Talk:Asperger syndrome/Archive 2

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Children with Asperger

My 5 year old son has something going on and I think it may be Aspergers, however there are many general traits that he definitely does not share. He will start Kindergarten in the Fall and has been accepted into the Special Ed department and I am getting him back into regular therpy as well. One of the problems I have had in getting him help (I have always known something was different and tried to get a diagnosis at age 3, although I had no knowledge of Asperger at the time) is that people dont thing there's anything wrong with him other than being a little "odd." Do any of you have experiences of early diagnosis you could share?

Wikipedia isn't a discussion forum. Try searching appropriate places for discussion from links that you can find from the article -Hapsiainen 19:14, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Links

I wikified the article a little - many links were then removed by User:Hapsiainen. I've reverted to reinclude them; please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links). Proto 09:44, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You wikified the article too much. See Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context. Words like trains and dinosaurs are not relevant, because they are not very related to the topic of the article. They, and several other things, are subject that aspies could be interested in, nothing more. It is were unlikely that a person looking for information about Asperger's syndrome would like to read about them. They'd rather read about autism or Hans Asperger. You also linked words in plural although it is a rule that article title is singular, plural is a exception of it. Also, markup like [[imaginary friend]]s is perfectly correct, don't try to complicate it to [[imaginary friend|imaginary friends]]. -Hapsiainen 19:31, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Label-craziness

Recently, some researchers have speculated that many well-known people including Andy Warhol, Andy Kaufman, Craig Nicholls, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Glenn Gould, Gary Numan, Erik Satie, Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Friedrich Nietzsche, Theodore Kaczynski, William James Sidis, Bobby Fischer, Steven Spielberg and Bill Gates have or had AS, as they showed some Asperger's related tendencies, such as intense interest in one subject and social problems.

I think these researchers may be exaggerating just a bit. Just because someone has an intense interest in a subject doesn't mean that they have a mental disorder. They're probably just extremely dedicated to their work, and their work is appealing to them. → JarlaxleArtemis 19:45, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Actually these speculations are based on their life stories, including their particlar eccentricities. If you fill out a form in a pre-diagnosis meeting you will hae that scored and it will tell you if you have the common symptons. They rank these people based on their behaviour and evaluate them. It is not conclusive evidence as they can't test the people themselves, but it is good to show people that people have been sucessfully dealing with the condition for hundreds of years, and gives people something to relate to.

autist vs. autistic

I've reverted the changes made by 172.215.166.84. This user changed all instances of autistic to autist. Autistic is a far more common term than autist: autist gets 41,800 hits in google, and many of these are non-english sites; autistic gets 1,300,000. While I accept a search for autistic will have picked up many uses of autistic as an adjective, I've never heard the word autist used in everyday speech. Is there any reason to prefer the word autist rather than autistic? I have no problem with the use of other autism-specific terms on the page, like neurotypical. They are fully explained, and solid reasoning is given for using them. I don't find any solid reasoning to use autist though. Graham 03:11, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree with Graham. However it might help to add a phrase stating, "autistics (sometimes referred to as autists)". Gbeeker 14:47, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Some people consider "autist" an offensive label...although "people with autism" is prefered to "autistics". Guettarda 14:59, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Speculative diagnoses

I have removed the following speculative diagnoses of Asperger's from the "gift and curse" section, since no references were provided for them. Please feel free to add them back once you have found a reputable reference (i.e. not just the web page of some random non-specialist) to support their inclusion:

Andy Warhol, Andy Kaufman, Craig Nicholls, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Glenn Gould, Gary Numan, Erik Satie, Nikola Tesla, Lewis Carroll, Friedrich Nietzsche, Theodore Kaczynski, William James Sidis, Bobby Fischer, Steven Spielberg and Bill Gates

Remember that Wikipedia is not for original research. Thanks. —Steven G. Johnson 21:06, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Some links removed

I removed the following:

  • The Geek Syndrome Reliable self test for Aspergers Syndrome creared by adults with Aspergers.

Um... the site itself says that it is for informational value only... it could go in the informational section

This is duplicated from Autism Research Center: Other Tests

--Ryan Norton T | @ | C 21:59, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

The "Child Author" content removed

The bit about the persecution of aspie child authors whose careers are ruined by too much homework is the well-known perseveration of a particular fellow, Maurice Frank, the maintainer of Spectrum Fairness and author of this Young Authorship article. He is known for posting at length on this topic in many, many AS forums, and sometimes getting banned for flaming when others don't agree, etc. The Spectrum Fairness site itself could probably be well-described as a site that exists solely to harass those who have banned him or otherwise angered him, though on the surface it may appear more innocent. (This is why I am editing anonymously, to avoid drawing his attention.) At any rate, there is no indication that Frank's child authorship issue is a common concern among Aspies, so I deleted that sentence from the article, and the Spectrum Fairness link description misrepresented the actual content there, so I did delete that for now as well. Unless we are going to link to the blog of every Aspie with a grudge, Spectrum Fairness shouldn't have a link. If there is evidence that the child author issue is more than one Aspie's perseveration, that should be included, but it seems not to be, as the links I find in Google to this topic all end up pointing back at Mr. Frank (who is most likely the editor known as Tern, who added the Child Author content to this article).

Another note -- the item added by Tern to the Luke Jackson reference, "with the book's structuring and editing done by his mother according to the Times's review of 16 August 2002," is another typical Frank remark, as he often comments that Jackson didn't complete his book by himself. This might be considered for deletion too, as whether Luke had any help at all is not exactly relevant to the context of this page, but I'll leave that decision for someone else for now. Anonymous 10:43, 18 August 2005 (UTC)


