Says Bryna Siegel, author of The World of the Autistic Child and director of the PDD clinic at UCSF, "In another historical time, these men would have become monks, developing new ink for early printing presses. Suddenly they're making $150,000 a year with stock options. They're reproducing at a much higher rate."
"Autism gets to fundamental issues of how we view talents and disabilities," he says. "The flip side of dyslexia is enhanced abilities in math and architecture. There may be an aspect of this going on with autism and assortative mating in places like Silicon Valley. In the parents, who carry a few of the genes, they're a good thing. In the kids, who carry too many, it's very bad."
For all we know, the first tools on earth might have been developed by a loner sitting at the back of the cave, chipping at thousands of rocks to find the one that made the sharpest spear, while the neurotypicals chattered away in the firelight. Perhaps certain arcane systems of logic, mathematics, music, and stories - particularly remote and fantastic ones - have been passed down from phenotype to phenotype, in parallel with the DNA that helped shape minds which would know exactly what to do with these strange and elegant creations.
(via Slashdot)
I got 18 on the test. Which means that I probably don't suffer from Asperger's Syndrome, or something.
Though at times I've wondered about that. I suspect I'd have gotten a higher score a few years earlier, when I spent most of my time on USENET.
It'd be interesting to know what the typical computer geek/hacker/trainspotter score is, and what the typical Joe Sixpack/jock/social butterfly would get in comparison.
That's a worry - i got 27. Though you're getting out more, which helps. One thing I found when I was associating with a lot of reasonably friendly people was that I wasn't nearly as much of a misanthrope as I thought I was.
Yes.
I wonder which age group/developmental stage the test/scoring guide are calibrated for. I.e., one could imagine children and adolescents getting higher scores than adults who have some life experience in dealing with things.
Whoo-hoo! Trendy condition du jour! You've probably seen these on S-T, but it makes sense to put them here as well. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aspergers_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest_pr.html