
Autism and Asperger's Syndrome: The ‘Little Professors’ (2008) - zeristor
https://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A10450694
======
nicoburns
If you like this, then you may be interested in Pathological Demand Avoidance,
an autism profile characterised by better social skills relative to other
people with autism but a lot of anxiety around the everyday demands of life.

It's increasingly being recognised in the UK, but is only just beginning to
spread abroad. (I haven't yet been diagnosed, but I believe that this
describes me exceptionally well.)

Article: [https://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-
is/pda.aspx](https://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/pda.aspx) Book:
[http://amzn.eu/d/fPCq5LU](http://amzn.eu/d/fPCq5LU)

~~~
zozbot123
Genuine question and not a dismissal - what makes this a form of _autism_ , of
all things? Plenty of people who are generally considered NT are indeed
anxious, sometimes to an extreme and pathological extent. And it's only
natural for anxiety to center on demands of some sort that may have been
placed on the individual.

~~~
nicoburns
A very reasonable question, and there is still some controversy over that in
the medical community.

For me, it's because it comes with a whole host of classically autistic
symptoms like struggling with eye contact, overload from sensory processing,
difficulty understanding social norms, etc, but only at times when I'm
stressed or otherwise in a low energy mood. I also had to put a lot of effort
into learning other people's social norms - my intuitive ones were different
in ways which seem similar to other people on the autism spectrum - but unlike
some forms of autism, I have been able to learn the rules of neurotypical
people to the point that you probably wouldn't be able to tell I was autistic
if you met me. I still find a lot of these rules utterly bizarre.

~~~
pseudoanonymity
> I still find a lot of these rules utterly bizarre.

Like what?

~~~
ericabiz
Not the person you replied to, but his description resonates with me too, so I
can help explain.

One of the ones that bothers me constantly is the "buffer" of small talk that
(particularly American) culture forces on us.

For instance: We work together. You have a pencil sharpener. I need to sharpen
my pencil.

My preferred way of handling this situation: Hey Mike, can I borrow your
pencil sharpener for a minute?

Now, this is OK in American culture, but ONLY IF you've spoken to each other
recently. (I had to learn this the hard way.)

If you haven't, the conversation has to go like this:

Me: Hey Mike. Got a minute?

You: Sure. What's up?

Me: I was wondering, could I borrow your pencil sharpener really quick? I have
this pencil I need to sharpen.

(And you should always insert a reason there; see
[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-
wise/201310/th...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-
wise/201310/the-power-the-word-because-get-people-do-stuff))

If you don't insert this social "fluff", you come across as rude.

Where this social buffer comes naturally to most people, I get frustrated and
annoyed by it. I just want to borrow the dang pencil sharpener and get back to
work!

I have come to understand I don't resemble neurotypicals when it comes to this
interaction (and it is likely that many others here on HN are not neurotypical
either.) NTs enjoy this fluff, and it helps them feel connected to each other.
When I don't play by their rules, I'm viewed as cold and callous.

So...I play by their rules, because even though I'm not NT in this way, I
still have basic human needs of wanting to feel loved and desired, and I don't
want to upset other people.

~~~
zozbot123
> If you don't insert this social "fluff", you come across as rude.

Isn't this a bit overstated? I'm pretty sure that you could _also_ use bog-
standard politeness markers (like, "could you please", "I would really
appreciate it", "sorry about asking") and so on and so forth. (You might then
come across as being a bit formal and old-fashioned, but certainly not rude!)
The underlying motivation in both cases is that you need to make it very clear
that you're _not_ issuing an outright _demand_ \- and you do this by making it
easy for Mike to say no (for any reason or no reason!) and providing plausible
deniability. There are things that are closer to "fluff" in other contexts,
but even they have their own explanation.

~~~
nicoburns
I think you might be right. But autistic people may find it difficult to
determine these underlying motivations, I think because neurotypical people
only intuit them because their instinctive preferences happen to line up with
other peoples. If an autistic persons instincts don't give them the same
reaction, then it will not be obvious to them that other people will have that
reaction (unless they have learnt that this is a common reaction that people
have). It can be easy to end up with an overzealous rule, to be on the safe
side.

