New research brings autism screening closer to reality

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Anything can make you who you are. If someone is born without a limb, then they have different experiences then someone born with all their limbs. If you are born a conjoined twin, a person with downs syndrome, even something as simple as being short versus being tall.

That type of stuff doesn't make you who you are. That's just the baggage everybody in some form or another has to cart around.

Wow, Litigious, so good to hear from your outrageous ass again.

Every1 has baggage; autism is baggage of sorts. It's like layers of an onion - Strip them away 1 by 1 and all you're left with is empty space. So, _ _



_ _ the ultimate power would be the power to change from mind to mind at will, with only the continuity of consciousness to connect them. And one man's poison is another man's meat - I'm proud of who I am, because who I am is, in part, a flexibility as to what I am, as well as the ability to deal with not being fully 'neurotypical'. If we are simply content to be who we are and damn every1 else, how can we even know who we are in relation to everything else?



I don't see a problem with any of that; it just sounds like human technology and human feelings running their natural course. It won't make any1 inferior all of a sudden, or prevent NTs from learning how to deal with us.

So no, I don't fear or object to pre-natal screening for autism; nor do I see it as 'bad'. We keep our rights, respect, and abilities, but without having our suffering inflicted on future generations. And no, I'm not implying we suffer more than some1 with schizophrenia or cerebral palsy of whatever. It's all baggage

Afew words about disability - Is a hole part of the ground around it? A hole in the ground is an aspect of that patch of ground, but it doesn't define it. If it's a small hole (read a mild disability), you can easily cover it over with some planks of wood; it's unlikely to be too ugly (read irritating) to be left alone. Likewise, a 'half-empty' glass is always half-full from the point of view of the water inside it. {By the way Padium, mild AS is not usually considered to be a disability under UK criteria.}

It's that empty space you speak of that's actually the important stuff as that is the consciousness.

I couldn't have put it better myself - The sheer depth of our consciousness is what makes us human.

I notice that every1 here insists on our innate separateness from NT reality until the word 'human' is mentioned - Maybe this is because we do infact share a common humanity with NTs that most of us don't try to put into words, maybe because it's something that conventional opinion rejects as scary and unreal.

But back to 'complexity'



As far as I recall, a human embryo's brain is connected up about as well as spaghetti hoops in tomato sauce. That's kind of simple, just as a day spent counting from 1 to 1,000,000,000 is simpler than a day spent as a CEO.



My point had nothing to do with those faculties - I was explaining that the capacity of the human mind is less full-filled by simple, physical processes than it is by complex, socially-mediated processes. Willpower can only go so far if you can't 'tune in' to those 'higher-level' processes (such as group empathy), still less if you just barge into situations and end up irritating people.

Something I forgot to mention earlier -



was that nature conceals nature just as art conceals art. In this case, the main difference between Gary's multi-layered structured mental processes and an NT's is not so much that the NTs are empathising rather than systemising, but more that an NT is not aware of the unconscious mental processes needed to arrive at an intuition. That self-concealing intuitiveness is pretty neat when you consider the complexity of his/her socialising, though in my obviously limited experience, intuitive sensing/feeling is always larger-than-life as compared with having a mere thought, and far more beautiful. It's as if all the unconscious stages of the precess have been muddled together as a complete package that hits you all at once .

Let's not forget about the possibility of reversing high foetal testosterone, by the way. After all, if you say the world's f*~@ed up, you might just as well say high foetal testosterone f*~@s you up .

not really I know someones going to post some obscure scientific study or something else that is not really correct but in the end we have the same potential as any NT. Working harder at socialization is only one part of the equation. The theory of mind issue I think is lacking any sort of real point since aspies can have the definition of theory of mind and NTs still can't. So how do you come up with this theory what is the evidence behind it?

One of my points has been that we have the same potential as NTs. How to fulfil it though?



I agree 'Theory of Mind' is probably a red herring - Some auties have said that they failed the Sally-Anne test because they believed NTs to be omniscient - After all, they know what's going on in each other's heads?!

The part of my post that you quoted:



dosen't seem to need any further explanation/justification, assuming it's being read by aspies who are typically adept at systems thinking . Hopefully we can agree, given some life experience, that real-time interactions demand higher rates and more varied types of input and output than other mental activities. Though my conceptual split of brain functions into container and contents is, I hope, original

actually we allow threads to go where they will (unless someone wants to sell insurance or offer employement on the interwebs) . . .

Merle

Ah - just I heard as a criticism from elsewhere (I skimmed Intensity a while back) that this place was rather over moderated.

As I know, it is very difficult to distinguish between:

- LFA and HFA
- HFA and AS
- AS and "normality"

Then, if it is difficult to establish where is the frontier between "autism" and "non-autism" (and, if autism is "dimensional" instead of "categorical", probably that frontier does not even exist), it will be allmost impossible to develop a test for autism.

There is something wrong with this page, it's cut in half, not always on the same side of the screen either, so I am going to repost until am on the next one.

Okay, I thought about it, and can see that the issue might have something to do with equal opportunities/rights.

ie: A woman who gets pregnant and decides to have an abortion is like an employer who posts ads for a vacancy and then realises s/he can't afford to pay anyone so cancels the recruitment process. A woman who gets pregnant and then has an abortion because her baby might be AS is like an employer who has a vacancy but will only take certain applicants.

The question then becomes; is "life", ( perhaps only in times of over-population ), like a job for which you need to have the right qualifications? And in which case what abilities could society reasonably demand of potential human beings before allowing them the post of life, and what demands would constitute discrimination?

Or is "life" something which everyone, regardless of their capacities, should have a right to? If that is the case abortion on demand would need to be reconsidered; the two are interlinked; perhaps why it has become such a hot issue again.

Could society ever reasonably require that humans meet certain criteria if they want to be born? The bottle-neck created by the rapid drops in fertility rates all over the world, the pressure on resources created by over-population, etc, might explain, ( if not necessarily justify ), increasing "interest" in just who gets born. Is someone going to be useful? Or are they going to be a burden?

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Last edited by ouinon on 13 Jan 2009, 8:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

There is something seriously wrong with this page, so I am going to repost until am on next one.
Okay, I thought about it, and can see that the issue might have something to do with equal opportunities/rights.

ie: A woman who gets pregnant and decides to have an abortion is like an employer who posts ads for a vacancy and then realises s/he can't afford to pay anyone so cancels the recruitment process. A woman who gets pregnant and then has an abortion because her baby might be AS is like an employer who has a vacancy but will only take certain applicants.

The question then becomes; is "life", ( perhaps only in times of over-population ), like a job for which you need to have the right qualifications? And in which case what abilities could society reasonably demand of potential human beings before allowing them the post of life, and what demands would constitute discrimination?

Or is "life" something which everyone, regardless of their capacities, should have a right to? If that is the case abortion on demand would need to be reconsidered; the two are interlinked; perhaps why it has become such a hot issue again.

Could society ever reasonably require that humans meet certain criteria if they want to be born? The bottle-neck created by the rapid drops in fertility rates all over the world, the pressure on resources created by over-population, etc, might explain, ( if not necessarily justify ), increasing "interest" in just who gets born. Is someone going to be useful? Or are they going to be a burden?

.

Last edited by ouinon on 13 Jan 2009, 7:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

There is something seriously wrong with this page, so I am going to repost until am on next one.

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Last edited by ouinon on 13 Jan 2009, 7:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

There is something wrong with this page, so I am going to repost until am on next one. [

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Last edited by ouinon on 13 Jan 2009, 7:51 am, edited 1 time in total.