I think the experience of being a person goes a lot deeper than having any specific personality, if it didn't we wouldn't be sorting traits into good and bad. If not having learned to read has kept someone away from the influences of literature, we could say that it has impacted their personality, but would that be an excuse to never teach them?
Some behaviors associated with autism are really results of having less social influence acting on one's self (due to both slower learning and isolation). Would we consider them a fundamental part of the person, or just evidence of areas that the person still can grow in?
I think it depends on the person; but I personally see a lot of people I would identify as high-functioning people on the ASD spectrum working in senior management positions.
We are able to be successful exactly because we have learned to expertly regulate our public and private behaviors to be acceptable to the audience. We’re really deliberate about the soft skills stuff because it doesn’t come naturally. We do that because we can’t read your body language or facial expressions at all, so we have to be as completely inoffensive and congenial as possible.
Many of us have learned how to delegate effectively because there are certain kinds of work we simply cannot do.
We tend to be much better with written communication because it’s easier to compose your thoughts in a text editor than on the fly. As a result we are often seen as excellent communicators in the digital age!
We’re really good at making lists of things (I should probably stop that)
We also tend to talk at length of topics of very little interest to anyone else (ok, I’ll stop now.)
What I’m saying is that a lot of tendencies that are totally attributable to people on the high-functioning side of ASD can be generally beneficial to certain kinds of work. I’m sure you’ve seen these traits in people you know. So I’m not sure it’s always something that’s always detrimental.
Sure, I know a zillion people superficially but I can’t handle more than one or two friends at a time. And I’m ok with that; it’s not debilitating and I enjoy my time alone. I just don’t think it’s something to fix.
Edit: also not implying that all people on the spectrum are this way at all; just that I do see a lot of us in various management functions where Machiavellian politics is in play. Your image is everything and you have no friends, which someone with ASD and this personality profile will feel right at home with.
> Some behaviors associated with autism are really results of having less social influence acting on one's self (due to both slower learning and isolation)
This isn't supported by the research, which shows that autistic people struggle with social communication even if you give them intense courses about how to be better at social communication.
What you're suggesting is dangerously close to the "refrigerator mother" hypothesis, and that caused harm to many people.
This touches on the fundamental debate whether autism is a disease or not. Your comment and especially comparing autism to not being able to read implies that but I personally think there might be parts of the autistic spectrum that do not fall under that definition.
Autism is especially difficult to categorize as a disease or even a negative, but even when you can relatively easily label something as a technical disability, like deafness, there are perfectly valid reasons why the folks affected would be pretty strongly opposed to a cure. Any issue pertaining to identity is always going to be a very sensitive one.
I tend to lean toward a trait, and there really is no arguing that there are benefits, at least on the lower end of the spectrum. Modifying genes for "ideal" traits in humans seems like a bad idea to me...
This is a myth. Authism is a spectrum disorder and you don't meet the more disfunctional cases very often. A few percent are also savants but not everyone in the spectrum has some superpower. The severe cases are very crippling and place a heavy burden in the family (specially because the life expectancy is normal so you will not be always available to care for your autistic son).
I think the discussion should not be whether autistic people have some kind of superpower but whether there are parts of the autistic spectrum that can't be thought of as a disease.
There are obvious examples of Autism that are absolutely objectively terrible for the person experiencing it, this is not about those cases but about the "less severe cases" where an autistic child can go to a normal school and lead a generally normal life. If that is the case, I think the line between what you call a disease and mere personality traits is actually not very clear. Instinctively I would be very careful to describe someone's personality as a disease just because it is different from other peoples behaviour.
The problem with my thinking on the other hand is probably that the definition of the word autism itself might be unclear when considering these edge cases.
It's not a myth. I'm convinced that, all else being equal, being able to obsessively focus on one thing will bear its fruits, even if it can be disastrous in areas like social life and personal health.
The idea that people on the spectrum are more likely to be savants is a myth (the opposite, that savants are more likely to be on the spectrum less so, from what I understand), but the person you responded to made no such claim.
Some behaviors associated with autism are really results of having less social influence acting on one's self (due to both slower learning and isolation). Would we consider them a fundamental part of the person, or just evidence of areas that the person still can grow in?