Featured articles are only allowed to be edited "without compromising previous work". Anyone can see that Anonymous, aka 24.19.0.114, is vandalising previous work in pursuit of a libellous personal vendetta. If this ends up with an edit war and the article getting put under a neutrality dispute, it will be recordedly Wikipedia's automatic legal duty towards preventing child cruelty instead of causing it, to side with me. The child author issue is a child cruelty issue, with a particular relevance to Aspies (i) because a lot of us write compulsively, so it's a clinical detail about suffering we can be caused (ii) because the scene's bigwigs use celeb promotion of 2 child authors in pursuit of aspie awareness,and this is child cruelty unless it is made known how other child authors' chances get ruined by adult crimes of power.
There is not a single place where I have been banned for flaming because others don't agree with this. There is one community that is well known for being run entirely in its own leaders' interests and being shockingly autocratic, that has a large and growing number of victims who say its carelessness of people is now catching up with it, and who it has tried to harrass on a cross-site basis, which banned me directly because the leader felt this issue should be suppressed to make it easier for herself to ingratiate with bigwig doctors oppositely to the stated purpose she had created that community for. I frankly suspect 24.19.0.114 either is her or an associate! She has behaved that maliciously on a pattern.
You don't delete content about child cruelty on the argument that you think it only interests one person. Meanwhile Phad Fife, Aspie Village, Aspievision, the Scottish Parliament Cross-Party Group on ASD, and Autism Cymru, are all communities interested in it.
I never make claims of my own about Luke's authorship, I only quote published sources on it. I'm sure Luke is totally capable of writing books by himself. As long as there is resistance to caring about wronged child authors, information that's already public about adult interference with the ones who were allowed to make it needs referring to in support of concern about the problem.
Spectrum Fairness was not a one-person creation, and is a participative site with content from a number of people. Tern 17:38 Aug 19
Heh. Tern, or Maurice, I am not anyone who has ever dealt directly with you, and I am definitely not the person you think I am. I am just a person who has watched your actions for some time in a variety of AS forums, and noted your perseveration and lack of perspective on that topic -- and was appalled to see that you had managed to insert it here as well, into a page that is not supposed to represent one person's POV, but a consensus. My concern is that your issue is not appropriate for Wikipedia, at least not as you presented it when you inserted your content into the article. The "child authors destroyed by homework" is how you interpret your own life story, but it is in no way considered a typical Aspie issue; as I said in my original discussion post, the internet sources for the topic can be traced back to you. Deleting it (while providing legitimate reasons as well as bringing it here for discussion) is in no way vandalism, and not part of a vendetta either. I would gladly sign my name to this post if I trusted you to not put my name in giant letters on your "Spectrum Fairness" site.
I would ask that other editors investigate this issue and determine whether it makes sense to leave Tern's content. I have no wish to vandalize, but I certainly do care about the reputation of both Wikipedia and this particular page. By the way, in full disclosure, I also added indentations to Tern's comment here to make it clearer who said what -- but in no way did I change any content. Anonymous, 23:22 Aug 19


I would doubt that the majority of aspies are child authors. In order to be defined as "typical", an issue does not need to affect the majority, it only needs to affect some cases forming a pattern. If you are not that person, then as I said you are probably an associate, for the personal attacks you made upon me here were repeats of lies that only she circulates. If you think there exists another perspective on the topic, tell us it. it is not perspective, but just malice, to argue: I arbitrarily unprovably think this has only happened to one person therefore we shouldn't care about it. The lack of child authors in the period 1978-2001 is evidence of a stolen generation, i.e. of far more than one person, but even if it had only happened to one person the obvious fact that it can therefore happen to others still makes it a child cruelty issue.
Wikipedia is supposed to represent neutrality, not consensus! They are extremely different things! A neutrality based on not censoring things that are factually based, but presenting all the alternative views on them if they are contentious. Consensus is often bias. You pigheadedly striving to suppress all awareness of one issue, to hide it from the public, is obviously bias of a sinister controlling form. Medical bias, in a topic like AS. If instead you add to this page straight after my bit, a factually argued statement, containing no personal reference to me and no assumption that wronged child authors aren't equal to Luke in capability, saying why the destruction of authorship is not a wrong but a perfectly healthy natural beneficial part of an aspie's quality of childhood, then I pledge here that I won't delete it. Neutrality will require so. I'm confident that all readers who care a damn about aspies' life opportunities will think it an obvious mean spiteful nonsense.
What editors have to investigate is pure logic. To wit: Wikipedia's reputation is increased by having the care to refer to a serious and sourced child cruelty issue affecting the group who this page is about, and nobody can possibly reason that as bad for reputation. 24.19.0.114 is bullying, by arguing that it can be assumed axiomatically that a certain contributor and anything that comes from him constitutes bad reputation. That is what does not make sense, it's an argument from prejudice. It's quite simply personal victimising, a recognised major form of vandalism. Wikipedia's reputation requires never siding with personal victimising, and never suppressing awareness of aspects of a topic that are child cruelty issues. Wikipedia has a good reputation because it has not committed, and nobody conceives for a second it will commit, the 2 serious crimes of harming children and of fraudulent medical bias, that siding with you on this would immutably knowingly be. Tern 12:34 Aug 20
See below for more on this dispute. But I will repeat that I am not the person you think I am, nor am I an associate in any way. I've never had any interaction with you before this week on Wikipedia. 24.19.0.114 21:23, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
@Tern: If it's "factually based" and affects a SIGNIFICANT number of Aspergians, cite a respected source, such as Attwood, Gillberg, or Wing. I'm guessing you don't even know who these people are, beyond what little is mentioned about them in this article. And above all, stop equating disagreement with your one-person crusade with cruelty to children. That's nothing more or less than a gratuitous insult to others, and worse, trivializes more serious forms of child abuse.
If young authorship is defined as the preseveration of one AS-diagnosed person and is thus censored as not pertinent, then we should also remove personal attacks against the same person. While I do not share Tern's perspective on this issue, I know he feels very strongly about real and perceived personal injustices. We have all fallen victim to varying extents to personal injustices and many of us find it hard to move on. Our media constantly harps on about tolerance, diversity awareness and equal rights, yet a rational observer should note the disparity between rhetoric and hard facts. Maybe if our society were more honest, we could contextualise our personal experiences better. My daughter has thrown tantrums because she doesn't have the latest and greatest mobile phone or because I inadvertently used her mug, the temporary anger she feels is of course totally out of proportion to a reality where millions of kids don't know where their next dinner will come from, but unfortunately typical of kids constantly fed illusions by the media. Literal interpretation is considered a facet of the AS-diagnosed. In this Tern offers an exemplary model. If one can be obsessed with video game characters, why can one not obsess with short trousers? Both defy reason, but only the former is considered normal. Neil 25 Aug 2005.
Exactly which "personal attacks" are you referring to? Disagreement does not constitute a personal attack, nor does the description of Tern/Maurice/Aspieknee's activities here or in various other forums. I think editors here have been remarkably diplomatic under the circumstances, with very few exceptions. (I am pretty sure the strongest language I used was saying that he has a lack of perspective, and that he retaliates on his Spectrum Fairness site.) As far as the rest of your post, of course Tern's focus on this topic is textbook Aspie (I'm one too; believe me, I can obsess with the best of 'em), but that doesn't mean the child author topic is necessarily appropriate for this Wikipedia page. Tern is entitled to perseverate on this topic (and believe me, when I say "perseverate" it is not pejorative in any way), but he is not entitled to decide how the rest of us must react. ManekiNeko 10:05, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Oh I'll answer that, for the record. You started off this whole crisis by posting out of nowhere a personal attack on me (above), derived irrelevantly from outside Wikipedia - how the hell else do you expect mre to react? - and by arguing from it that editorial decisions here should be made on a basis of character attack. You also gave my name without my consent to. As applies between all of us, I'm entitled to hold the rest of you not to react on a basis of personal prejudice. tern 10:49, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

