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| Total Votes : 33 |
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Greentea
Goddess of Wisdom
Joined: Jun 15, 2007
Age: 48
Posts: 5678
Location: Middle East
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 Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 7:39 am Post subject: Best treatment for AS I ever heard of |
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Our country's online forum for people with AS and parents of kids with AS interviewed an expert in AS (a Neuropsychologist) and, among many other questions, asked him about the value of Social Skills courses. I loved his answer. He said that Aspies have to be very firm not to join Social Skills courses for NTs or for both Aspies and NTs because the things we need to learn are too different for it to be a positive experience for us. He said that for a Social Skills course for Aspies to be effective and relevant, it must be a course in learning to relate successfully to NTs as one would learn to relate to a different culture, by adopting some of their culture only for the sake of interaction with them, while keeping our own culture and not trying to change it, maintain our pride, self-esteem and self-confidence in our own Aspie culture. I can't think of a better approach. I only wish there was a therapist in this country who was willing to take on the challenge. As it is, I'm sure no therapist would agree to teach "NT as a second language" as he proposed.
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So-called white lies are like fake jewelry. Adorn yourself with them if you must, but expect to look cheap to a connoisseur. |
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ChangelingGirl
Brazilian Wandering Spider
Joined: Sep 19, 2007
Age: 23
Posts: 1311
Location: Netherlands
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:06 am Post subject: |
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| I like this POV, too. My experience with social skills training was in a center for the blidn/VI, where I was of course the only Aspie (and the person with the least residual vision and the only one VI from birth). While I understood all theory being taught and did fairly well in-session, I could not apply any of it int eh real world. I now refuse social skills training (not that I've been said to go into it anyway), because I think I would just be feeling bad after it. One note, however, is that just because a social skills course is for Aspies only, doesn't mean it teaches witht he right attitude (ie. NTs as different culture). My diagnosing psychologist two years ago insisted that I needed to unlearn my particular stim, because it was "a big social handicap", while even most NTs I know didn't agree and thought it was just a little weird. |
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Aleph0
Snowy Owl
Joined: Oct 22, 2008
Age: 29
Posts: 152
Location: Israel
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:45 am Post subject: |
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I love the "NT as a second language" idea  |
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hyder13
Snowy Owl
Joined: Feb 15, 2009
Age: 19
Posts: 132
Location: Charlotte NC/NYC NY
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:52 am Post subject: |
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I love the idea! What country is this?
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fiddlerpianist
Unclassified and loving it!
Joined: May 01, 2009
Age: 32
Posts: 1638
Location: The Autistic Hinterlands
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:53 am Post subject: |
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...Aspies have a culture?
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Magneto
Velociraptor
Joined: Jun 13, 2009
Posts: 449
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:12 am Post subject: |
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No, they have many cultures. It's just those cultures are different from the common NT ones, so NT cultures are a 'second culture'.
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"The only universal message in science fiction: There exist minds that think as well as you do, but differently." - Larry Niven |
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fiddlerpianist
Unclassified and loving it!
Joined: May 01, 2009
Age: 32
Posts: 1638
Location: The Autistic Hinterlands
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:47 am Post subject: |
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| Magneto wrote: | | No, they have many cultures. It's just those cultures are different from the common NT ones, so NT cultures are a 'second culture'. |
That makes sense, but...
| Greentea wrote: | | maintain our pride, self-esteem and self-confidence in our own Aspie culture. |
Unless we're talking about a "culture of one."
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"That leap of logic should have broken his legs." - Janissy |
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Sora
- - -
Joined: Sep 16, 2006
Age: 21
Posts: 4742
Location: Europe
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:54 am Post subject: |
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That's how the social aspect of ASD therapies for children in many parts of Germany work. Individual approaches and approaches suited to autism spectrum disorders.
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AS/HFA + ADHD
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shomnec
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: Feb 17, 2009
Posts: 41
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:22 am Post subject: Aspie "culture?" |
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| I certainly think that Aspies have their own "culture" to the same extent that NT's do, namely to the extent that they share at least some common modes of thinking/social interaction. That doesn't mean all their social behavior looks the same on the outside. If we didn't share "cultures" to at least some extent in our respective groups, we wouldn't be able to conceive of the distinction between NT and Aspergers in the first place. There would be no Aspergers! |
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Jacaen
Raven
Joined: Sep 01, 2006
Age: 22
Posts: 119
Location: South Florida, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:43 am Post subject: |
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| I like this approach. I can relate it to the fact that it's much easier for me to converse with people in a language I've learned through classes - Japanese or Spanish for example. I realized it's because, in those classes, you learn about the culture and you learn how to have conversations with people, how to relate to them. For our native tongues, we never learned the how or why, exactly, just the what. We've never really learned how to apply our vocabularies. |
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fiddlerpianist
Unclassified and loving it!
