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Why geek geniuses may lack social graces
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Sep 13, 1999 12:27 PM
from the it's-all-in-the-mind-if-you-wanna-test-me-i'm dept.
from the it's-all-in-the-mind-if-you-wanna-test-me-i'm dept.
chadmulligan gave us the
head's-up to a recent story about research into why "geeks" lack social graces, and don't appear "normal". The answer may be due to mild autism for some geeks.
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Why geek geniuses may lack social graces
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A related story (Score:3)
Their spin is unfocused, and suggests both a developing condition and/or a psychological trauma that causes the above behaviours.
We should consider social factors as heavily as chemical and neurological ones, when contemplating geekness as a form of autism... It seems, to me at least, that being geek is a reaction to the environment, or a predisposition to a particular pattern of behavior. It is not something of which we should be 'cured' in either case.
Social graces are irrelevant. (Score:5)
Not surprising (Score:3)
On a similar note, many geeks (particularly moderately to very successful ones) probably have mild cases of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find myself diagnosed with this (which is different than actually having it).
It all boils down to "What's normal?" When my roommates and I argued about dishes in the sink and socks on the floor, was it because I was too anal or because they were too sloppy? When I correct people's grammar, it is because I feel they have been imprecise--but they don't feel that way. Who's right? As a character in Greg Egan's book "Distress" notes, the next big social battle will be over the two H's: Health and Humanity. Do people with "disorders" but who are otherwise fully functional have a right to stay that way? His example of autistics hits home right here, I suggest you all check it out (although the plot isn't directly concerned with this topic).
---
Put Hemos through English 101!
"An armed society is a polite society" -- Robert Heinlein
More truth than fiction (Score:4)
I have a four year old who is all but a poster child for this. At one year of age, he knew his alphabet; by three, he could write words and phrases in his choice of three or four fonts; now, he can spell phoneticly and a wide variety of interesting typograpohy (ie: substituting a cookie for the letter "o" - with the Nabisco logo faithfully reproduced with the painstaking detail described). Testers have rated his visual spacial skills off the chart. His motor skills are another story. He can button any button on his shirt as long as he can see it. He can't button the top shirt button because he can't see it. He still can't conduct a decent verbal conversation or catch a ball. Don't even talk to me about the washroom. *sigh* He uses phrase fragments clipped out of everyday life, TV, movies, commericals to express what he wants and doesn't always adjust the phrase to match the tense, gender or person.
The only thing I'll challange is the issue of musically ability. Both by wife and I are musically inclined; each of us are from musical parents. My son can sing quite well. I think there is a whold branch of autism that has outstanding musical ability, but that is another posting. (I guess that's because "Normals" in journalism don't go into enough detail
On the humorous side I guess that what happens when geeks breed - I married a math major.
Having a label attached to this "condition" has empowered us a parents to direct our public school system to address my son's education. It also helps everyone who evaluates him know what to expect. I dislike labels, catagories, and pigeon-holing as much as anybody; but, as long as I can use a label to benefit him, I'm willing to live with it. A label gives educators a reference to see everything that is good in him and strategies to deal with his compulsive need to finish the twenty-seventh drawing of the "Bill Nye the Science Guy" logo (Using the correct fonts and shaded letters, of course). The last thing I want is to see his special abilities homoginized by educators who don't understand it.
As an interesting side note, most of the literature we've read indicates that this affects boys far more than girls. This is probably a leading reason why our profession is so male dominated.
Why do the research? (Score:3)
One of the great discoveries of modern psychology is that "healthy" and "pathological" behavior can fit on the same continuum. Someone who's afraid of dogs isn't necessarily diseased in a deep and pervasive fashion; zhe's showing an unsually maladaptive manifestation of normal learning principles. Similarly, we now recognize that schizophrenia (one of the most alien and easily "other-able" conditions) can show up in mild forms like schizotypal personality disorder, and even very faintly in people who are totally normal.