You know all this is rather interesting and reminds me of something that happened recently when I was programming stuff for one of the projects I was involved with. Quite often people would critisize me for my work, and I would try to respond. Eventually people stopped accepting my work and responding to me. Later, when I asked why they didn't want to deal with me anymore, they said its because I was taking criticism on my work as a personal attack, rather than something to be fixed that had nothing to do with me personally. Distressingly I never could change the opinions of those people about what I did, as I had pretty much solidified the image that I took everything personally. Hopefully this can enlighten someone. --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 10:55, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

You have used your real name quite publicly online when discussing this issue. The name Tern can also be found on the Spectrum Fairness site. At any rate, your writing style would have given you away pretty quickly. You do have a recognizable style, as befits an author...
"As applies between all of us, I'm entitled to hold the rest of you not to react on a basis of personal prejudice." I don't have prejudice toward you. I disagree with you, but disagreement does not equal prejudice and attack. I doubt I can convince you of this, but so it goes. ManekiNeko 11:07, 25 August 2005 (UTC)


Disagreement is when you talk about the content of what is written, regardless of its source. Prejudice is when you personalise it. tern 12:11, 25 August 2005 (UTC)


Exactly. BTW your link description was better this time, but I'm still going to have to revert it as the site at the very least simply is not notable enough for inclusion in the links here. --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 12:17, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, I would disagree -- prejudice is pre-judging of someone's arguments based on pre-conceived notions, regardless of the content of these arguments. I think I've made it clear many times that it is the content of Tern's edits that I disagree with; they are POV, etc. If Tern wishes to see that as prejudice, he will, but I can't say it's a logical response. ManekiNeko 20:18, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

wild speculation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Asperger%27s_syndrome&curid=37556&diff=21374471&oldid=21372891

"A recent suggestion has been that it is camouflaged in girls: the obsessive calorie counting of an anorexic may belie some kind of autism."

If there isn't a reference for this it should be reverted/removed....

--Ryan Norton T | @ | C 19:30, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Unattributed POV

I removed the following:

"Asperger's is associated with child authorship, and hence terrible injustice if the chance to achieve child authorship is wrecked by the high-handed demands of school."

This appears to me to be an unattributed POV. -- 80.168.224.108 10:55, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

See #The "Child Author" content removed for more on this. Graham 11:01, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

The unprovability of you being the same person as has committed this act of vandalism before, is the only reason for not putting this page under a neutrality dispute right now, as I would do if it was him who had done it. The statement is factually sourced, and is a medical concern about serious child harm. To call it unattributed is an elementary lie. It can't be a POV unless you can present an argument that wrecking a child's opportunity is not an axiomatic "terrible injustice". If there is an alternative medical view of the issue, then you add it in a following sentence of your own, you don't vandal-delete the original sentence. Don't destroy this featured article's reputation by forcing an edit war whose entire basis is personal spite and criminal medical censorship.Tern 12:45 Aug 20

Graham and Pianoman87, same person, says in his user-page that he's blind. Sorry to hear that, but of course I have to ask, because of it: can he read that a site link is attached to the words "chance to achieve child authorship"? and can he check this discussion page frequently enough to see the last legal notice I wrote to 24.19.0.114 ? Tragically I am now forced to mark this site as disputed neutrality, because of an obsessive vandal who has tagged onto 24.19.0.114's personal libels instead of reading my answer to them, as even if he has a disability he is responsible to do before spoiling a featured page with the worst type of personality-based edit war? Tern 14.46

After edit conflict: Yes, I *can* read the link, I can access almost all the features of this site that sighted people can. Can you sign your user name with "~~~~" in future though? The link to the tern article is confusing. As for your addition to the article, I agree with what 24.19.0.114 said above. wikipedia is not a soapbox, and it does not exist to represent the views of just one writer. I find no evidence that your views are held by even a small minority of the autistic community. Therefore, they do not belong in the article. For your information, I have aspergers syndrome as well, and also have strong views about what could've been done to make my childhood better. I have not written about them, but even if I did, there would be no way I'd put them in this article. Graham 14:02, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Answer directly what I said about CHILD CRUELTY, or else your lack of answer to it will associate you with it. That's logical. On what grounds directly do you deny that your medically biased personally preferential censoring of this page IS A DIRECT ACT OF EXACERBATION OF THE CRIMINAL ABUSE OF MY CHILDHOOD, and therefore also a direct criminal act against present children in the same situation? You have to answer directly and committally. I am putting a repeat of the question onto Spectrum Fairness, where you have an absolute right to reply.

You can find no evidence that this CONCERN ABOUT CHILD CRUELTY, NOT A "VIEW", is not shared by "even a small minority of the autistic community", AND the neutrality of a Wiki article has got nothing whatever to do with the numerical quantity of people who back or oppose a view. That is the whole nature of factual neutrality. "I agree with" and "I find no evidence" ARE POINTS OF VIEW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have not up to this moment deleted the link referring to Luke, because he is not to blame for any of this at all. But now, if all mention of an already wronged group of children is going to be terrorised by a mob conspiracy every few seconds, then for balance's sake all mentions of an unwronged child author come under the neutrality dispute too. Him but not us is not neutrality, it is hate crime and liable child abuse, literally and demonstrably. Tern 15:49 Aug 20

The accusations and requests in your comment are morally and logically flawed: "Answer directly what I said about CHILD CRUELTY, or else your lack of answer to it will associate you with it. That's logical." Um... not so much. At any rate, there is no evidence that the Child Authorship issue is a concern in the Aspie community. All citations can be sourced back to you. Wikipedia is not appropriate for this. I sympathise with your feelings that you have been mistreated, but it is my belief that you have lost perspective on this issue. (For those reading along -- it's clear now why I wanted to stay anonymous, since Maurice has now added this dispute to his Spectrum Fairness site.) 24.19.0.114 21:30, 20 August 2005 (UTC)


The spectrum fairness site is a hate site directed at members of the autism community, including luke jackson. It should not be linked to, and the child author thing is just a way to further attack luke. The extreme obsessive nature displayed by tern/frank does not make any valid argument as to why a very important page should be disrupted and vandalised. Such an important issue to millions around the world should not be put in jeopardy because of one persons obsession and hate crimes. I hope wikipedia can remain firm on the issue, and remain relevant and factual as ever. Grady - 20 August 2005.


