[links.Autism Spectrum]

[wispfox]

Via conuly, Girls' autism 'under-diagnosed'.

"Hyperactivity, and interests in technical hobbies have been seen as characteristics of the disorder.

But Christopher Gillberg, of the National Centre of Autism Studies, said girls were often passive and collected information on people, not things."


*pauses*


"collected information on people, not things." A-yup. My fascination, once I was in school and saw the need, was with people, and social interaction and trying to understand why the hell people did the things often very strange things they did. My fascination is with minds and social interaction and such, not machines.

I'm an awful lot less likely to be watching from the outside now, although sometimes I still do. Almost certainly due to the large number of people I know now whose behavior makes more sense to me, so is less likely to cause me to be distant while trying to figure things out. Instead, my investigations into friends' minds are part of my interaction with them.

Heh.

Comments

Re: obsessively collecting

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

So, there are studies that show I might've had girls' autism? Fascinating.

I've always found people much more interesting than computers or other things. Ultimately, computers are always predictable. That's boring. People on the other hand, are black boxes. You put an input in and the output that you get out could be virtually anything. That is so much more interesting and wonderful.

It saw all these people that seemed to be able to socially interact and wondered how it was done. I observed the people that did it effortlessly, and those that struggled; those that were able to flow from group to group and those focus on one or two groups only. I thought that if I observed enough, collected enough behaviours, I could finally see what it was that I was missing in terms of social interactions. I occasionally stumbled across rules that would work but I never found how to -really- do it. I did study all the Judith Martin books that I could. Those were rules that I could actually follow. It's also much better to violate rules by choice rather than through ignorance. I am still learning and observing and have bundles of rules that work sometimes and other times I have to fall back on being cute and cuddly.

Re: obsessively collecting

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

So, there are studies that show I might've had girls' autism? Fascinating

*chuckle* They _did_ say 'were often', silly one. ;) And, actually, that may just be more a case of - once people start looking for these trends, too, they'll find more people of both sexes.

And yes, very much so, on your description of why people are more interesting than computers. OTOH, I wonder if that very predictability is why other people on the spectrum orient toward them...

Re: obsessively collecting

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

You possibly don't know how much it delights me to be called "silly one" by you. Yay! I still need to link to a few of your posts. You cogitate well. And then you english it clearly. Yay again! (I'm wondering if "squee" would be more appropriate here but I'm not sure how you and others use it.)

I do think that is why other people on the spectrum orient towards computers. Noting that was what led me to my discovery of why I had the opposite reaction.

Re: obsessively collecting

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

possibly don't know how much it delights me to be called "silly one" by you. Yay!

*grin* Not surprised, although I'd not thought about it. I don't call people such things if I'm not fond of them. :)

Squee? Not sure. Glee, yes. :)