Autism is a very severe developmental disorder, differentiating sufferers from normals from a very early age and continuing throughout life. If it turns out that autistic behavior also occurs on a continuum, that would be a real bombshell: it would provide a new way of categorizing and studying "antisocial" behavior, and it would suggest new methods for socializing and teaching even the most autistic children.
The amazing abilities of rare autistic savants are well-known. If these turn out to share mechanisms with extraordinary abilities in significantly less disabled individuals, that could teach us a lot about helping both types of people to cultivate them, and about how thought works in general.
Yeah, maybe the angle of "explaining" geekiness is being overplayed - but there is solid, useful science here, even if the media ignore it.
- laborit
Re:Social graces are irrelevant. (Score:3)
If you ask a question, "can you do this for me?", and the person says, "No", and then you blow up on him, how civil and polite is THAT? Look at how much is countered against civility in the guise of "being assertive", "don't take NO for an answer", etc., as in, be as close to rude and obnoxious as you dare... Can't have it both ways, although everyone seems to try...
If you ask a question and aren't willing to hear all the answers, then rephrase your question to the request that it really is. If the sign says, "only regular or plain hamburgers on $.29 hamburger day", and you try to order a hamburger without pickles, don't blow up on the dude working the register because you didn't look at the sign or believe that it applied to YOU. You are not the emperor of rome.
Trying to deal with social hypochrises, inconsistencies, nuances, etc., is what drives people crazy.
Re:*cough* BULLSHIT! (Score:3)
I didn't see any mention of "curing" anyone's "disease" in the article. They're making the same point you are: personalities have ranges. "Mentally ill" is an artificial concept: a fuzzy line drawn, in this case, between people with extreme autism and people with very extreme autism.
This is banal stuff. Unless you're a psychologist, employed to sort personality types into neat and artificial categories, it's obvious. Oliver Sacks, in The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat [amazon.com], talks about meeting his first Tourette's syndrome patient. He walked out onto the street after the interview and was startled: Tourette's syndrome was everywhere! Half the people he passed seemed to have one involuntary tic or another. Obviously, half the world is not sick. Rather, Tourette's syndrome is human nature. Only more so.
If "mentally ill" is a fuzzy concept, "mildly autistic" is completely blurry. Bill Gates shares a few characteristics with autistic people, but so does everyone. Perhaps the concept of "mild mental illness" is like the concept of "race": it has a social meaning but no scientific one, because the small differences which are meant to "define" it are lost in the noise of normal human variation.
Re:Social graces are irrelevant. (Score:5)
Social graces are irrelevant. Politeness and the expression and the care for emotions leads to inefficiency
Fie! Social graces are the packet headers of everyday life. You don't just walk up to people and shout information. "Excuse me" is the english version of the TCP/IP SYN flag. "Hello my name is..." badges are merely the world-at-large's version of a source field. The social graces let strangers communicate without conflict-and when they are ignored or misinterpreted... off to the bit-bucket (or is that gib-bucket?)
OCD, ADHD, and other "labels" (Score:4)
I thought until about a year ago that I was mildly OCD and borderline ADHD as well; I can focus on something more intensely than anyone I know, I'm an extreme perfectionist, I'm sensitive to things being out of place, I sort my M&Ms and Skittles, etc. Then I found out what the real cause was: I have ADHD, and rather severely as well; some symptoms can be similar to OCD. Despite the fact that I am female, I tested off the charts for hyperactivity for my age. This late diagnosis came because of a misunderstanding of ADHD.
ADHD is very badly named. It is not a disorder. I do many things much better because of my ADHD, and I'm very happy I have it. It also is not necessarily "Attention Deficit" - it's more the inability to regulate attention properly. I can read a book or work on a webpage for hours without noticing the time or taking a break. But I can't sit through five minutes of a boring class without tuning out or fidgeting. Someone in another thread mentioned that he fidgets a lot; this can be a sign of adult ADHD. However, some people with ADHD, particularly girls, aren't hyper at all; they can even seem lethargic and spacey.