Spectrum Fairness's entire purpose is to OPPOSE hate. Exactly like the organised hate campaign being committed here, which exposes how much fraud and ruthlessness is going on in the aspie scene. Grady commits a hate crime by his post here,a position of total selfishness and not wanting to believe in others' suffering. To wit: child authors' chances get ruined by the crimes of the adults in their lives, nobody conceives that Luke is involved in the process,e.g.in my case it happened long before Luke was born. Therefore there is no logic in calling the issue an attack on Luke - and anyone who does so reveals that they unscrupulously want to gag other people's suffering to prevent anyone else being equated with Luke. They want deliberately to keep the crime's effects in place. A deliberate confession of wanting to stuff the public with manipulative fantasises. Here in Grady's post is an open confession of the selfish and deceitful motives behind this HATE CAMPAIGN. The EXTREME OBSESSIVE NATURE of ganging up like a baying mob to suppress medical facts from a page meant to be impartial, also speaks for itself as an organised crime, willing to destroy anyone and anything including Wikipedia. They are disrupting the page, nobody before this outbreak of crazed hate crime began conceived that the addition of a balancing sentence about a cruelty to children was adisruption. I have substantiated the hate crimes I accuse you of. You have not substantiated the hate crimes you accuse me of.

As for 24.19.0.114, you can all see that he has come here and actively recorded his choice neither to answer my question nor refute its premise. In order to accuse me of losing perspective, you must demonstrate that another perspective exists, and not one that says cruelty doesn't matter or should be ignored. You have not refuted my arguemtns of balance and neutrality in the article's content that prove Wikipedia is appropriate for this: because all portrayal of AS without it is unbalanced and biased. and what I have put on Spectrum Fairness is an exposee that a mob seething with hate is organising a hate campaign to silence medical facts and distort public knowledge of AS. Anyone reading here can see that is the whole truth. Tern 09:29 Aug 21

Neutrality dispute?

Who put the neutrality disupute tag on, and why? Is this part of Tern's vendetta, or is there some serious reason for it?

This is part of Tern's vendetta. He put it on after I had reverted the first time, and I kept it there on my second revert. Maybe, it can be removed now. Graham 06:11, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Tern/Frank has done 3 rv's in a day of the same link, doesn't that qualify for a 24 hour ban? he has used his name as tern, and just his ip number for anonymity for this today. 21 August 2005.

No I haven't - they were far from identical, because unlike my persecutors I'm following where possible the Wikipedia principle of trying different adaptations of text when it's under dispute. The mob lusting for rejections and bannings shows clearly the character of group prejudice that is involved in this crisis. Replies to Wikipedia are sometimes jumpy,or if you have been thinking a long time becasuse you are angry or have a lot to do you might reply after your log-in has expired, or in your concentration on the subject you may just forget to log-in when you start. I have experienced all 3 of these accidents on occasion, as producing non-logged-in actions, and one of them happened today. It's nobody's business which one. Also, you knew it was me and my editorial comment line made clear so, so there was no attempt at anonymity. See how the seething mob are looking for excuses to sling mud at me without reasoned thought? Such personal stuff is quite against the rules, you know. Also, my IP number is not solely mine: that gets you, doesn't it, you can't try to discriminate against my IP number without catching another innocent party in the process, or (except today's) know who wrote anything coming from that number, see? Tern 18:17 Aug 21


If you want to be taken seriously, put a lid on the insults and start citing sources. If this were the well-known medical issue you paint it as, you would be able to CITE A SOURCE instead of resorting to the typical crank tactics you have used. You equate legitimate disagreement or polite requests to back up your claims with child abuse, which is hysterical behaviour in both senses of the word, then try to claim it 's everyone else who is showing unreasonable prejudice toward you. The evidence - your behaviour combined with your LACK of actual citations - suggests you're either a troll or a crank, and either way, you do not belong here.

Your lurky anonymity is a typical crank tactic suggesting you don't believe you belong here. If you want to be taken seriously, put a lid on the personal attacks and the vendetta to get rid of one person, and start citing sources. Sources that establish that child author destruction doesn't or can't happen, or is an inocuous or even beneficial contribution to aspie kids' development.

I'm confused. Why should I have to cite sources for things I never said?

Where exactly - source your quote! - did I call this a "well-known" medical issue? Asperger's itself is still not well known. Everyone in forums says they find, as I find too, that most people have never heard of it unless it has crossed their paths. Nothing has stuck in their minds from all the Jacksons' fame games. As long as this issue has been in here, it has been a [sourceable] fact that the medically serious aspie community in my region recognised and cared about the issue, as a child development issue, and it was in their knowledge as a pre-existing source outside Wikipedia. The only things I equate with child abuse are (i) the crime of author destruction itself (ii) saying it doesn't matter (iii) saying it doesn't matter for the public not to know about it, when knowing things leads to stopping them. Given that this whole argument began with 24.19.0.114 posting a ranting personal attack on me against the rules, that exposed my name without consent and repeated lies he has swallowed from a notorious hate site, and argued for suppressing page content on a basis of prejudice against a person, there is no behaviour by me except in defence. Tern 23:28 Aug 21

No-one is saying it doesn't matter. What we are saying is that there is no evidence, so far as I can tell, that it has anything to do with Asperger syndrome.
You are also putting the burden of proof on the wrong side. No-one is claiming that denying kids a chance to exercise their talents is harmless. I'm sure everyone here has stories just like yours that show otherwise. I certainly do, but you don't see me vandalizing Wikipedia pages and putting up hate sites about them. What requires evidence is one or more of the following:
- This particular problem is more likely to affect kids with Asperger syndrome than other, similar problems
- This particular problem is more harmful than others, such as those already mentioned on the page (note that this seems particularly unlikely, compared to, say, being beaten up on a weekly basis for no real reason, as happened to me)
- This particular problem is of wider interest than other similar ones for some reason
You say below that you think one 14-year-old kid's story is a sufficient source. This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the rules for citing sources. As you point out above, neutrality doesn't require consensus, but that doesn't mean everyone's opinion is equal (or even relevant); there still needs to be some sort of respected source - real research, not just one person who clearly has an axe to grind - before something deserves inclusion. Do you have that?


