Asperger vs. (?) Personality Disorders - an hipothesis

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An article of Razib Khan (a blogger who writes about genetics):

http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2009/03/fr ... rrated.php

Well, and what this has to do with autism/asperger (or "personality disorders")? Simply: replace "athletic ability" by "social skills".

A person with inate low social skills can opt to a relativley solitary life, reducing even more their social skills.

Or put "introversion" in the place of "athletic ability" or "social skills" - a person with inate introversion can develop few social skills, and their lack of social skills can reinforce his initial introvertion.

What is my point?

Usually, when we talk about the differeces between AS and personality disorders we talk about the difference between inate vs. acquired traits; in the particular case of schizoid PD, we also talk about the difference between "don't like to socialize" and "has difficulty in socialize".

But, if our acquired traits are influenced by our genetic traits and there is a mutual reinforcement betewen our skills ("things we have ability in doing") and interests ("things we like to do"), this could mean than many of this distinctions could be much less relevant in practice than in theory.

Your hypothesis makes alot of sense TPE. I am a bit of a psychology buff myself, and know that our behaviors are the result of a complex interplay of our environment (our experiences) and our neurobiological makeup. Certainly people gravitate towards activities at which they are inherently good, thereby gaining practice, becoming even more proficient at said activity. Those who are not inherently good at said activity tend to avoid it, thereby failing to become more proficient.

I think it is important to rely on ones' strengths but try consciously not to avoid activities where one's weak so weaknesses can be improved upon.

I have to say I need to heed this advice myself, often times I don't, probably because I have avoidant personality features. I tend to be very interested in verbal activities such as reading and writing, but less so in visual activities such as drawing, painting, driving around, and playing video games. My verbal ability is high but my visual-spatial ability is quite bad so I tend to avoid things which require visual skills. To this day I can't draw a good picture to save my life.

As far as socializing goes, my experiences are just as your hypothesis would predict. Self-chosen social deprivation has definitely impacted my ability to socialize confidently a great deal. I am going to start attending an autism social group where social skills training is taught, time is provided for socialization, and we go on outings. Hopefully this will allow me to improve my social skills.

Anyhow... I'm missing the main point... I guess what your saying is that the distinction between Asperger's and Schizoid Personality, i.e. "having difficulty socializing" and "not liking to socialize" respectively, is blurred by the fact that those who have difficulty socializing tend to learn to dislike socializing. I know of a psychologist at the University of Michigan who believes that those with Asperger's tend to have Schizoid Personality Disorder.

Thanks for introducing this hypothesis, I am very interested in how all kinds of deprivation can affect our abilities and behavior.

Last edited by Master_Shake on 15 Apr 2009, 11:04 am, edited 2 times in total.

Interesting viewpoint. One question I have, and not just for this thread, is: "exactly what are social skills?". Athletic ability is broadly quantifiable, but one problem with "social skills" is that it's used without ever confirming that we are talking about the same thing. Let alone how do we actually measure them. I'd like to see a list of exactly the techniques involved. Eye contact? Speed of response? Empathy (how do you measure that?).

Also, equating social skills to athletic skills is interesting because any value judgements are relative. We use terms like 'below average', 'above average'. If you could improve athletic ability by 10% for everybody - well, nothing has really changed, has it?! Isn't it the same with social skills. If you made a whole bunch of people more social, then a whole bunch of other people would have less social success as your new trainees stole the limelight!

I agree with your general idea, however. It's one aspect of education that I don't like. The system seems to encourage you to drop your weaker subjects and focus only on your strengths as that is what you'll need to get a career. Apart from sports, oddly enough, where we were all forced to do far too much of it and it never improved me one bit. (schools want highly visible glory on the sports field in direct competition with other schools. In contrast, academic success is almost invisible).

It's difficult to get it just right, because for me I can confirm that it doesn't matter how many raucous parties I went to, I never became a socialite. Yet I can also confirm that when I have little social contact, my already limited skills decline noticeably.

Autism, aspergers, schizotypal, schizoid, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive spectrum - etcetera.

Remember: these are made-up agreed upon conventions. These are a creation of people. These are not "real." They are concepts. They serve to organize the clinician.