Why does it matter? Well, I was diagnosed halfway through my senior year of HS. I'd been taking honors (IB) courses as well as college classes but with a 2.4 GPA. My final semester of HS, my GPA was over 3.0 for the first time ever. Medication was part of the solution, but knowing how to take advantage of my "disorder" was just as important. If I hadn't been diagnosed, I am sure I would've been fired from my summer job. Instead, they've asked me to keep working for them during college. Some of you have good jobs, good lives, few problems. For those who don't, this may be one of the reasons.
If you want a good summary of ADHD, try http://www.add.org/content/interview/peter.htm or the parent site, http://www.add.org/ - all kinds of good stuff. I also recommend the book "Driven to Distraction" by Dr. Edward Hallowell; some of the information is slightly outdated, but it has more information on, and sample cases of, adult ADHD than any other I've found.
Sorry about the too much information post; my late diagnosis and the problems it caused make me want to inform people who have been misinformed, like I was.
Abigail
*cough* BULLSHIT! (Score:3)
The obvious question is: why characterize the jock extreme as genial and average, but depict the geek extreme as the early onset of a disease!?
Only social preference can explain it and until I hear that jocks are probably mildly afflicted by downs syndrome I'll be happy with that explanation. Naturally society prefers to deal with technical talent as an illness requiring a cure - socialites are so much easier to have around!
Let's face it. Intelligence has at least two components, the social and the logical. Mixtures of these produce everyone from the poet to the garbageman. And as with any bell curve, you will have some people at either extreme. This is not abnormal; it is inevitable. Norming out society (and, no doubt, prescribing drugs to quell the fears of jock mothers that their children may turn out "odd ducks" in the words of the article) is only going to change the definition of what is an extreme jock or geek. The social dynamics will still be present and they will still have an equally difficult time getting along.
Let's just allow people to be who they are, ok?
-konstant
ADA "Reasonable Accommodation" for geeks? (Score:3)
Yeah, that's me (Score:5)
Asperger's is incurable. It's like trying to cure being six foot tall, or trying to cure bipedal locomotion. What Asperger's really is about to me (and I make use of some resources I have to learn more about this) is "what rules do I need to live by in order to survive?". Neglecting this or trying to deny it with stubborn willpower damn near killed me- at one point I got sent to an emergency room with internal bleeding from ulcers (typically, I sort of ignored the pain of it, having decided that 'willpower' and my goals were more important).
One of my needs is for the flow of my attention to flow naturally. I cannot handle derailment- even if I force myself to permit it, I take an absurd amount of damage from it in stress, and get driven farther into autistic defenses. For instance, I've managed to work out ways to do computer repair work and maintain it without burning out or flaking out. One of these ways is this: my boss is totally aware of who I am and where I'm coming from, and from day one I have arranged that I do not answer the telephone. (heh- I'm picturing a lot of heads nodding out there in slashdotland
It's bad to behave like some types of geekiness are diseases to be stamped out- but it's worse to behave like these differences, these different needs, don't exist. I don't know how many other autistic geeks (include 'Asperger.h') are out there- I've seen a couple touching posts from people who felt really crappy about themselves- and it's not OK for me to shut up about it anymore. I WILL be heard from- as much as I can communicate, and not a bit more
Those of us who are autistic geeks generally cannot go on grand crusades to define and protect our image, establish our identity as a worthy thing, prove our value. We typically have a hell of a job keeping our own boats steady and no attention to spare for PR. Even when a Slashdot article shines a beam of light on us, the comments are mostly people arguing ABOUT us, arguing we don't exist or don't count OR arguing that we are totally normal, really, and must be treated as regular guys!