I direct you to the page itself. To - the archive of the most recent unvandalised version you can find. Tern Aug 22,09:56.

The source you (Tern) have referred to above -- the PHAD Fife site -- demonstrates only that the people there have allowed you to post an article about Child Authorship, and that they have included a link to your Spectrum Fairness site under the Personal Accounts section of the Links page. There is no indication on that site that anyone other than you has a concern with the issue of "child authors destroyed by homework". In fact, the site makes a point of including a disclaimer that opinions expressed are not necessarily the opinions of PHAD Fife. The Segar and Attwood citations do not support your point either. The fact that children are capable of authorship, and that aspie children may be skilled at wordplay, is undoubtedly true -- but this does not indicate that child authors other than yourself have been destroyed or abused by homework, or that this is an issue relevant to the Aspie community.
I have no doubt that you believe you were abused and that this issue is important to you. But this does not mean the article on Asperger's Syndrome is the right place for what you have posted, given the lack of supporting evidence for your POV additions to the article.
By the way, full disclosure. I am the same editor as was at 24.19.0.114 earlier. (Different location now.) I have no intention of using the two IP addresses simultaneously for nefarious purposes; in fact, you probably won't see me from that other one for a long time. I just don't have access to the other IP address now. 66.235.6.229 09:39, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Page history

It seems there's something screwy with the page history - it takes me back to Asperger if I go through the diffs. Is this a page cache issue, or do other people see the same thing? Guettarda 06:03, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

verifying quotations

In a recent change, quotes were made from Tony Attwood and Mark Segar. Can someone provide citations for these quotations. The first is from a book, so this only needs the name of the book (possibly edition number), and page number, and the second details of the source of the quote, preferably a web-based source if one exists. Silverfish 17:45, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Attwood - Asperger's Syndrome, p82. Segar - Loving Mr Spock by Barbara Jacobs, p99. Tern 23:28 Aug 21

Ok, I've had a look at the first book (through the feature on amazon.com letting you look inside books) and found the quotes. I've edited the first two a bit, to clarify them. The third seems to be a reasonable paraphrase, the full sentence being "Perhaps the child could be given a creativity prise for lateral thinking that produces a novel word, phrase or description, and incorporate their unusual words or phrases when writing a story book". I cannot comment on the second book. Silverfish 23:22, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
As I mentioned above, I don't see how these quotes back up Tern's child authorship comments, though they are interesting and worthwhile in their own way. Stating that aspie children enjoy wordplay, etc., is great -- but the comment "awareness and concern at this abuse to personal development has grown across a significant number of aspie communities" just isn't backed up by these citations. I guess since the quotes themselves are valuable it doesn't hurt to clarify them, but in the context of the current dispute it seems like the stereotypical "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic." 66.235.6.229 09:45, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree, I don't think they support the claims made about child authorship. Attwood's seems to only to raise the possibility of AS child authors, and Segar's quote doesn't seem to relate to child authorship at all. Also, neither seem to address the alleged wrecking of As children's potential of being child authors. I addressed the authenticity issue, as I thought it was an issue that could be resolved fairly painlessly. I clarified the quotes because it wasn't much additional effort once I verified them. Silverfish 17:06, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
Silverfish, see my coments under "Attempts to fix awkward phrasing stymied" regarding the Attwood citation and its original context. It's not at all what Tern tries to paint it as. 24.77.97.3 20:29, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

unencyclopedic nonsense and advert links

Wow, the last couple days of this article has been interesting, for sure. Anyway, the geeksyndrome link A) I removed it before because it is NOT a reliable test - in fact the site said so that it was for entertainment purposes only B) Now the link refers to a store where you can by darth vader-related merchandise - so its a simple advert - removed for the 2nd time

I also removed the nonsense about there being a "great injustice" because of school or whatever - if you are going to claim that you better have a good source, not some random 14-year old ranting about how he couldn't get published or something.

Anyway, keep up the good edits guys and have fun! --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 22:03, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually that would be a good source, and it is only prejudice to say otherwise. By what you have just said you admit that this really happens to a non-zero number of people. That automatically immutably makes it a great injustice, by the nature of the experience, and automatically a premeditated act of malicious child harm to delete it. And what sort of mind sides with the mob, instead of the individual in struggle to stop a medically serious great injustice getting hushed up? Not an aspie independent-thinking mind. Rather, the archetype of every force in the human animal that aspies regualrly get hurt by. Tern 23:28 Aug 21

3RR filed against Tern

Comment here --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 23:42, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

The page clearly states that the 3RR rule does not apply to restoring pages from "simple vandalism",and a hate campaign like this most obviously is that. Here is a copy of the defence I have filed to this malicious charge:

Comments by Tern Hi, I'm Tern. I require to report that I am being hounded by a personally vicious hate campaign whose like I have never seen on any other Wiki page's history. Content that originally amounted to a single sentence, that referred to facts already known outside Wikipedia, that personally attacked no one, and that is medically important on the scale that it refers to a form of child cruelty, is being targetted for suppression by an organised campaign who vandalise the page every few hours. The vandalisms are so personally malicious that they include deleting reference to the hurt children while leaving in reference to unhurt ones, and fraudulent in that they include removing the neutrality dispute label. All their arguments in discussion consist of libellous personal insults of me and exclusion of material on grounds of personal prejudice, or arguing that the issue should not be counted as mattering if they personally don't believe many people care about it (though I quoted a list of communities that do), and that neutrality matters less than this. When 1 individual being flagrantly bullied by a mob who don't care what they destroy including Wikipedia, and who are committing medical censorship and biasing a page in a way that would associate Wikipedia with child cruelty, it is common sense that the defending side can't be forced to sit passively for a day after the bullying side have pursued their illegal campaign 3 times in a few minutes or hours. Wikipedia must ban this hate campaign, to show the public it has effective ethics. Also, the use of the IP address was not an attempt to dodge the rule at all, as there was no anonymity or hiding of my identity involved, and I answered that malicious charge fully in discussion.- Tern, 09:53 Aug 22.

