Know many folks from back in the day, including a good friend I have known for over 4 decades.
Nonverbal autistic people are still quite rare. I know a few (actually, I know their parents, and, through them, their children). Tough gig.
High-functioning autistic folks can actually have advantages. We can be socially awkward (usually, abruptness, and nonreactive to emotional stimulus). It would easily be brushed off as "He's just a bit odd." Doesn't seem to be an actual disability; especially if the person is a wizard at some skill.
In my case, I'm a really, really good programmer. I can map out a fairly complex system map in my head. It helps me to avoid writing things down, which affords flexibility. I am also anal about Quality and formatting. Most of y'all would probably laugh at my code.
An ex-employee of mine was absolutely jaw-droppingly good. He regularly stunned the scientists and engineers in Tokyo, and he had a high school diploma.
Know a guy who’s son is non-verbal, definitely a tough gig.
My friend is highly creative as a writer, and definitely anal in terms of rewriting until a piece is perfect in word choice, tempo, etc. He struggled his entire life with close emotional connections, only after a divorce sought some introspective counseling which led to his understanding of where he sat on the spectrum. When he told me, it was like blinders were lifted and I spun back through dozens of interactions that we had had over the years and it was an *of course!* moment. Made perfect sense in hindsight.
And it really is a social disability, not a superpower. We really only display advantages in things we train ourselves to be proficient in, which tend to he things that do not bore or frustrate us because of other people's expectations of us. I got proficient in computers because a computer was host to a tiny world in which I had absolute control. But a sufficiently motivated allistic person could get just as proficient in this field as I. In fact the advantage has swung back toward allistics because the MBAs have taken over computing as a profession, and through Agile, Scrum, and other methodologies and "best practices" enforce it as something to be practiced on their terms.
Not so sure “sufficiently motivated” folks could just learn this.
I have what I call my “fugue state.” It’s a fairly “timeless,” focused, self-centered state, where “everything flows.” I get a lot done, when in this state, but many hours can go by, and it’s exhausting.
I couldn’t describe what I’m doing, to save my life. In fact, the best way to break it, is to ask me what I’m doing. I stutter, grope for words, mumble, etc. I can write detailed, articulate code documentation, explaining it, but I can’t verbalize it. I sound like a blithering idiot.
I would not do well, with pair programming.
I also get pissed when I’m yanked from that state. I get quite cranky. Lasts for about half an hour, afterwards.
That kind of thing makes it hard to play well with others. When I was a manager, I didn’t have that issue.
Pretty sure the ability is there in most people. Not that many do it, but the potential is there. All too many people are disengaged and trapped into apathy by their experiences.
> I have what I call my “fugue state.” It’s a fairly “timeless,” focused, self-centered state, where “everything flows.” I get a lot done, when in this state, but many hours can go by, and it’s exhausting.
Yup. That state was dubbed "flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in 1975:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
Among "normies" flow seems to often have a physical activity component, and is more common among athletes, musicians, artists, surgeons, and similar professions. Many gamers would recognize themselves in your description as well. The more purely mental version you experience is less common, though it isn't restricted to pursuits like math or coding. Writers (of types as diverse as journalists and fiction authors) can experience it too, for example.
> I also get pissed when I’m yanked from that state. I get quite cranky. Lasts for about half an hour, afterwards.
Oh my yes. I can get cranky enough to lose the whole rest of the day. Also note that the writer that gets cranky when interrupted is practically a trope.
It is worth noting that a state of flow, while extremely productive, may not be the best state for improving your skill (although it does allow polishing skills smooth, as it were), which is better served by deliberate practice of activities that are a just bit too challenging to allow entering the flow state (if they are harder than "a bit too hard", it may help to do it at half speed, which can feel a bit wierd for something like coding).
> That kind of thing makes it hard to play well with others. When I was a manager, I didn’t have that issue.
Well, there is such a thing as "team flow" but it doesn't seem to be cultivated deliberately much outside of team sports, improv, and group music. Something similar can occur in group brainstorming sessions, though.
Who's to say it doesn't among programmers? One of the reasons why I vastly prefer mechanical keyboards is because their feedback smooths out the process of typing in flow state. It requires less mental effort to type on a mechanical, which means flow is less likely to get disrupted. Plus I can feel the rhythm of the keys beneath my fingers, and rhythms help keep my brain on track.
I'd suspect you just have adhd and not autism. But psychologists are just humans like everyone else and hears "social problems" and sets out to match anything you have to autism criteria, even though the person obviously isn't autistic.
The other things you talk about just maps to adhd as well, like being easily distracted, super focus on things you care about.
Think Jon Bernthal and Ben Affleck, except as geeks, instead of badasses, and without the cool Airstream.
This is usually code speak for tab/space nazi.
I once met someone where the file add to end with a comment with the filename, otherwise he'd berate the code while foaming from the mouth.
But where's the fun in that?
I guess I lucked out, because that's about as close as you could get to an "on the spectrum" diagnosis before Lorna Wing's work recognizing the significance of Asperger's syndrome.
Eh, there are a lot of hands involved in that effort. American is being attacked by an invisible hekatoncheiros. (Actually, it's more an an emperor's new clothes thing. Everyone can see it.)
If there’s an industry making money here, it’s ABA therapy, not pharma.
It sounds like you are saying an autism diagnosis does not help people, and also possibly that people who are not "actually autistic" are being labeled that way when they are actually socially awkward/nerdy/??. I don't actually know how being labeled autistic is hurting people... I see a few people who it really helps and many whose results seem unaffected by the label, for better or worse.
Source: colleagues on the spectrum (1 good result, 1 getting by, others no + or -), and a friend's child on the spectrum has absolutely, unquestionably benefitted.
I'm going to infer you have some anecdote about this... it's the semi-anonymous internet maybe it would be productive to share it so people see the other side.