Well- we're out there, we are the worst stereotypes and the fondest rationalizations all rolled into one, and we certainly are not going away. (That would be change- ew! Find another line of work? yuck!) So people had better get used to the idea. It's not new- ever read 'The Hacker FAQ'? It's practically a tutorial on 'how to give an autistic person a work environment that is nurturing and let them perform optimally'. The fact is, for many of us this is NECESSARY. We aren't as adaptable as your regular Joe- to really be kick-ass productive members of society we _need_ our quirks to be respected and understood, otherwise it's like having a track star run a race with both hands tied together behind his back. ("You run with your legs, right? Shouldn't matter."). To explore that simile a bit, in running arms are used for _balance_ and if you did that to a track star they'd be totally uncomfortable and slowed down, running very unnaturally. It's the same thing for autistic people working and being expected to maintain regular-folks social interactions- the balance is off, it's exhausting and unproductive, and as inappropriate as tying a track star's hands behind his back.
We don't need cures, we don't need help faking normal societal attitudes- we need the proper context. It's not so much to ask. There are pluses and minuses to this- the most important point is, this is not an option. Treat us like Joe Sixpack, and you lose, we lose, everybody loses out on the potential harmony that is there for the taking, for anyone willing to make a bit of an effort to accept what they don't understand.
definition and resources (Score:5)
Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life. The result of a neurological disorder that affects the functioning of the brain, autism and its associated behaviors have been estimated to occur in as many as 1 in 500 individuals (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1997). Autism is four times more prevalent in boys than girls and knows no racial, ethnic, or social boundaries. Family income, lifestyle, and educational levels do not affect the chance of autism's occurrence. Autism impacts the normal development of the brain in the areas of social interaction and communication skills. Children and adults with autism typically have difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication, social interactions, and leisure or play activities. The disorder makes it hard for them to communicate with others and relate to the outside world. In some cases, aggressive and/or self-injurious behavior may be present. Persons with autism may exhibit repeated body movements (hand flapping, rocking), unusual responses to people or attachments to objects and resistance to changes in routines. Individuals may also experience sensitivities in the five senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.
See also this Autism [syr.edu] resoucre page.
Ok. Here's my (Duke of URL) bit: As mentioned in the main story Autistic people tend to have underdeveloped cerebellum which plays a role in coordinated movement (think athletes).
Autistics may also have RAS's (Reticular Activating System) which may be improperly developed. The RAS filters out unwanted stimuli (such as the sensation of the pants on your legs, the air on your arms and all the other stimuli you never think about). With a damaged RAS they may be experiencing sensory "overload" and attempt to focus on one thing or avoid social contact to compensate.
For once a question on
Isn't it nice that autistics are welcome, too? (Score:3)
In all seriousness, it's _great_ that there's a form of human endeavor where the quirks we're stuck with are considered 'par for the course'. I think part of this may simply be availability- lots of people can take MCSE courses (*shudder*) but the fact is that most of them simply will not be able to organise the information system that is a personal computer into a coherent and well working whole.
Those who can, can write their own ticket- and among them have always been the serious 'nerds' who just plain were from Mars, so a precedent keeps being set: the weirdo is kept around or even enticed to stay because he is the one who can save everyone's butt when the problem gets particularly hard.
There are tests for some of these things, though not always for the exact capacity you're interested in- my personal favorite test story was for part of a test called the 'GATB', a sort of vocational aptitude test. One part of it involved looking at a drawing of a 3D shape and picking the 2D cutout that could be folded into that shape. I loved it, it was so much fun I wheedled the testgiver into letting me look at the rest of the problems in that category after the time period stopped (just to _see_ them, to do the hard ones, to finish them). I tore through those problems with geeky glee, and it turned out that I'd set a TEN YEAR peak for that particular test. I don't think it's at all an accident that I enjoyed it so much... it was cranking up what Temple Grandin calls 'the Sun workstation in your head'. I have Asperger's Syndrome. I'd never had an example quite so obvious to give me confidence in the face of my other obvious lacks and liabilities, to show me that I was good for something. Finally, the truth- I need to go into origami
No, seriously- what that test revealed was this: although my brain is a very balky and inconvenient instrument, there are some things it can do that your average person just can't. Ever since, I've been trying to figure out how to actually put it in gear, as it were: I can predict trends about stuff I'm interested in (I tend to be interested in the computer industry, and have called many shots accurately, didn't gain by it though- my current hunch is that MS is breaking free of its dependence on government in general and the US government in particular). I design stuff. I'd like to give as much of it away as possible- of course if you just give something away nobody notices so you have to build it up a bit first.