I have attempted to resolve this dispute to the best of my ability, I am considering asking for page protection. By the way, an alleged hate campaign is not simple vandalism, and people should be extremely cautious about removing NPOV flags. PatGallacher 09:09, 2005 August 22 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the removal of Tern's sentence is a "hate campaign"; rather, it's a simple editorial conflict. From my point of view, and apparently those of several other editors, the sentence in question is an non-NPOV editorial in the middle of an otherwise NPOV article. If Tern could phrase this in a more NPOV way, and attribute this point of view and demonstrate that it is not idiosyncratic, it might be more likely to stay in the article. -- Karada 12:20, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I've answered all this elsewhere here, except "idiosyncratic". That's a new label. So you define how you think it is compatible with neutrality to care more about avoiding "idiosyncracy" than bias or imbalance? If you think it's NPOV -which I don't, I'm saying what to do if you do - your responsibility is also to disprove that it forms part of the overall NPOV balance, or to add the contrary point of view you think exists. I've challenged eveyone to do that, repeatedly: if you think there is a countering point of view, add it. That nobody does, is proof that what you are all after is medical censorship, not Wikipedia balance at all.Tern 14:06 Aug22


Why is the Spectrum Fairness site now listed twice in external links??? With two different descriptions??? How is this informational, and the fact still remains that it is a hate site and shouldn't be listed even once. 22 August 2005

O lurker, that was me. I didn't notice during the edit that there waas another mention in a different place, requiring removal because it contained the word "hate". Tern 14:06 Aug22

Tern has again removed a link giving accurate information about his site, and replaced it with incorrect information and added his link. Why is he constantly allowed to ignore wikipedia rules, and continually rv and add his site?

Not an answer to your question, but 196.40.45.126, please sign your comments here with "~~~~" . Otherwise it is quite confusing since your comments on the Talk page aren't signed at all. Tern has been requested to do this as well... (Admittedly I didn't do this in my first post in this page, under my old IP address, either. It had been so long since I posted on a Talk page I forgot the protocol.) :) 66.235.6.229 19:54, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Why I reverted

I have reverted to the last version by JRedmond for these reasons:-

1. I'm not very happy with people saying "do not revert".

2. I'm also not happy with people saying "see discussion" without putting anything new in the talk page.

3. People should avoid making controversial changes anonymously, this leads to suspicions of sockpuppetry.

4. I've had a brief look at the website in questions, it does look controversial, I do not yet have a view about whether we should link to it, but it is not obviously a hate site. PatGallacher 17:13, 2005 August 22 (UTC)

Pat, please pay more careful attention to the history. As for (1), I don't really agree with that language either, but on (2) we've discussed with Tern what he needs to do for his edits - if he wants to do something specific he needs to explain more clearly, and (3) the only reason anonymous people are stepping in is because most of the normal users have already reverted this page several times, and others like me reaching their three reverts for the day while Tern continues to break the 3RR rule, and (4) obviously we should not look at it. --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 22:10, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree that anon users generally should avoid controversial changes, however, Tern has a history of posting personal information on his website of those who disagree with him. As someone who has been the subject of a harrassment/stalking situation in real-world context, I did not feel comfortable in posting publicly in an agreement with Tern. I imagine some others may feel the same. But I have attempted to be upfront about this, so hopefully it's OK. 66.235.6.229 19:54, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
After some thought I decided that instead of posting from the IP address I should just go ahead and make an account for this. So I did. ManekiNeko=66.235.6.229. Sorry for any confusion. ManekiNeko 20:44, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Coming as a neutral party, I looked at the website in question. IMHO, I do not think we should have a link to there. Also, in fairness, we could start trimming other links to various forums and other websites. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 21:28, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Now that's more 2 -sided. Despite ZScout370 not giving reasons for his view above, I credit the balance in what he is trying to do by removing (qhile I was writing this!) the entire block of community sites and forcing a rethink on them and their balance.
  • There is only one circumstance in which it won't be bias not to have a link to SF. YES, THERE IS ONE! That is - if you ban this page from having links to any of the sites that feature in SF, either. That means getting rid of the Aspies For Freedom link, that's the one there is now, and in future every time a site that features on SF gets a link here, you either bar it from having a link, just because it features on SF, or you have to let SF have a link again.

If you think that is practical, then you can get rid of the SF link without committing bias by it.

  • Until then, if anything is against the rules it's accusing a linked site of being a hate site. and even more so to claim that as "accurate information". That is an act of bullying.
  • Everything on SF has a right to reply legally pledged - that stops anyone turning it into a hate site.
  • 196.40.45.126's charge that SF "is against the autistic community", is Orwellian. The only community it is against is groups that want to have the choice ever to expediently maltreat individuals. You want an autistic community where people are ruthlessly disposable, that's exactly what led to SF's creation. But something more startling -
  • 196.40.45.126's charge that SF "is against the autistic community", is a misconstrual, against the rules, of this page's purpose. This page is not a soapbox for the "autistic" community and its POVs! It is POV and not neutral fact that Asperger's can accurately be called autism at all. Some aspies find this label unrepresentative or even harmful, that it encourages AS to be seen wrongly as affecting independent living. The "autistic spectrum" is only the link, of uncertain closeness, suggested by common features,and the link is only deduced circumstantially from these as a likelihood. It is not biologically proved that AS and Kanner HFA are versions of the same thing: e.g. amygdala research is hotly disputed, apparently there is no amygdala size correlation with AS at all.
  • I don't put any more personal information on SF than is relevant to scrutiny of whichever act of apelike and un-aspie group rejection is being spoken out against. Sometimes, background on the shoddy nature of the group is obviously relevant, to asking whether it has any ethics and why. Anyway, notice me not starting any discussion of examples here. Anyone else chooses to do so, they will bear the blame for it.
  • I voluntarily wrote a neutralist version of the link, that calls SF "considered controversial by opponents" of its idea.

