Albert Einstein

Post Reply New Topic

His unique brain suture could be a sign that he's an aspie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein's_brain
I wonder if all Aspie's brains are like his.

A person with AS can be a very good thinker, though, partially due to having a longer interest life. Also, people with AS can actually have extraordinarily successful social lives. Having AS isn't an excuse for being a failure, as many seem to be convinced. This doesn't mean that Einstein necessarily had AS, but he most assuredly wasn't neurotypical.

The thing YOU need to remember is that significant life impairment is a diagnostic criterion of AS so anyone who is not significantly impaired does not meet diagnostic criteria.

Again, though, having difficulties in some areas doesn't mean that you're guaranteed a wretched existence. A whole region of the man's brain was missing, one that plays an important role in speech production. Also, the man was a weirdo, through and through, and this is a good thing.

I think you're ignoring who Einstein really was.

Also, the average age of university students at the time he went to college was on the rise from 15 to 18 in the United States, average age of 15 in europe. It was still common practice back then to send off children very early to universities once a family could afford the money at that time. Not 50 years before he went to college was the average age even lower, 11 year olds were at harvard. Want a source? Take a look at the History of Education Quarterly: Vol 23, No. 4, p.491 if you can get your hands on a copy.

This is my profession and I will defend my responses to the death Many gifted children are even more handicapped than those with said handicaps. Walk in to any school in your neighborhood and you'll see that the kids in those Gifted and Talented classes (Elementry school) will almost always have a hyper focus, a nasty case of ADHD, and they do not care to be social with anyone.

Let me go over this again.

Qualitative impairment in social interaction;
The presence of restricted, repetitive and stereotyped behaviors and interests;
Significant impairment in important areas of functioning;
No significant delay in language;
No significant delay in cognitive development, self-help skills, or adaptive behaviors (other than social interaction); and,
The symptoms must not be better accounted for by another specific pervasive developmental disorder or schizophrenia.

Those are the diagnostic requirements. He would have met all of those.

It means that you do not meet the "faliure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level" criterion. I have no idea what your impairments are, nor do I wish to know. I was merely contradicting the idea that Einstein suffered a social impairment that is a classic characteristics of Aspies.

My mother is a school teacher, and she's been working around the academically gifted for years, partially as a result of her experiences with me. Either she or a friend of hers referred to the gifted kids as "accidentally gifted" as a pun intended to poke fun at some of their odd behaviors. Genius extracts a price.

I meet all the requirements listed in the DSM-IV. So does Einstein based on written accounts and testimony. I have tons of problems with actually interacting with people. However I hope to be a teacher and have a family and I've learned quite a lot from my experiences with dating and teaching in how to handle being around NTs and how to speak to them with out them thinking I am a complete weirdo (Minus my tics).

The important criterion I am referring to is "The disturbance causes clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." This is the criterion I am having an especially hard time seeing in Einstein. From what I've read, he had no clinically significant impairment socially, occupationally, etc.

Also, as a side note, Einstein is widely reported to have had a significant delay in language, which conflicts with another diagnostic criterion.

Again, though, aspies aren't necessarily socially impaired. They're impaired in NORMAL socialization.

Einstein wasn't normal.

I am not going to argue about whether or not you meet the diagnostic criteria, but whether or not Einstein does is a subjective judgment call. I disagree with your judgment.

Agreed. Einstein was a genius. Genius is not normal.

And Umbra, look, we're not even particularly arguing that the man had AS. We're trying to get you to understand that a person having a successful life does not make them neurotypical and does not mean that they're in no way impaired. Einstein had his own cross to bear, as the xians like to put it.

I understand that people can be impaired in some areas, but very successful in others.

I am merely trying to apply the diagnostic criterion that "The disturbance causes clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning" to Einstein's life. Since I do not see how he meets this criterion, I do not believe that he had AS.

I don't know where you get your criteria, but the critera I posted is right out of the manual and every book I have on special needs children.

Einstein to my own knowledge had no significant language delay. If he did then please point me at a resource (a Scholarly one please). The man had social imparements through all stages of his life. You sadly have an image pasted in your head of who Einstein actually was. To actually speak to the man (by account of witnesses) could be painful as he didn't understand how people could be interested in trivial matters. Speak to him about a starship, and instead of starships he'd go quickly in to what he knew about space, not what was being broadcast on the radio as part of a story.

Also, you did attack me and my own diagnosis in your earlier post.

As for if Einstein had AS or not, who really cares? He had problems and because he isn't alive we can't diagnose what problems he actually had.

I would rather keep Einstein as a beacon for those who do have problems and imparements as opposed to having everyone think he was a fully fledged NT who just happened to be smarter than others.