So What's the Big Deal?

This is another phrase I hear a lot from people. They will listen and agree that two of my kids have these sort of quirky things about them and can see, quite obviously usually once I point it out, the social weaknesses. The inevitable question is something like, "Yeah, so? I hate loud parties and the texture of jello makes me gag ... and I'm okay?"


On one hand, I completely agree. I'm quirky too. (which is a separate post altogether!) Who isn't in some way? All people have varying levels of social IQ.  And who DOESN'T have some kind of sensory preference or aversion?  What does it all matter in the grand scheme of things? We're all different and everyone's a little weird. Why not just let them be who they are?


You know, more than anything, I do want my children be allowed to be who they are because they are AWESOME. (and honestly, who they are can't be changed much anyway!) But I also want them to be able to cope with the social expectations of the world in which they live because, as unfair and overwhelming as these expectations sometimes seem for people with social deficits, they are things you have to learn to at least some degree in order to get by in life.  The world can be a harsh place.


Still, I do like the idea of seeing it not as a disability, but as a different way of thinking.


I found this article that I thought was really interesting that addresses that idea... here's a section I really liked that describes some of the differences you can see in my boys.  (sidenote: this is an old article. Aspergers "doesn't exist" anymore... it has all been lumped into the heading of Autism Spectrum Disorder.)

Asperger's syndrome (AS) and High-Functioning Autism (HFA)

Autism is diagnosed on the basis of abnormalities in the areas of social development, communicative development, and imagination, together with marked repetitive or obsessional behaviour or unusual, narrow interests . Individuals with autism may have an IQ at any level. By convention, if an individual with autism has an IQ in the normal range (or above), they are said to have 'high-functioning autism' (HFA). If an individual meets all of the criteria for HFA except communicative abnormality/history of language delay, they are said to have Asperger's syndrome (AS). In this paper, we focus on AS and HFA since we accept that an individual who is lower-functioning necessarily has a disability in the form of retardation. What is not clear, and therefore the subject of the debate presented next, is whether individuals with AS/HFA necessarily have a disability. For the present purposes, we consider the arguments in relation to AS and HFA, without attempting to draw any distinction between these.

The arguments for viewing AS/HFA as a difference rather than a disability

1. The child spends more time involved with objects and physical systems than with people (Swettenham et al., 1998);
2. The child communicates less than other children do;
3. The child tends to follow their own desires and beliefs rather than paying  attention to, or being easily influenced by, others’ desires and beliefs (Baron- Cohen, Leslie & Frith, 1985);
4. The child shows relatively little interest in what the social group is doing, or  being a part of it (Bowler, 1992; Lord, 1984);
5. The child has strong, persistent^[2] interests;
6. The child is very accurate at perceiving the details of information (Plaisted, O'Riordan & Baron-Cohen, 1998a; Plaisted, O'Riordan & Baron-Cohen,   1998b)
7. The child notices and recalls things other people may not (Frith, 1989);
8. The child’s view of what is relevant and important in a situation may not coincide with others (Frith, 1989);
9. (dates, . The child may be fascinated by patterned material, be it visual (shapes), numeric  timetables), alphanumeric (number plates), or lists (of cars, songs, etc.);
10. The child may be fascinated by systems, be they simple (light switches, water  taps), a little more complex (weather fronts), or abstract (mathematics);
11. The child may have a strong drive to collect categories of objects (e.g., bottletops, train maps), or categories of information (types of lizard, types of rock, types of fabric, etc.); and
12. The child has a strong preference for experiences that are controllable rather than    unpredictable.

Those are NOT negative things and some are actually gifts!

If you have never heard a three-year-old read a book out loud, or tell you how to connect your computer to the wireless network -- if you have never  watched an enraptured six-year-old with his nose pressed against the glass of a shark tank rattling off the finer details of shark anatomy to anyone within earshot, or heard him tell you with as much passion as any scientist why space and black holes are so interesting, then you have not seen the fascinating  beauty these differently wired brains can hold.

Social disability? Maybe. Challenging at times? YOU BET. The rest? Wonderful differences that keep our lives (and our world) interesting.