- Tern 00:21 Aug 23

Note, my suggestion for removal of the links is due to the page, to me, sounding like a forum. And, there are countless of those dealing with this community. While if there are sites who oppose the community in a way that is scientific, we should have a link. But, overall, there could be a bunch of links that could be removed. I suggest, as a community, figure out what should stay and should go. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 21:44, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Zscout370. There are *way* too many external links on this page. See Wikipedia:External links: only the top few most informative sites should be listed here, and the disputed site can safely go. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 21:52, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Excuse me, the disputed sites,not site. Tern
    • I, so far, have removed all forum links and one link to a school that is under development. While this is a good start, I think we should have a discussion about what links should stay and which ones should be sent packing. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 23:36, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Attempts to fix awkward phrasing stymied

The Attwood/Segar citations Tern added were awkwardly phrased and needed attribution, so I attempted to fix them (also adding the reference material to the References section and cleaning up format there). I did also delete the text claiming that these citations support Tern's child author issue. But when Tern reverted, he not only added back the deleted content, but now the text of the citations is poorly written again. (See this for my version and his.) I would change it again, but I am afraid it will get muddled in the ongoing dispute, as any change I make -- even ones attempting to improve style, etc. -- is liable to be reverted by Tern. I also do not want to accidentally end up in a 3RR situation over something that is peripheral to the main dispute. :) Could other editors look at this? Thanks! 66.235.6.229 20:08, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Just to further support this - I'm not familiar with the Segar citation, but as it happens I just finished reading the relevant bit of Attwood, and it has nothing to do with child authorship as such. A gift for certain specific types of wordplay does not equate to the ability to write well on a sustained basis. The part about writing a storybook is being recommended as a method of therapy, not presented as something young Aspergians commonly do spontaneously on their own. Nowhere in the entire book does he discuss child authorship, and given that he elsewhere discusses a lack of certain types of creativity on the part of Aspergians, one assumes his actual view on the subject would be quite different from Tern's. In short, the citation is being taken out of context in a blatantly misleading manner.
Moreover, the stuff about "terrible injustice" and so on following this is blatantly POV and has no business being on a Wikipedia page. Read Tern's own statements on this page - he seems to think the page should be an extensive list of every injustice anyone who happened to have Asperger Syndrome has ever suffered, or at least that's the logical conclusion to reach from some of the things he says. But that would violate several Wikipedia policies, and the fact that he doesn't understand that speaks volumes about the quality and neutrality of edits we can expect from him. 24.77.97.3 20:22, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I've made what I gather as the neccesary changes. The attwood quotes now refer to the references section entry, and I've expanded the "story book" quote to the full sentence, on the grounds that if we have that quote, it shouldn't mislead, which I agree, the original form was. Silverfish 21:25, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't mind quoting the full sentence either, the reason why I didn't originally was because the omitted part was irrelevant and could have been criticised for taking up too much space, making the whole item verbose. But as that portion does not qualitatively alter the meaning of the storybook bit, I can't logically see what was misleading.
  • "terrible injustice" is an axiom. You have to prove it is not an axiom, just by telling us there exists an argument why it is not a terrible injustice. Only then will the statement that it is one become an opinion at all, let alone a POV. If you succeed in bringing us to that point, the solution will not be deletion, for that would be POV bias to it not being a terrible injustice. The case that it is one will still exist. The solution will be to blend and contrast both points of view.
  • It's not at all "every injustice anyone who happened to have Asperger Syndrome has ever suffered". Anything to do with writing has a demonstrated link to AS. This particular one is also involved in the AS big-names' publicity scene employing child authorship. 24.77.97.3 needs to explain how it is neutral and balanced to have that happening and not have the injustice mentioned, instead of making personal attacks.
  • I won't revert changes to style, I welcome them for building common ground, if they have not bent or dropped some of the facts.
  • A gift for wordplay is linked to word skills. The word skills will be expressed in different patterns. You say write a storybook, then axiomatically you establish the ability that somekids can choose to do it spontaneously. Also you don't conveniently assume that a man's real view must be the opposite of what he wrote, to make it fit your prejudice. Would you even find it acceptable if Attwood accused that no aspies have any creative skills at all? which is how you are reading him. Unless you can say yes to that,and evidence that Attwood actually does go around saying no aspies have any creative skills at all, and explain how that fits with his endorsements of Luke, then you can't accuse me of misrepresenting him. 24.77.97.3 is clutching at straws to look for ways to disagree with me for the sake of it.
  • Segar's quote is a source for the potentiality of child authorship. Ideas and instinctive language insight.
  • The "alleged" wrecking, the community speaking for itself was shown to be aware of, and that does not mean they just let me write about it, it means they make space for things they care seriously about and are part of aspie experience.

- Tern, 00:21 Aug 23

featured article removal canidate

I added this to Wikipedia:Featured_article_removal_candidates#Asperger.27s_syndrome since it no longer meets the guidelines for a featured article canidate.

Stability: This article isn't stable by any criteria, it is repeatedly being edit warred and most edits are reverted on sight no matter how well intentioned.

Accuracy: the accuracy of this article is greatly disputed as is the point of view.

Readability: the writing appears to be all over the place and seems to jump from one place to another which makes it hard to read.


This is just my opinion mind you and I'd be all for rewriting this to conform to what is expected but it seems that at the moment any such attempts would be futile since they'd be reverted on sight, at this time however the article at this time does not conform to Wikipedia's standards for featured article. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 22:10, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I think this was from the Brillant Prose crop of articles. Most of the articles from there have went to FARC and usually are delisted. So, until we get this figured out, I support the removal of the FA status. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 22:12, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
For those who want a good article I spent an insane amount of time getting Autism to FA status and I think it sets the standard for an article like this --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 22:25, 22 August 2005 (UTC)


Complaint

Tern is adding his own link, and removing those of other important sites with no valid reason or explanation. Whilst editing his 'child author' thing, he is also deleting important external links too. Very improper way to edit. AmyNelson 23 August 2005 (BST)

Page protection

I protected this page before I realized Zscout had blocked Tern, so protection may not be needed, or it might be best to leave it locked for a few days until a consensus can be worked out on talk. Perhaps editors could say here which they'd prefer. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:44, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Protection can still work great, and if consensus can be reached on a few key issues, I could try to edit it while the protection is still in place. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 03:52, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Another editor has requested unprotection, so I was about to do that. Apparently it's FAC status is being reconsidered, and so editors need to be able to edit it. I'm therefore inclined to unlock it, but I can lock it again if the reverting starts up. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:00, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Ok. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 04:03, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Zscout. What are the issues you see as needing addressing? I assume there were some besides the results of Tern's recent behaviour, but the comments I've seen on this have been rather vague (or maybe that's just my own borderline AS interfering :-). I'm sure I speak for a number of others when I say I would love to get them dealt with, some guidance on what could use impropvement would be much appreciated. 24.77.97.3 04:50, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps try to clean up the article and also prune out the links. While I trimmed some, we still have a lot of links. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 04:52, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I'd love to help, but I'm afraid you'll need to be a bit more specific than "clean up the article". Thanks for the lightning-quick reply, though!
Perhaps we go through every single article and fix any wording that might be POV, if at any. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 04:55, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Plans to keep a featured article