Probably, if there was serious neurobiologic work (by this I mean functional neuroimaging, and correlations by this method vs. what we "see" as signs and symptoms outside the black box) we would find several of these are fundamentally the same disorder - but variants.

But we have fallen in love with our nosologies, and so will continue in our stumblings as we have always.

It is like debating whether socks or gloves are better. When they are both woven of the same yarn.

Thus spake Zarathustra.

I think the question is if the social problems AS people suffer from would "disappear" with basic peer counseling that teaches them how to interact normally or would they still struggle with "normal" interaction that shouldn't pose an issue.

A person my be socially awkward because of limited exposure to other people, so they never learn how to have proper relationships.

A person my have AS and no matter how much exposure they have, they can try to emulate proper relationships, but they always fall short of attaining them.

I think in both cases a person my tend towards introverted activities because it's easier for them, but for the former, they could have anything they want with some counseling and companionship. The later would struggle no matter what so it's not so much a matter of making a different choice.

:::Sigh::: I really hate this crap. The argument you're making is that Asperger's Disorder is nothing more than shyness, so get over it.


This is a processing dysfunction - it involves the brain's ability to process amounts of incoming stimuli - it's not about whether or not you chose to go to the f***ng prom!

If you choose a solitary lifestyle simply because you don't care to socialize, I support your choice a hundred percent - but if it's really just a choice - you do not have Asperger's Disorder.

Maybe you should talk about extremely mild and HF AS if you want. Because a lack of ability from birth as present in what I think is still mild AS is rather obviously not possible to change.

Maybe at some point on that line towards normality there isn't a real impairment anymore in a particular ability (hence it's called normal) so that learnt behaviour makes up for the not-so-real impairment/almost normal ability, but... no idea about that. I personally wouldn't call it AS anymore anyway. Because it's obviously not an impairment from birth that you can recognise as such because it's reversible and not really there.

Low social skills still mean you have them, you have the innitae ability that's lacking in AS. If it's not lacking in some degree, it's not AS. Deprivation of course - which a toddler/child/teen cannot cause just because they 'don't want to train their social skills actively' - can cause a lack too. The consequences of experiences no social situations are fundamentally different from experiencing regular social situations and not liking such/trying to keep to the sidelines.

But seriously, even a blind/deaf/mute kid in a regular family/similar and regular school/similar can't bring themselves to that point which causes a definite irreversible lack of ability. They can even develop certain single very advanced social skills that several autistic adults can't manage to develop.

A kid who isn't particularly empathic will still see, hear, feel empathy, perceive whatever it can perceive from others in a totally involuntary fashion by just being in what we call a typical environment. Even if their parents hate them and children bully them. There's a lot of social ability needed to hate someone and to bully someone.

And not every one of the world's population will hate and bully the kid, so there's always guaranteed to be people who show a different kind of behaviour - which the normal child (unless already emotionally disordered in a way that excludes AS obviously, because it has become disordered by whatever maltreatment it received) will perceive and pick up on.

Kid with AS won't all that unless they have a super mild case which could or could not be diagnosed depending on which professional you see.

Very interesting.

Social skills have been described as analogous to motor skills (Hargie 2006).

Both sets of skills are goal directed; honed with practice and can be split into micro-skill components.

The latest research supports this exactly.

Here is an analogy that involves neurodevelopment.

In amblyopia ("lazy eye") the affected eye is "turned off" by the brain to prevent double-vision. As a result, the neural wiring to the retina of the affected eye never fully develops.

After a critical time, even if eye alignment is surgically corrected, the vision in the affected eye will never be normal. It matters not if the finest in optics is applied - because the wiring isn't there.

Spectacles - and laser surgeries - can perhaps moderate, but not correct, the problem. Because the problem is in the wiring.
In like manner social skills training can perhaps moderate - but these do not correct the problem, here.

It is not possible to change for better; but perhaps it is possible to change for worse (basically, this is my hypothesis)? If I have difficulty in socializing and, because that, I will choose solitary activities, perhaps my difficulties in socializing will become even worse with the time.

The main differences for me between autism and PDs are, that you are born with autism and that you develop PDs in your life.

But I think there is more to it and isn't it possible that autism is something like a PD you are born with?