Poll: Autism. Bad or Good?

[Zero47]

Why are people so inclined to label things? We've got labels for everyone, does it make us feel better or something?

Now your brother is labeled as an autist, as if that weren't enough you're asking random people on the internet wether that's a good or bad thing. It makes me freaking tired to see society's preoccupation with disorders and the so called cures grow. An illness and cure mentally where every problem is caused and solved by external factors. Autism isn't caused by toxins and it's definately not an illness (well, in the general sense of the word).

Autism isn't 'good' or 'bad'. Every person is different, some might be diagnosed and only notice positive "symptoms" (but then why call it a disorder?), while others may notice a lot of hinderance in their lives due to a autistic disorder. In general I believe disorders imply that someone has problems with the respective field, so yeah imo autism is restrictive for a person and hinders (problems that go beyond general angst, or girlfriend issues) them in their general life or several aspects.

 

[Megalodon]

I'm in awe at "Okay, first, I registered solely so I could tell you how completely and utterly wrong you are."

Welcome to The Escapist, sounds like you might fit in pretty well by the sounds of it.

He's possessed of an idea that is actively dangerous. It's not that I disagree with him (I've been lurking for a while, and have seen lots of posts I disagreed with). It's that he's part of a group of people putting children at risk because of their ignorance.

You're not wrong, although the OP didn't sound particularly bad compared to the true raving crazies like Jenny McCarthy, who even has a website dedicated to her dangerous stupidity
http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html
To further play Devil's advocate here, if his brother's diagnosis happened 8 years ago, according to his profile OP would have been 10. If told by his parents/other authority figure that a vaccine was responsible for his brother's condition, most 10 year olds would accept that. It's then not a difficult leap to retain that belief years later as not everyone becomes a cynic. (But it would sure be easier if they did).

On topic, definetely a bad thing, almost all the time.

 

[Lord Kloo]

And people don't get it from the flu jabs etc, the top scientists reckon it is caused by a kind of selective virus, a bit like cancers, and only some are born with a DNA capable of supporting the autism 'virus'.. I'm not a scientist so I might be wrong..

Neither cancer nor autism is caused by any kind of virus. It's genetic.

Yeah, my bad, By virus I kind of meant cancerous material or cells, but no-one really knows what autism is caused by so..

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

Thank a deity of your choice!!!
I don't get why that myth is till being perpetuated....................

because Jenny McCarthy says it's so, and obviously she's a paragon of intelligence and reason.

what drives me nuts about the whole "vaccines cause autism" fallacy is that even if it were true, vaccination would *still* be better than the alternative. a fraction of a percentage of our population ends up with a mental disorder that makes them unable to integrate completely into society? or a host of diseases which collectively increase child mortality rates and lower our life expectancy to the 30s again? hmmmmmmmmmm, tough freakin' choice.

 

[Megalodon]

And people don't get it from the flu jabs etc, the top scientists reckon it is caused by a kind of selective virus, a bit like cancers, and only some are born with a DNA capable of supporting the autism 'virus'.. I'm not a scientist so I might be wrong..

Neither cancer nor autism is caused by any kind of virus. It's genetic.

In the case of cancer, you are wrong. Some viral infections can lead to cancer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncovirus
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19956178
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8741795

 

[Vibhor]

I take autism as a well balanced perk in life.
The person who takes it receives boost in all Intelligence at the cost of charisma....
Really need to make a perk about it in fallout new vegas

 

[TheUnchosenOne]

And people don't get it from the flu jabs etc, the top scientists reckon it is caused by a kind of selective virus, a bit like cancers, and only some are born with a DNA capable of supporting the autism 'virus'.. I'm not a scientist so I might be wrong..

Neither cancer nor autism is caused by any kind of virus. It's genetic.

In the case of cancer, you are wrong. Some viral infections can lead to cancer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncovirus
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19956178
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8741795

Okay, in a handful of cases, viruses can trigger the genetic abnormalities that cause cancer (though those cancers are fairly common). I was thinking final cause.