Well, I rewrote the intro paragraphs a bit (which could probably be improved upon) -

  • Go through links and keep only about 15 of them that are HIGH quality links
  • Find any POV stuff left behind and NPOV it
  • What shorthand are we going to use - Asperger's, AS, aspies, aspergian, etc.? Currently we use pretty much all of them and its confusing
    • Done for the most part - we mostly use the full "Asperger's syndrome" now --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 10:51, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
  • How much aspie-speak do we want in here? Maybe that is best kept to the autistic culture page?
    • Aspie-speak removed except for that last section there --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 10:51, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Rewrite to be clearer and more consise
  • Do anything else that we need to do to meet style guidelines

Also, Tern's passage... here are some proposals

  • Proposal A - delete it, not notable
  • Proposal B - keep it the current way

These things illustrate how AS might be associated with child authorship, and one person even claims to have suffered a "terrible injustice" when the chance to achieve child authorship is unfairly wrecked by high-handed school pressures.

  • Proposal C - another way

Some believe these things illustrate how AS would be associated with child authorship, and claim the chance to achieve child authorship is unfairly wrecked by high-handed school pressures.

If anyone has anything to add or edit please do so :).

--Ryan Norton T | @ | C 06:22, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

"Some" implies more than one, or at least one person with some sort of authority. No-one besides Tern has yet been found who has clearly stated that they think it's an important issue. I say delete everything after the Attwood quote (that was added by Tern too originally, but it's a nice illustration of a point that isn't disupted). 24.77.97.3 06:30, 23 August 2005 (UTC) ADDED LATER: Actually, it turns out I've already done that. I thought that edit hadn't gone through, but it turns out it did. If a medical authority can be found who specifically says they think it's a significant issue, I would support adding a mention back in, possibly at a different point in the article.
I agree; my concern, and the reason for my original edit to delete it, was that it there is no evidence that the issue is significant to anyone but Tern, and he uses such harsh POV to express it besides. If it really was an important aspie-community issue, I wouldn't have had an issue with anything but the writing style. ManekiNeko 07:27, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree rather strongly but the problem is that in order to remain a featured article it must be stable and obviously with Tern (or others) editing it like that it won't be for long - not sure at the moment what to do about that. My previous editing disputes all involved more than one person who had at least a somewhat valid reason for the content they were pushing and eventually I just put in a small variation of what they wanted, so I'm not an expert in this area. A few more things -

  • The first image - its set for deletion and we need to either figure out its copyright status or remove it
    • Taken care of, as well as the claims for the other two images --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 07:07, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
  • The link descriptions should be better like the ones found on the autism page and clearly label what's pro-cure and what's anti-cure
    • Done, more or less --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 11:45, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

For now, maybe the best thing is to say that they are often discrimated against because of social skills or other characteristics and maybe have a brief side mention of the author thing (I don't really even know if its a good idea to even link to either of those two sites though)? --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 06:45, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, come to think of it, isn't that whole section on social interaction somewhat rendundant with the Characteristics section? Perhaps the two could be merged, with a few paragraphs worth of it removed outright (mostly from the Social Interaction bit). The social stories stuff, which Attwood for one seems to think is important, could be briefly discussed in a new section on treatments, perhaps. 24.77.97.3 06:38, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
I find that whole Comic Book Conversations and Social Stories section to be a bit odd in context. It's almost like an ad for the technique in the middle of the article. A section discussing treatments might be a good place to mention it, but I am not sure "treatments" is a good word for it -- it implies curing a disease, and many aspies will say that AS is not a disease, and "treatment" isn't necessary. "Coping strategies", maybe? I don't know. ManekiNeko 07:27, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds like a good idea. --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 06:57, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Social exposure

This figure may not be completely accurate, as females are arguably more exposed to social situations and thus have more of a chance to learn to imitate the non-autistics and behave "normally".

I am having trouble finding a source to support the contention that girls are more exposed to social situations in boys. Apart from the probability that such gender differences in social structure must vary widely across cultures, can anyone cite a basis for the contention about the sample population from which the 75% figure was deduced (and identify that sample)? —Theo (Talk) 17:51, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I assume if a source could be found it would be from a medical study but I haven't been able to find anything about it either. Maybe it should be removed since a source can't be found on it. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 18:01, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
It's a widely held view among researchers, to be sure, but it's not held because of research. It's all "some clinical cases I've seen suggest..." or "there is some preliminary evidence for...". Attwood comes right out and says there are (or at least, were as of 1998) no detailed studies specifically on this issue. I am forced to reluctantly agree that this needs to go. 24.77.97.3 19:12, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
I removed this a while ago - besically because its not sourced and I've never heard of a real study that backs this up --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 19:47, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Also I will add the 75% is troubling as while I've heard of statitistics on it, I don't know if its referenced here - maybe just say is generally considered to afflict boys more than girls or something --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 19:52, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Ehlers, S & C Gillberg, "The Epidemiology of Asperger's Syndrome - A Total Population Study." Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry 34 (1993), 1327-1350. I haven't looked at the paper myself (yet), but that's the citation I have handy for that figure. 24.77.97.3 20:02, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Criticisms

Some people, including some people diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, argue that Asperger's syndrome is a social construct. Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of the Autism Research Centre has written a book arguing that Asperger's syndrome is an extreme version of the way in which men's brains differ from women's. He says that, in general, men are better at systematizing than women, and that women are better at empathizing than men. Hans Asperger himself is quoted as saying that his patients have 'an extreme version of the male form of intelligence'.

I was wondering if possibly the book title should be mentioned or sourced since the quote says he's written a book but no source or title is listed for this. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 18:09, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

The only thing I can dig up for now was a reference from a link on the Autism page

Mindblindness: an essay on autism and theory of mind, Simon Baron-Cohen, MIT Press/Bradford Books, 1995

Is this the book in question? Can anyone verify? --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 20:11, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

No, that's not it. I am looking up the book right now (I own it but can't recall the title). I'll post it in a minute. ManekiNeko 20:21, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Ah, here it is. Baron-Cohen, Simon (2003). The Essential Difference: Male and Female Brains and the Truth About Autism. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 046500556X -- Should I add it? I am going to clean up some of the formatting for Further Reading anyway. ManekiNeko 20:24, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Sounds great - please do! :) --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 20:38, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Done. ManekiNeko 21:02, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Awesome - thanks! --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 21:06, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

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