I'm glad the tech world has a place for people like me- and I wish people were as enlightened as you are, back when I was growing up. Back then nobody had a clue, and I was sort of Skinner-avoidance-response trained to look people in the eye and not rock, in a remedial school. It didn't change me, it only made me decide that the world was a very hostile place where you had to act certain ways or be punished. It feels good to think that your daughter doesn't have to go through that...
This article really hit a note with me. (Score:4)
It wasn't until recently that I realized that I can't get along with people because I am deaf to almost all forms of body language. I can't catch all the subtle hints that people drop all over the place, I just never notice it. I love Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series so much because he details all those little nuances in words that I would never ever catch in real life. Because of that that series of books, and a few others, seem more real than real life to me.
I've never been able to make smalltalk. It wasn't until recently that I've been able to train myself to make programmed responses to the everyday "Hi, how are you?" "How was your weekend". So on and so forth. I have to think about these responses before otherwise I'm utterly flabbergasted. Even now I'm not quite sure if I'm making the right responses, I'm making an effort to observe other people making that kind of smalltalk so I can see what they do.
I only feel at home talking when I'm talking online, or with very close friends and family. Online I have time to think about what they said, and there is no subtlties in expression that I would have to try to puzzle out. With my two friends and my close family I know them so well that I can make an educated guess at what they're expressing nonverbally.
Like the programmer, I cannot empathize, and I cannot understand empathy or understanding directed towards me. I, too feel that they're "invading my mind". I consistently score the lowest possible score on the "introverted" scale of whatever test I'm taking. So much of what I think I don't think anyone else in the world can understand, and I guard anything I write like a hawk. I don't even let my boyfriend (yes, I'm female) in on what I think most of the time, for fear that he, too will invade my mind. Like Bill Gates (Gasp! I'm comparing myself to bill gates!) I avoid eye contact at all costs.
I've never been coordinated. My rhythm is horrible. Remember that Volkswagen commercial where they're driving down the alley and everything is going to the beat of the music? I didn't understand it at all, even after seeing it several dozen times, until someone pointed out to me that everything is actually moving the beat.
A few things in the article didn't match up with me. I don't rock, but I do compuslivley fiddle with my hair, my pencil, or whatever's sitting on my desk (I have a flexure with me now that I'm playing with when not typing). However, enough things did make sense that it gave me the heebiejeebies.
Typical psychology BS (Score:4)
Here's a little cue: maybe people of higher calling don't exhibit perfect social skills because while other boys were learning to perfect the art of sucking up, lying and trying to get girls, some of us were reading about astronomy or programming a Texas Instrument.
I was rather antisocial and introverted when I was a kid, but I developped my social skills perfectly once I began to care about whether the girl next door wanted to go out with me or not. As a matter of fact, most geeks and nerds who end up wanting to augment their face-time end up doing it better than others, because they approach the problem with great analytical skills instead of going into it blind.
I've seen a lot of "social geeks" who end up changing their outward personality as the situation demands, and generally not restricting themselves to one single style of clothes or speech, but rather a collection of them. If you approach social relations as a system and social behaviours as the laws by which the system can be affected, then succeeding in that system is similar to understanding physical forces in a system of masses.
The others just don't care enough about it for the time being.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Re:Geeks, ADD and Autism (Score:3)
Geeks are not normal. If we were normal, we'd be like the majority; that's pretty much the definition of "normal". We are abnormal, and for the most part we enjoy that. That's called "geek pride".