If the justification for something is stated in terms of something that also
isn't important to or felt by the autistic person (for example politness),
then it can be difficult to be sure what does or does not transgress the
social rule.

~~~
zozbot123
It's more about culture than neurotype. There's nothing in human nature itself
or in human instincts that says "people will feel uncomfortable when refusing
something that a stranger of _equal_ social rank is asking of them, _unless_
they have been provided with plausible deniability". It's a feature of our
current (Western) culture. And since autism tends to come with issues relating
to general intercultural competence, it's no wonder that someone who's
autistic would have trouble picking this up. But so would any non-native in
the relevant cultural context!

~~~
nicoburns
This seems like a reasonable interpretation. People from other cultures may
also be excused from cultural norms to some extent as people understand that
they don't have the context. And I've definitely gotten very good at politely
diffusing situations where I've accidentally crossed social boundaries (I have
more problems when I take moral issue with the social norm, and thus am
unwilling to go along with it).

------
ColanR
I'm somewhat familiar with 'homeschooling', and I wonder if a lot of the
problems described in the article re: social integration could be mitigated
with a one-on-one education where a parent is working with the child. Since it
seems like a lot of the issues described came out of a (for the child) hostile
learning environment.

(yes, I know this is not always practical)

~~~
fromthestart
Isolating that "weird kid" with homeschooling is not going to have any kind of
positive effect on their social integration.

How do you expect someone to even hope to learn about social norms if they
aren't exposed to them? Especially when most of these wishy washy, unspoken
social rules are learned entirely through observation and practice?

Yes, you need coaching, but the bottom line is that no one is going to pick up
on social norms to the point of "passing" without being exposed to them
regularly. Unfortunately that means lots of fruitless anxiety in those of us
who cannot learn such norms, but one must understand that avoidance is not a
valid solution to the core problem of social difficulty.

~~~
fsloth
"Isolating that "weird kid" with homeschooling is not going to have any kind
of positive effect on their social integration."

I think the image in your head is that home schooling means the person is
completely separated from the society.

Which probably is not the case. I mean, you can have hobbies, go to shopping,
the library, etc. You just don't need to follow the school program which might
be a really painful daily experience. Bullying is not unheard of - this is
something which a normal person really does not need to suffer outside of
school. In normal life you can just avoid the person, so learning to suffer
bullying and being the victim is not helpfull at all.

The mental anguish a non-neurotypical person can have in a school without any
attention to his or her special needs is a consideration as well.

If the environment is supportive, and the kid seems to handle it ok, then
sure, regular school is just fine.

But aspie kids can be so different (my sons teacher said she had never met a
kid like this) that they really are hard to understand.

Basically school is programmed so that the kids exhibit certain neurotypical
behaviour patterns. The most important of these is the inborn need for social
cohesion - which asperger kids can totally lack. Hence, when they should do X,
and everyone else is doing it, they don't understand why they should do
something just because. And then they get negative feedback, which lead to
stress.

They can have sensory sensitivity for light, sounds or touch, which can put
them on the edge. Social pressure and unexpected events can the push them over
the edge leading to meltdown, which is a total shitshow for all relative
parties.

There are so many things that normal kids take for granted that can be so
difficult with a child on the asperger spectrum.

My son is such a person - he is on the fifth grade, the school has adapted,
but boy has it been challenging occasionally. I don't question at all if
parents decide to homeschool their asperger kids.

------
zeristor
It’s been a while since I’ve read something this good

~~~
nkurz
Yes, it's a surprisingly good article. Dredging through the "conversations" at
the bottom, I was surprised to find that the author _disclaimed_ that it was
all based on personal experience.

I also found mention of the original title: "The Little Professors: A vibrant
hue in the Autistic rainbow". Not that it should be changed to this
(apparently it was very shortlived) but it's a nice image.

------
richardhod
[2006]

~~~
joejerryronnie
Do you dismiss the General Theory of Relativity because [1915]?

edit: my apologies, I read this as a dismissal but it looks to be an HNism -
carry on good sir!

~~~
richardhod
No worries. They updated to choose the revised 2008 date instead, which is
good enough. It's also interesting to note that it's easy to ascribe negative
intent to entirely [helpful and] descriptive statements. I've done this before
too. A Jerry Springer Learning moment, perhaps! This is quite a common ape
attribute that it is worth practising not doing. Instead: 'if in doubt, assume
good and helpful intent' makes for a useful rule of thumb.

~~~
joejerryronnie
Hear, hear - lesson learned!

