead medical and psychological experiments to abuse the most vulnerable people in society in the past (Tuskegee immediately springs to mind) and, from a research and treatment standpoint, it is very important for that distinction to exist. We don't want to identify the person with the disease because that mindset produces the potential for dramatic ethical violations.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Absolutely. Was that what Dolos was writing about? I haven't read the start of the thread.
no, Dolos thinks he is a savant. Not just any savant though, one who can change what they are a savant in just by wanting to, like being a savant at being a savant.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I though savant abilities were pretty well established as a thing that really happens.
oh, sure, and I'm not trying to say there isn't some association. Its like what you were saying with the comparison between Grandin and Goodall you made before. The absolute link might not be there, and it may in fact be that we are attributing the "savant" like behaviour in an improper way.
The prevalence of very specific types of savant behaviours in autism (numbers, patterns, spatial things) does suggest there is some link, but it is something worth being skeptical about for exactly the reasons you described.
Originally posted by Bentley
Well, it certainly seemed as if you did, even if you were jesting. I don't see how you get me stating "autistic people aren't human" without putting some uneeded distinction between humans and animals. Autistic people are animals. Did I miss anything? Maybe we weren't speaking in the same terms.
if not comparing autism with animals, can you explain what you meant by "animal haters"?
Originally posted by Bentley
ANYWAYS, my dib wasn't at all about the distinction of social functionality, it was about the use of the term as you presented it and the reasoning behind it to justify it, because it sounds as a term prone to hyper-humanisation which tends to be an issue with many social "sciences".
social functioning is hardly an ambiguous term, and it shouldn't be expected that one demonstrates the operational definition of every concept brought up on a layman forum. Maybe ask "what empirical data do you use to make that distinction?", rather than saying it isn't a scientific distinction.
using measures of one's social abilities to assess their social functioning actually requires no justification because it is tautological.
Originally posted by Bentley
but you were employing a term that I can picture as pseudo-scientific.
you don't feel one's comparative ability to interact with other people can be quantified?
any scientific concept can be made "pseudo-scientific", the OP of this thread contains several such incidences.