That's a far cry from geek supremacy, the idea that geeks are the only people that matter. I have a lot of geek pride, and no use whatsoever for geek supremacy.
The average person is not "useless". If you want to keep a society running, you need a lot of different types of people. Imagine a world without your "useless" people, populated only by geeks. Where would we be?
I'll give you a hint: pretty hungry, pretty fast.
Cops. Farmers. Soldiers. Factory workers. Managers. Sales clerks. All positions that need to be filled, all positions that geeks aren't particularly good at (mostly because we aren't particularly drawn to them, as a group--obviously, there are exceptions). All positions filled by your "useless" people.
Not so useless, are they?
Even where I work, I thank God for these "normal" people. My company has sales and marketing divisions. Sure, there's some friction there, but they're damned useful people. They sell the stuff, bring the money in, pretty much make sure that I only have to worry about making the systems work, rather than that and selling them. If I don't have a sales force watching my back, I don't eat. If the sales force doesn't have geeks watching their backs, they don't eat.
Vive la difference!
One of my biggest pet peaves... (Score:3)
No you're not. If you were truly sorry for the annoying length of time I'm sitting here on hold, you would be spending money getting more people and/or upgrading your call center to see that it doesn't happen again.
Grr.. A simple "Thank you for holding" is sufficient.
Consider the source. (Score:3)
Of course, you might like the Sun or the Post, and you might even subscribe, but you probably don't mistake them for quality journalism.
As for the article: Shadow Syndromes is indeed a good read, but the central premise, that psychiatric disorders are only the severe end of a continuum of human behaviour, is not new. Nor does it support the conclusion that many single-minded geeks have an attenuated form of autism: autism is not a psychiatric or behavioural disorder but a neurological one, with manifest and concrete differences between the normal brain and the autistic one.
A corresponding argument might be that a broken arm is merely at the far range of variation in normal arms. Which it isn't. It's a broken arm.
It may be that parents of autistic children are themselves autistic. It is already known that autism is heritable. It is already known that autism varies widely in severity. But to paint all geeks with that broad brush, without any but anecdotal evidence, is irresponsible. To buy the conclusion is also equally irresponsible, and I'm glad to see that most
Consider also Occam's Razor, where the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one. Do you think that many geeks find social activity difficult because they are relatively inexperienced in it, or because they have a mild form of a rare neurological disorder?
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Re:*cough* BULLSHIT! (Score:3)
As psychiatrists and neurologists learn more about disorders such as manic depressive illness, depression, autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, ADD, ADHD, etc, they are learning that these are all "spectrum disorders."
The spectrum for ALL of these disorders ranges from so severe that it is CLEAR that there is a serious problem, to so mild that the issue would probably be better characterized as a personality trait rather than a disorder.
For Bipolar Disorder (manic depression) there is a whole range from the person who thinks he is Jesus, and jumps off a building thinking he can fly, to something called "cyclothymia" which is basically cyclical moodiness which isn't strong enough to result in depression or mania.
For the "Autism" spectrum, it is actually called "Pervasive Developmental Disorder." I have a diagnosis of "Asperger's Syndrome." My oldest son has "moderate autism." My youngest son has PDD-NOS (PDD- Not Otherwise Specified." We expect that when he is old enough to be evaluated for Asperger's Syndrome, he will be diagnosed with that instead. (He is currently 5)
I mention those two specrums because they are the ones I have personal experience with. (I also have something called "Bipolar Disorder Type-II,. which is like Manic Depression (Bipolar Type-I) except that I don't lose touch with reality when I get "hypomanic.")
Anyway, there are many documented benefits to being mildly bipolar. There is a book called "Touched by Fire" which discusses the fact that mood disorders are common among sucessful people in creative fields such as art, music, literature, etc.
