According to Simon Baron Cohen, I can´t have AS!

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I've written fan fiction, and I have wondered if it's a lack of imagination in some ways in that I can write stories that simply put a set of predefined characters into a variant on their canon situation, but I cannot write original fiction and actually create characters and their universe. I am the same in many creative activities. If you present me with the 'building blocks', I can arrange them in a pleasing pattern, but I cannot create the blocks from scratch. I simply don't know where to begin.

I had no problems imagining the physical setting, the details, the fantasy, the metaphors and the general atmosphere of my fictional writing.

It was always the dialogue between human characters that gave me the trouble.
The social motives of the characters in all my short stories were very straight-forward perhaps because I had only been exposed to a limited social/emotional repertoire at home.

I always seemed to come up just slightly short of top marks in literature: now I've figured out why. Thank goodness for revision notes and study guides! Without them, I'd have had difficulty fathoming all of the characters' social motivations.

However, general themes, imagery, metaphors and environmental descriptions I didn't usually have a problem with.

My writing always seemed to have an observational rather than a social slant to it.

Sometimes, I throw a book down in disgust because the characters are so socially dependent on each other and do some very silly things by succumbing to peer pressure. This has never been an issue for me. How those characters behave are not how I would behave. I either scold the book out-loud or rewrite part of the story saying what the characters should have done so that I can feel happy again. Sometimes I even omit the characters I find the most irritating/boring or introduce my own. People look at me funny when I do this. If the story involves animals, strangely, I don't seem to want to edit the story as much, if at all.

WP, like most such forums, doesn't have dedicated emoticons. When you try to insert an emoticon, it REALLY inserts a code for it. LATER, that code is processed as the emoticon. The 8 : and ; DO look like eyes, and could be part of an emoticon code. Likewise, 0 O ) ( could be mouths.

Morgana, it doesn't matter whether you are diagnosed or not, you are still exactly YOU, no more or less! (and there is no cure, either way...) I worry that if people start seriously believing that they "cannot do X" due to AS, then they will not even try when in fact they *could* do X.
<EDIT> To clarify, I believe there is a danger that we could unconsciously alter our symptoms to enable ourselves to fit the diagnosis better. This eliminates the discomfort of uncertainty.

True, but then almost everyone who writes about AS is in a branch of their own. Hans Asperger/Lorna Wing/DSDM IV: each offers a subtly different view. Social difficulties? Sensory Issues? Passionate interests? All of these? None of these? Take your pick.

Last edited by ManErg on 15 Apr 2009, 6:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

I liked to write stories I made up myself when I was a kid. Even before school.

I have been reading somewhere that females with Aspergers because of their of the traits from their female nature in general make it hard for doctors to diagnose it in females. But yes females definitely have Aspergers as well as males. Actually, there are more females being diagnosed that are being diagnosed with Aspergers for a second time, when the first time they tried was not successful. Females can have all and/or just as many traits of Aspergers as Males can. But because of the female nature surrounding social aspects and other interest(like creative writing and other things that average females may be interested in),some females might seem to hide the Aspergers traits a lot more, but they are affected by Aspergers in the same ways as the Males.
I have %100 Asperger traits, it is just that because as a female, I have a creative side(very small) and have other interest like writing, that these "doctors' find Un-asperger like. But luckily these doctors are starting to see that.

I have started a story about an elf who must save his world from an evil overlord. I must say my story is very descriptive of the environment but doesn't contain much complex interaction between characters. I write this story very similar to the style of J.R.R. Tolkien. I like dungeons and dragons type fantasy with elves and dwarves and magic.

Fantasy writing and shows like "Star Trek" are very autism friendly. Emphasis isn't put on social drama. I wonder if some of the writers are autism spectrum.

I believe some of the writers could be on the spectrum Master_Shake. From reading Master_Shake's comments off of my quote it has made me realize the challenge of my novel. Anytime I try to write character interaction---I feel like I stumbling around with what to write. Like Master_Shake, I have some characters that are supernatural like---in my case mystical beings who live in a cavern who have a time machine.

I also write short stories and poetry.

I am looking right now at poetry I have written. I have in front of me 15 poems:

4 are about historical sites (3 ancient Indian earthworks).
1 is about a state (Vermont)
2 are about animals (bats and birds)
2 are about nature (leaves and mountains streams)
2 are about a haunted house and lane
1 is about a young man in a mystical land (set in the times of old)
3 are about me (2 about autism, 1---my first poem---I have trouble interpreting it)

Actually, in my case, I tend to ask these questions because sometimes I wonder if I might have another form of autism. You know, one of those "PDD-NOS" things, something that hasn´t been labeled or specified yet. I find that I have many similarities to AS, that my brain seems to work somehow in the same way, and that it explains many challenges I´ve experienced in my life. However, when I read a book that gives a very specific description of AS, and I don´t quite fit that description, I begin to wonder...(and I do tend to take things literally, so my first thought is that I must have another form of autism). By the way, I do think I´m on the spectrum...there are just times when I´m not sure if it´s AS. In addition to that, AS is my special interest at the moment- I seem to be totally obsessed with it- so I´m thinking about it all the time, and therefore I have many questions about it. It´s still relatively new to me, and I want to get all the information I can. I do see what you mean though, and I agree with you that people shouldn´t inhibit themselves by thinking "I can´t do X". Basically, AS and the lighter forms of autism are still so new that there is still much that is unknown. It will be interesting to see what comes up in the future, as more research is done. My own theory is that there is a "creative, artistic" version of AS which may look a little different: creative, imaginative people, with interests in concepts rather than facts and numbers, more interest and knowledge of emotions- (as art is emotional expression, etc.) I think some of the current theories about AS exclude artistic people. And I am most definitely an artistic person....

