I have Asperger's Syndrome, which is a high-functioning form of Autism.
Yesterday I was reading about the history of when Autism was first recognized by science.
I am glad for the people who recognized this and described it. But you don't get it right on the first try.
Autism was named for a description in the early early 20th Century of one of its traits, by the first scientist to recognize it, around 1910 or so.
He coined the word 'autism' to describe the way we are turned inward in our thoughts, after the word 'auto', 'self', because he thought we were turned inward into ourselves away from the outside world.
But we are not turned away.
We feel the outside world deply.
We are hypersensitive to the outside world.
And we internalize it, go through it in our minds.
Think about it.
Imagine its possibilities.
Wonder what is out there.
When we are turning inward, we are turning inward into a wider world of thought and imagination, we are not turning away from the outside world.
We are dreamers. Like Steven Spielberg when he made E. T.
We are hypersensitive to the wider world. And we internalize it into our thoughts. And we dream of it.
I believe that Autism brings benefits as well as drawbacks.
Many people with autism are highly intelligent.
Not a specialist, not a savant like in Rain Man.
Not someone who is really good at just one thing.
More like the other way around.
More like someone who is smart in general, and has a few specific weaknesses.
Weaknesses that sometimes, often, with practice, can be overcome, at least in part.
But autism often brings high intelligence.
The brain, by abandoning a few abilities, makes it much easier for the brain to be highly, highly intelligent everywhere else. Because not every brain can be genius everywhere.
I believe that autism may by an example of the human species adapting to civilization.
An autistic person would not make it in the wild.
But in civilization, the wider community can take care of you.
And in return some of you will be geniuses.
And the civilization that takes care of you will have the benefit of your genius.
Because autistic people are much more likely to be geniuses.
Are much more likely to be super intelligent, with great gifts to give society.
Just ask Hans Asperger, who described what we now call Asperger's syndrome- autism with high intelligence.
Society takes care of you.
In return, you give society the gifts of your intelligence.
Geniuses throughout history were always known as eccentrics.
I would bet that many of them were autistic- and that that made it much easier for them to be geniuses.
And I would bet that autism is not the only condition that works that way!
For one thing, there are an awful lot of geniuses with dyslexia, and I doubt that autism and dyslexia are the only ones!
Vincent van Gogh had something, and we are quite sure that it was not autism or dyslexia!
(One difference with dyslexia, though, is that I would bet that a dyslexic would not have that much trouble surviving in the wild- but they would bring so much more to civilization!)
Just a few little things that I would like to share based on my own experience!
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson