Imaginary Friends and Autism (please help this researcher!)

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Please email these researchers to help dispel one of the myths about autism:

I had an imaginary friend in my preschool days. I don't remember personally, but have heard plenty of antidotes. Her name was Daughter...does that say something about my imaginative skills?

i am my own best friend.

I would read Autism and the Crisis of Meaning by Alex Durig Ph.D.

The ability to establish an imaginary friend requires a well developed concept of social agency. I would investigate the issue from the standpoint of a micro-sociologist who specializes in symbolic interactionism.

As a young child I pretended to have an imaginary friend for a little while... my sisters had them (one had several) so I thought I was supposed to have one as well, and made one up... but I didn't actually play with or talk to one.

As for imagination in general, I can be fairly imaginative, but not in that way; I'll spontaneously come up with creative or unusual ideas, but I never did actively play out fantasies unless it was just to go along with what other kids were doing. Anyway, I don't think I lacked imagination, but I seemed to lack the desire to act out fantasies... it's more a matter of how my imagination is applied than how well it works, though.

People with alexithymia have low spontaneous imagination and high controlled imagination. alexithymia is common in autism.
A consciously controlled Imagination is still an imagination.

I had an imaginary horse. His name was Buster.

imma post this here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism

*insert weird statements on string theory & multiple dimensions affecting the presence of 'spirits' - if they arent just reflections of other worlds - or if these 'ghosts' are literally the 'spiritual' aspect of said material - just as all matter has mass and mass creates gravity - or accurately gravity accompanies mass (as well as weak/strong nuclear force & electromagnetism, but im lazy bleh)*

when i was a little kid, it seems in retrospect that i wasn't too good at the imaginary friend thing because i had no RL friends but i did have a toilet plunger that i took to bed with me like some kids would take a teddy bear to bed with 'em, and my parents didn't understand this behavior, so they took it away from me and stuck it in a pile of goo.

Ridiculous myth.

I never had an imaginary friend, but I do & always have had an imagination.

My older brother had an imaginary friend when he was a young kid, before I was born I believe - but he won't admit to himself that he's also AS yet at this point.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

Sir Gottfried is not imaginary. In fact, he is plush stuffed bear cub. I.e. he is tangible. Regardless, Sir Gottfried and I have spent many a holiday together and we share a flat. G. is so much fun and I consider him one of my best.

Researcher is deluded. Seriously, how would this research even be reputable (or funded)?

auntblabby, you're my good WP friend, even if you are imaginary.

I am aspie, I am real, imaginary friends are real in my head. So what, pray tell do you mean by, we have no imagination. I clearly remember watching Big Bang Theory and Sheldon Cooper can imagine himself as the "Flash."

Of course I do murder imaginary friends often when they don't do what I tell them. I so hope this is my imagination, otherwise I am a mass serial killer on the loose.

Save all the little animals first! Where's Noah's Ark when I need one?