Some of the benefits of Asperger's Syndrome are:
1) Hyperlexia -- Learning to read at a VERY early age
2) Visual Thinking -- Most people tend to think in terms of words rather than pictures
3) Literal Thinking -- People with Asperger's Syndrome tend to think very literaly. This is a definite plus for things like math, science, or computer programming, but it is a definite negative for things like social skills.
4) Learn from books -- Most people have a difficult time learning a complex subject by reading about it. They tend to need to have people explain it to them. On the other hand, people with Asperger's tend to learn from written materials better than they learn from lectures or personal explanations.
If Asperger's Syndrome was proposed as a "developmental disorder" all by itself, it probably would be laughed off by most people. (Just as many people in this thread seem to be doing.) The reason Asperger's Syndrome is accepted by most professionals is because of the very clear _spectrum_ from severe autism (called Kanner's Autism outside of the USA, I believe) to mild (also called high functioning) autism, to Asperger's Syndrome. Understanding Autism (and other spectrum disorders) will probably require understanding the very foundations of human personality. Spectrum disorders really appear to be generally based on good personality traits being pushed to the point where they become problems. People who are on the borderline between "typical" and "disordered" will often be quite superior at certain things, but quite inferior at other things, as the inherent trade offs of the disorder emerge.
Rather than viewing Asperger's Syndrome as a disability, perhaps it should be viewed as an "overclocked brain."
*grin*
Re:Utter Crap. (Score:3)
Geeks, in the social sense, have little to no social graces. And that is the crux of the article: Why don't they have social graces?
The answer could be that they DO have a mild form of autism. I have no idea if the research is accurate enough to point that way. However, I will say this: People other than Mormons live in Utah. So, it's incredibly unlikely that all of the autistics he researched were Mormons.
I also didn't get that he was trying to justify the stereotype of "nerd" or "geek" (which, outside of technical discussions, are interchangeable). I saw him trying to figure out why one particular group appears to have the traits of a given stereotype. And, you have to admit that, by and large, the geeks/nerds of the world do have quite a few of those traits. Not the "normal" kids in school. The ones who everybody trips because they always fall in funny ways, and then "spaz" on everybody around them.
If the research is accurate (and from a cursory glance at some of the results, it seems like it could be), then we may have an actual explanation for why at least some portion of us are the way we are.
As an aside, from the sounds of it, you find geek to be an insulting term. I do not. I just wish I could get the people around me to understand that being a geek is, to some degree, a chosen way of life for me. And I rather like being one.
*deep breath* (Score:3)
I'm going to try not to lose my temper here, but it is going to take a lot of effort. This brought back the bad memories of my earliest Hellmouth experience (private school pre-K teacher insisting that I was autistic because I couldn't, at the ripe old age of four, tie my shoes -- supposedly this meant I didn't care about my classmates).
OK. Here goes.
I am really tired of trendy diagnoses, and the "dilution" of legitimate problems into the latest label to slap on a deviant kid. I don't want this supposed "autism" thing to go the route of ADD for boys or clinical depression for teenage girls.
I am also tired of people not understanding the difference between someone who is just different and someone who is functionally impaired and needs help. The best line I can think of from I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is "Please, Doctor, my difference is not my sickness." If someone is absolutely unable to function in society, is a danger to self or others, or recognizes a mildly self-destructive behavior pattern that is getting worse, then by all means get that person some help.
But enough with the armchair diagnosis. And if someone is merely "different," but can hold down a job and isn't running around with an Uzi threatening to destroy himself or anyone else, what the hell is the problem?
The other fun part of all this is that someone who has something about them that makes them seem superficially crazy and ALSO has an underlying problem that has nothing to do with the superficial one will have a hard time finding help because the superficial problem-that-isn't-a-real-problem will outweigh the real problem that they came to get help for in the eyes of the therapist. And yes, I'm speaking from (somewhat) personal experience here, both my own and that of those close to me. *sigh*
autism != depression (Score:4)