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Comment by te_platt | Hacker News Reader

I have a nephew who has Asperger's Syndrome - severe. One of the things he loves to do is invent languages and list thousands of words as a dictionary and even write short stories with them. The image seems to have just a touch of the same feel. Significant repetition (NCBE) and limited variation of the letters (E is overrepresented). The story hints that the victim wasn't competent mentally. It mentions he could read and write; why mention that unless people would think he couldn't for some other reason?

Anyway, just a thought, probably doesn't mean anything.

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"McCormick was a high school dropout, but he was able to read and write …"

As a high school dropout myself, I'm a little insulted by the implication that all high school dropouts are illiterate!

On the other hand, hopefully we don't graduate illiterates.

Well, I guess that depends on whether your standards for literacy include knowing the differences between "they're", "there", and "their".

Personally, having worked as a writer and wanting to be a novelist, my standard for literacy does include knowing the differences between "they're/there/their", "we're/were/where/wear", etc. So from what I've seen about 50% of students are graduated illiterate.

I'd also add that they should know how to use who and whom, but then that would be making our population 90% illiterate.

Whatever happened to whom? You never hear or read it anymore.

It's gone the way of will and shall, nobody seems to know or care about the difference.

"Do not ask for who the bell tolls..." -- sounds like crap, but that's the way they'd write it today.

no they wouldn't. they'd write "don't ask who the bell tolls for." which sounds fine.

Asperger's precludes anyone from having the necessary toolbox to be even remotely considered 'streetsmart', as is mentioned in the article.

Interesting perspective however.

Depends on where they are on the spectrum - one of the better salespeople I knew was diagnosed mildly AS. He was extremely smart, had gotten very good at reading people's mannerisms, and didn't get uneasy with that sort of manipulation - it's not a black and white thing.

And, frankly, "Street Smart" + "Murdered" = "Not Street Smart Enough"

Granted I'm not a psychologist but am extremely familiar with the literature/research on AS, and everything I can recall promotes a severe disability in recognizing, interacting, and making connections with/between individuals, groups and environments--which is how I would define 'streetsmarts.'

But you're absolutely right in saying that it isn't black and white. There are also plenty of misdiagnosed cases; and the research and criteria continually evolve.

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