I enjoyed creative writing in school. I even won an award for it in eighth grade. It was basically the only good thing I did that year.

I don't always agree with Simon Baron Cohen, but I see his point.

Yes, I have also been reading about the differences between a female and male presentation of AS. I think this is quite interesting, and am looking forward to more research and knowledge of the female version of AS. My thoughts go even deeper, in that I wonder if some men may also not quite fit the current stereotypes and still have AS. As Hans Asperger only studied 34 boys- (not a huge sampling of the population), what we know about AS and have defined and labeled fits the traits of this sampling of boys; however, that may not be the whole picture. It´s like studying 1 species of beetle, observing it and labeling it as "beetle", when there may be many other different types of beetles out there. That´s sort of how I see autism at the moment...don´t know if anyone is following me here....

I always thought the whole imagination thing was more about 'imaginative play' involving human relationships and interactions. Like playing families and what have you... *shrugs*

This is very interesting.

I once met someone who had similar mannerisms to myself and was very socially arkward, shy and would make faux pas (but in a nice, charming and delightful way). Nobody honestly seemed to mind.

He could be socially invisible one minute then leader/quirky centre of attention the next. He could switch from serious to joking in an eye-blink, uncannily like me.

He was basically like me except that his focus and brilliance was on the humanities side: Literature, Language, History etc; whereas my main interests were more science and fact based.

That's why I believe that there aren't just living human calculators, but human dictionaries, grammar checkers and historical databases as well. Different people may focus on different things. As an analogy, the same database software can be used to store numbers and calculate, or keep historical records. The data entered depends on the user of the system.

He certainly had lots of original ideas and put his quirkiness to good use. He had to do original creative writing on a regular basis. He certainly wasn't a Math genius and actually asked for help a lot, which helped the rest of us.

I'm not sure if he was AS or not, but a certainly had a mysterious feeling of de-jar-vous. He'd certainly blow all stereotypes out of the water if he was and would match many of the other traits described on here. I could talk to him so easily. It was almost effortless. So I guess that the social cues we were using were pretty similar. He was very emotionally expressive and socially active, but in a very quirky and clumsy way. He was concerned about my feelings or if I felt lonely. I get the feeling that he was trying to reach out socially and express some of the quirks that I'd been told that I should suppress.

I also speculate that studying humanities can help one understand society, emotions and the intricacies of human relationships better. It's certainly helped me. Studying languages and the arts can help improve both written and verbal communication skills.

AmberEyes: thanks a lot for your post! Yes, that´s the sort of thing I´m talking about. In many ways, this person you wrote about sounds like me. You´re right; someone who´s main interests are in the arts and humanities is going to present differently, with different talents and deficits. (Like your friend, I am also really bad at math).

In my case, I really think I´m on the spectrum...it just explains too much about me, and it´s like a missing piece of the puzzle...suddenly, everything makes sense. When I did the Aspie Quiz, I got a "you are most likely an Aspie".

And yet, when I read a book that describes AS in a very conventional way, I realize I don´t fit the stereotypes at all, though I see some of the general tendencies. It´s like I don´t really fit into any "box", not even that one. Not that that´s such a big deal, it just confuses me. It makes me curious about how much (how little?) we really know about autism. Rather than focusing on finding a cure, I wish- and I really do hope- that someone is studying these things. I sometimes wonder if I have "atypical Asperger´s Syndrome", or some other kind of non-specified version.

Then again, maybe I´m just a weird person....

This person was hanging round study support a lot.

This perplexed me: he was incredibly intelligent, so why would he need it?

Looking back on the whole thing from a distance, I can kind of infer what was going on. It's funny what becomes visible after the passage of time when your nose isn't pressed up to the glass.

It kind of makes me sad that I was unable to talk to people such as him about various issues. Because I'd been told to keep my past AS assessment a secret or outright deny it altogether to preserve myself. I had been told to "forget about it" so for a while I did. I could have learned a lot and when could have opened out more but there just wasn't the time in those days . I certainly wouldn't have stopped liking him if he'd been AS. I would have listened.

Then again, he was a guy so therefore maybe people were more sympathetic towards his needs than they would have been with mine. He was incredibly intelligent and probably deserving of this attention. He was very courageous to do all the social interaction he did and for him, it paid off!

I just had to muddle through after High School with no support because I'd been told to and because all the AS support in the past had been counterproductive. I tended to be afraid to ask for help after that because I equated seeking help with being called "useless". That's why I still have issues with asking for help today.

My theory is this - people on the autism spectrum are generally less "well rounded" than NT's. We tend to be specialized thinkers while NT's are more likely to be the "jack of all trades" type. We have both strengths and weaknesses in different areas of learning but the specific areas in which the strengths and weaknesses occur aren't directly related to the autism spectrum. Being on the spectrum simply amplifies our natural predisposition to be a certain type of thinker. If we weren't on the spectrum we would still have our strengths and weaknesses but they wouldn't be as extreme. Savant abilities are the most extreme manifestation of this phenomena.

Another issue I have regarding creativity is this notion that you're either creative or uncreative. It's a bit of a false dichotomy when there are so many different areas of creativity. We just have more specialized creativity.

Being good at describing general settings/moods but unable to come up with dialog is something I can relate to.