people here anti ASD science?

[Catrona]

i do research on synapse formation and their development... as it relates to learning abilities... including sensory formation kinda....  things relating to isses ASD people have/develop

interested in how autism works developmentally.

[maldoror]

You're a neuroscientist?

[Christopher McCandless]

I see it as in most cases little more than a hobby or fulfilling ones curiosities, as opposed to something that will benefit us.

[Catrona]

You're a neuroscientist?

still in school for it

[Catrona]

I see it as in most cases little more than a hobby or fulfilling ones curiosities, as opposed to something that will benefit us.

what kind of "help" would you want?

i can foresee genetherapy to minimize impacts for children as well as possible improvement for adults.

[The_P]

This shit annoys me because I feel like a lab rat for some dyslexic NT.

Fuck that. 

[duncvis]

I think the main issue some people on the spectrum have with it is that the way we perceive the world is completely different due to our sensory differences, differing cognitive strengths/weaknesses and methods of processing information - some aspects such as learning to develop schemas and situational rigidity are sane responses to the world in which we have to operate and the deficits we have in working in it compared to non autistic people, but some seem clearly neurological. how do you reprogram an adult brain to learn to think differently? what impact would that have on our personalities or talents?

Do you see what I'm getting at? Autism is a double edged sword, and I think it is hard to separate the 'condition' from the individual, as some of our behaviours and learned preferences etc are a reaction to our neurological differences to the norm. 

[Christopher McCandless]

I see it as in most cases little more than a hobby or fulfilling ones curiosities, as opposed to something that will benefit us.

what kind of "help" would you want?

i can foresee genetherapy to minimize impacts for children as well as possible improvement for adults.

Complete social change, in other words for society to be tipped upside down and a new society system to take hold.

[maldoror]

Catrona, since you're studying to be a psychologist, do you have any idea which field of psychology offers the most opportunity for travel?

[The_P]

I don't need no stinking "help". My outlook and perspective on things are my own, and no-one is going to alter them just because my line of thinking doesn't suit society at large.

In summary, go fuck yourselves.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Ass Fairy 69]

I'm interested in trying to mitigate the unpleasant stuff with nutrients, since it's relatively easy to see what something like carnitine will do if you take it, and how that ties into autism.  I'm not really into looking at things like antipsychotics at this point in time, both because it's unclear what they will do to an aspie, and because the risk of permanent harm will outweigh the likely benefits in many cases.  If pharma ever wants to make a drug which is actually intended for treating ASDs, I will be very interested, but to date they have done nothing of the kind.  Their interest in us only seems to extend to selling us prescriptions for drugs that they already designed for unrelated purposes.  I'm not willing to buy into the idea that ritalin, prozac and risperdal are some sort of psychiatric ginseng that should be the default response to anything & everything.

[Ass Fairy 69]

what kind of "help" would you want?

Personally?

Only social change.  My autism has usually helped me more than hurt me, and I have no wish to be different.

[Randy]

Sure


AS appears to be a diease of autointoxification.  I read all the bs because I thought I had it, however, when I came to wrongplanet, I questioned it.  I underestimate myself in a crippling way.  Its nothing self actualization could not fix, now I feel great.

[El]

I see it as in most cases little more than a hobby or fulfilling ones curiosities, as opposed to something that will benefit us.

what kind of "help" would you want?

i can foresee genetherapy to minimize impacts for children as well as possible improvement for adults.

Genetherapy is a touchy subject because it can be taken to be seen as an issue of eugenics rather than of symptom alleviation- maybe sort of akin to the reaction you'd get if you suggested trying to genetically elimiate a certain ethnicity (pick one) because they tended to be discriminated against and therefore their lives were going to be harder than other ethnicities.  That just wouldn't fly.

I think it's am important and oft-overlooked consideration that, because Autism does seem to have a good deal of its source in genetics/in people's basic organic makeup, that it does become an issue of eugenics- if not in the mass-murder type of way, then maybe more in the designer-babies sense (if you don't think that sounds too bad, maybe watch the movie Gattica to get an idea of some of the worries people ahve about that, if you're not already aware).  Further, we (they?  I don't even fucking know what I am in this respect any more but that's tenagential) value ourselves as individuals, as who we are.  No longer being autistic isn't a simple question like dying your hair or even correcting your vision; it's much more global than that, as far as who we are.  Depending on what you view Autism as being/entailing/how integral a part of being "you" you see it as, no longer being Autistic could be more like the quetsion of a complete personality change, perhaps almost as severe as a brian transplant.

Eh, I could say more, but I prolly sound fucking pretentious, especially since I (I think just today) came out of the closet that I question that I even have AS.  I shoudl point out that even when I was sure I had it, I could see both sides of this:  Help us, yes, as you would anyone who struggles in any way (if you were of the inclination) and help involves change.  But changing us doesn't mean completely erasing and elimiinating us- there is something of value to us as well.

[maldoror]

It's definitely important that we learn what causes autism, whether or not some kind of cure or preventative treament necesarrily comes afterwards. But I'm going to feel really, really shitty if it does.