 

[MagicMouse]

The answer to this question will tell you the answer.

Is he HAPPY?

 

[Dastardly]

I'm going to start off saying this "My little brother has autism", he wasn't born with it he was given a vaccine when he was 2 years old to help him from receiving the flu, but all of the vaccines in that year had expired and had mercury inside of all of the expired bottles and effected hundreds of kids within those years.

My younger brother learned how to speak speak 3 language(Spanish,French,German)by watching is favorite movies in different languages ,is doing 9Th grade math, reading 12Th grade books and hes only 10 years old, but he has no social skills. The only people he "enjoys" hanging out with is family, but he also enjoys playing on Xbox LIVE with his online friends. We found out when he was 4 that he has Aspergers syndrome

Asperger syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder. Children with the condition want to know everything about their topic of interest, and their conversations with others will be about little else. Other characteristics include problems with nonverbal communication, clumsy and uncoordinated motor movements, and the inability to interact successfully with peers. Treatment involves social skills training, cognitive behavioral therapy, medication for coexisting conditions, and other measures.

So my question is. Is Autism good because of the learning boost or bad because they don't have any social time because they cant deal with others?

Really?

It's bad. It's not insurmountable, but his life would certainly be better and easier without it. Particularly given that language appears to be his fixation. How will that help him in life? Easy--a job as an interpreter, right? Except with a lack of social skills and an impaired ability to read nonverbal cues or understand social mores, someone without such complications would simply be a more likely hire.

I hope that treatment goes well for him, but I caution you against romanticizing the condition. It's not a superpower he has, it's a form of obsession. The average person could also learn all of those things, if freed from distraction in the same way. He's filling a space that most people reserve for things like interaction with other people.

Note well: I'm not speaking ill of your brother, devaluing him as a human being, or saying he has no hope in life. I'm saying you need to toss out the idea that his condition is in some way cool or to be envied. It's unfortunate, and it's certainly not a good thing.

(Oh, also, because you came to a video game site, be prepared for a mega-malillion self-diagnosed "Asperger's" cases to tell you all about how it is.)

 

[WOPR]

I'm going to start off saying this "My little brother has autism", he wasn't born with it he was given a vaccine when he was 2 years old to help him from receiving the flu, but all of the vaccines in that year had expired and had mercury inside of all of the expired bottles and effected hundreds of kids within those years.

My younger brother learned how to speak speak 3 language(Spanish,French,German)by watching is favorite movies in different languages ,is doing 9Th grade math, reading 12Th grade books and hes only 10 years old, but he has no social skills. The only people he "enjoys" hanging out with is family, but he also enjoys playing on Xbox LIVE with his online friends. We found out when he was 4 that he has Aspergers syndrome

Asperger syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder. Children with the condition want to know everything about their topic of interest, and their conversations with others will be about little else. Other characteristics include problems with nonverbal communication, clumsy and uncoordinated motor movements, and the inability to interact successfully with peers. Treatment involves social skills training, cognitive behavioral therapy, medication for coexisting conditions, and other measures.

So my question is. Is Autism good because of the learning boost or bad because they don't have any social time because they cant deal with others?

It's not caused by medicines or anything like that so stop believing what the media throws out there.

It's a gene generally a hereditary one, sometimes skips a generation or two.

And it's not so much THEY won't deal with others as much as OTHERS won't deal with them because they're "different"

so is it worth it?

all depends...

I mean if people would get over themselves and stop acting all high and mighty and treat people like that normal then the learning boost would definitely be worth it!

But being treated like a social outcast MORE then takes it's toll

so, good or bad? it itself is good; but how others react could make it bad.

 

[WOPR]

(Oh, also, because you came to a video game site, be prepared for a mega-malillion self-diagnosed "Asperger's" cases to tell you all about how it is.)

Who the heck would do something like that?

seriously when did it become something people title themselves with?

I just don't get when that started, it's sick and wrong...