Joined: May 01, 2009
Age: 32
Posts: 1638
Location: The Autistic Hinterlands
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:53 am Post subject: Re: Aspie "culture?" |
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| shomnec wrote: | | I certainly think that Aspies have their own "culture" to the same extent that NT's do, namely to the extent that they share at least some common modes of thinking/social interaction. That doesn't mean all their social behavior looks the same on the outside. If we didn't share "cultures" to at least some extent in our respective groups, we wouldn't be able to conceive of the distinction between NT and Aspergers in the first place. There would be no Aspergers! |
You make it sound like the culture was there before the diagnosis; it wasn't. The clinical diagnosis existed long before anyone was ever talking about an "Aspie culture."
That's not to say that culture cannot arise from someone else making the distinction and acting upon it. Perhaps that is what has happened in recent years, and there are some more-or-less common values with respect to condition, treatment, curability, portrayal of autism in the media, etc. But perhaps that's more the neurodiversity movement than "Aspie culture."
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"That leap of logic should have broken his legs." - Janissy |
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Maggiedoll
Loon
Joined: Jun 05, 2009
Age: 25
Posts: 2125
Location: Maryland
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:58 am Post subject: Re: Aspie "culture?" |
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| fiddlerpianist wrote: | | You make it sound like the culture was there before the diagnosis; it wasn't. The clinical diagnosis existed long before anyone was ever talking about an "Aspie culture." |
I cite Star Trek conventions and rest my case! |
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makuranososhi
Purple Monkey Dishwasher
Joined: May 13, 2008
Posts: 6217
Location: Transitional
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 11:41 am Post subject: |
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Something needs an proper Western name for something that existed previous for it to have a culture? Disagree, fully. Something doesn't have to be identified for the effect to be felt, for those who are affected to react differently and have an altered perspective as compared to their counterparts. A name only allows for clarification and distinction, not origination.
M.
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He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
From my heart and from my hand, why don't people understand my intentions...?
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sartresue
Radical Aspergian
Joined: Dec 19, 2007
Posts: 5201
Location: The Castle of Shock and Awe-tism
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 12:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Sora wrote: | | That's how the social aspect of ASD therapies for children in many parts of Germany work. Individual approaches and approaches suited to autism spectrum disorders. |
The cult of one topic
Aspie individuality. 
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Radical Aspergian
Awe-Tistic Whirlwind
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fiddlerpianist
Unclassified and loving it!
Joined: May 01, 2009
Age: 32
Posts: 1638
Location: The Autistic Hinterlands
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 12:47 pm Post subject: |
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| makuranososhi wrote: | | Something needs an proper Western name for something that existed previous for it to have a culture? Disagree, fully. Something doesn't have to be identified for the effect to be felt, for those who are affected to react differently and have an altered perspective as compared to their counterparts. A name only allows for clarification and distinction, not origination. |
A formal definition provides a rallying point for the promotion of culture, it is true. However, having a "culture" involves sharing experiences around some sort of locally accepted definition that members of the culture have in common. It has nothing to do directly with being affected differently than everyone else in the world.
It's possible that groups of people on the spectrum did get together to talk about how they were different than the rest of the world, and perhaps they did this at Star Trek conventions. However, the culture they most likely identified with was that of Star Trek, not how they felt that their brains were wired differently. Even if they had done so, what you would have had were a bunch of disjointed, localized cultures about AS. You can apply the word "culture" to it, but that's sort of like saying that my friends and I discussing our experiences at a local farmer's market is an example of "farmer's market culture."
Then again, it's possible we're talking about different meanings of the word "culture." In Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions (Kroeber, A. L. and C. Kluckhohn, 1952), the authors compiled a list of 164 different definitions of the word "culture" (research done through Wikipedia).
I do agree that a culture can exist without a formal, society-accepted definition. Take the "energy vampire" culture, for instance. There are people in the world that believe they have energy maintenance problems and can get energy "fixes" from various external sources. Having an online forum where they can go to share common experiences and issues is certainly a culture. WP is certainly a culture. Is it necessarily "Aspie culture"? I don't know.
I think I've talked in circles and confused myself...
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