 

[Blitzkreg]

To be perfectly honest, we're a social species, and we need each other, so while some individuals may thrive with their extra learning skills, without proper social skills, they can sometimes be more of a drag than a bonus. I dont mean to generalize, but social skills are far more important in the way of operating around other people in my opinion.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

It really depends on how he uses what he got I guess.

I know that an Autistic man heard that his jobless friend managed to get a morgaged, devoted himself entirely to finding out how morgages worked, got 10 million dollars to buy them with insurance, and managed to turn that 10 million into over a billion dollars.

 

[MikailCaboose]

It's good and bad at the same time. It's good because of the incredible knowledge in one area. It's bad because it's ONLY one area, and the poor social skills. Depends on how you want to look at it really.

 

[Darth Crater]

1. Enough with the vaccine thing. Cite legitimate studies, or start looking for alternative causes (like, say, genetics?).

2. I'd say high-functioning autism (including Asperger's, like me (legitimately diagnosed, dastardly...)) is neutral overall. For low-functioning people who can't correct for their deficiencies, however, it's a clear negative.

 

[PurplePlatypus]

OK then how did a healthy child at birth become slow to learn until he was 6 and then out of nowhere have the education of a 11th grader at 10, he didn't get out of dippers until he was 5. Not bad parenting

Maybe the healthy baby wasn?t a healthy baby. A lot of problems aren?t always apparent at first.

I was in a bit of the same boat myself. My parents, and no doctors, realised there was anything particularly wrong with me till it got the point where I was having trouble learning to walk. Once I was standing up my wonky hips became apparent and not long after they discovered my curved spine among things. I was around 2 years old before they figured out what was wrong. Hell it took them that long and there was even clues that something might be wrong before that point. Mine wasn?t the smoothest of births. I was laid weirdly in the womb so mam had to have a c-section. That was a physical disability which can be much easier to spot than any sort of learning difficulty.

As a point to note, if problems aren?t immediately recognised after birth it is typically during the early stages of development they show themselves. It is also around that time when children typically have their first vaccines. It is a typical human error to think; this thing happened around the same time as this thing, ergo they must be connected. It isn?t even just a human error, other animals have fallen play to such faulty thinking.

And these are just problems that are there right from the beginning; there can be problems we are born with that don?t manifest themselves until much later on. Puberty is another time problems typically show themselves.

 

[spartan231490]

I think you should change the title to aspergers, not autism in general, because aspergers is generally a mild form of autism. I read somewhere that most people with aspergers are diagnosed with it after they are adults, and live reasonably normal lives even before diagnoses.

OT: People without aspergers can learn 3 languages and have good math and reading skills. When i was 10 years old, I could read at a 12th grade level, and i could probably do math at a 9th grade level too, my school only tested reading and didn't do advanced classes, but I could do simple multiplication when I was 3. Admittedly, I only speak english, but that's just because I don't care, speaking other languages would not make my life any better so I don't learn them. Well, i took spanish in High School, but that was required for college.

 

[WorldCritic]

Explanation time, yay. Your brother is a rare case of autism called "autistic savant" basically meaning he gets an extreme learning boost while suffering the effects of autism. While this may sound great, only 10% of people who are autistic are autistic savant. So autism is bad unless someone you know falls into that 10% category which kind of makes up for it. There you go. My explanation anyway, I may be off base hear, but that's the explanation that makes sense to me.

 

[Daverson]

You might as well ask if red hair is inherently good or bad. It's a trait, nothing more.

Also, the idea you can "catch" autism is pretty offensive, and only goes to further ridiculous speculation about such conditions. I'd suggest you remove it from your post. Not to be pedantic, but it's something I feel kinda strongly about.

 

[CrazyMedic]

christ I am so sick of people saying "hur der vaccines make you sick hur durrrrr" pull your head out of your ass, america has a whooping cough epidemic because people think that the vaccines are gonna hurt der pwecious baby then since everyone else thinks that same thing EVERYONE get sick.