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I'm glad the article takes time to explain the negatives as well. My SO works with kids on the spectrum. For every kid that has their city's entire transit syst

I'm glad the article takes time to explain the negatives as well. My SO works with kids on the spectrum. For every kid that has their city's entire transit system memorized, there are another 10 who will be unable to function for the rest of the day if their classmates do not exit the classroom for recess in the expected order. The 'financial-math-numbers-wizard' is absolutely the very rare exception. For the vast majority it is an extreme struggle, for both the child and their family.

aNoob7000 7y ago
Ditto. My wife is an OT at an elementary school treating kids with special needs. What is being described in the article is indeed a rarity.
curun1r 7y ago
> The 'financial-math-numbers-wizard' is absolutely the very rare exception One of the points in the article is exactly the opposite of this observation...that ASD is far more common than most people believe it to be. The difference is that the vast majority of those with autism can pass and silently struggle with the negatives of their condition. Your SO deals with those who can't pass and have the more pronounced form of the condition. There's a selection bias by the simple fact that they end up in her class that creates that 10::1 you describe even though the 1 will be much more common in the overall population. I can see that pushing the savant angle of the condition can be counterproductive, especially to those whose form of ASD often prevents them from being functional. But so is the "it's rare" narrative that leads people who can pass to struggle with not understanding themselves. As the article points out, nearly 2% of people have some form of ASD. For that to be the case, the vast majority of them have to appear mostly normal from the outside.
- rbavocadotree 7y ago
  > vast majority of those with autism can pass and silently struggle with the negatives of their condition This is not true. The article says only 16% can hold a fulltime job. Most of those are jobs requiring the absolute minimal skillsets. > As the article points out, nearly 2% of people have some form of ASD. For that to be the case, the vast majority of them have to appear mostly normal from the outside. It may sadden you to know the staggering amount of adults with ASD that have essentially been removed from society. They do not appear normal, and as a consequence they do not appear in society at all.
  - curun1r 7y ago
    > The article says only 16% can hold a fulltime job That’s 16% of those diagnosed with ASD. For one, the vast majority of the current workforce came of age before the DSM reclassified autism as a spectrum disorder. So many of those with milder symptoms who sought out therapy as kids could easily go undiagnosed. I know this personally as someone diagnosed as an adult who grew up as a child of a psychologist and was sent to multiple therapists. I’m perfectly capable of maintaining a career and wouldn’t have even thought to seek out a diagnosis as an adult had I not had a conversation with my mom about the reclassification. Having worked in tech, I can tell you there’s a huge group of undiagnosed ASD workers like me who are quite able to hold down a job and excel but still exhibit milder symptoms of the disorder.
proverbialbunny 7y ago
>The 'financial-math-numbers-wizard' is absolutely the very rare exception. For the vast majority it is an extreme struggle, for both the child and their family. I am a walking stereotype of this article. I do quantitative finance as a hobby, and yes, I've made a killing doing it, but for my day to day work I've have a history doing Data Science work and Software Engineering. On the side I'm infactuated with meta-learning, meta-cognition, metaphysics, psychology, and AI. When it comes to autistic training, I sometimes help people like myself, but thankfully, most people figure everything out on their own so no help is needed. I'm apart of a community of thousands of people who are on the spectrum in in Silicon Valley alone, and far more across the country. Less than 0.1% of us are diagnosed as autistic, primarily because there is no benefit in being diagnosed. We teach ourselves tricks like how to correctly look at others, how to pay attention to body language, how small talk works, and so on and so forth like professionalism. Because of this, when one is highly intelligent and autistic, no one can tell they're autistic, except other like minded individuals. The small fraction that are diagnosed are that way because paying attention to body language and facial expressions is not enough to look and act normal. I've worked with people who punch themselves while thinking, for example, but are brilliant otherwise. Psychological disorders are diagnosed by their disadvantages. If being highly intelligent and being able to self program, despite initially struggling at being well rounded and not being able to take social cues early on, is autism, then there is no reason to diagnose that kind of autism, because beyond initial disadvantages there are little to no disadvantages in later life. These kinds of autistic people are not recognizable, even to trained professionals, unless there is a good reason for them to be recognized, so there is going to be a bias towards what you can see, not what is actually there.
- MichaelZuo 7y ago
  Under diagnosis due to the incentive structure. It makes a lot of sense in this way! I am pretty interested in this, can you send over a message?

aNoob7000 7y ago

Ditto. My wife is an OT at an elementary school treating kids with special needs. What is being described in the article is indeed a rarity.

curun1r 7y ago

> The 'financial-math-numbers-wizard' is absolutely the very rare exception One of the points in the article is exactly the opposite of this observation...that ASD is far more common than most people believe it to be. The difference is that the vast majority of those with autism can pass and silently struggle with the negatives of their condition. Your SO deals with those who can't pass and have the more pronounced form of the condition. There's a selection bias by the simple fact that they end up in her class that creates that 10::1 you describe even though the 1 will be much more common in the overall population. I can see that pushing the savant angle of the condition can be counterproductive, especially to those whose form of ASD often prevents them from being functional. But so is the "it's rare" narrative that leads people who can pass to struggle with not understanding themselves. As the article points out, nearly 2% of people have some form of ASD. For that to be the case, the vast majority of them have to appear mostly normal from the outside.

rbavocadotree 7y ago
> vast majority of those with autism can pass and silently struggle with the negatives of their condition This is not true. The article says only 16% can hold a fulltime job. Most of those are jobs requiring the absolute minimal skillsets. > As the article points out, nearly 2% of people have some form of ASD. For that to be the case, the vast majority of them have to appear mostly normal from the outside. It may sadden you to know the staggering amount of adults with ASD that have essentially been removed from society. They do not appear normal, and as a consequence they do not appear in society at all.
- curun1r 7y ago
  > The article says only 16% can hold a fulltime job That’s 16% of those diagnosed with ASD. For one, the vast majority of the current workforce came of age before the DSM reclassified autism as a spectrum disorder. So many of those with milder symptoms who sought out therapy as kids could easily go undiagnosed. I know this personally as someone diagnosed as an adult who grew up as a child of a psychologist and was sent to multiple therapists. I’m perfectly capable of maintaining a career and wouldn’t have even thought to seek out a diagnosis as an adult had I not had a conversation with my mom about the reclassification. Having worked in tech, I can tell you there’s a huge group of undiagnosed ASD workers like me who are quite able to hold down a job and excel but still exhibit milder symptoms of the disorder.

proverbialbunny 7y ago

>The 'financial-math-numbers-wizard' is absolutely the very rare exception. For the vast majority it is an extreme struggle, for both the child and their family. I am a walking stereotype of this article. I do quantitative finance as a hobby, and yes, I've made a killing doing it, but for my day to day work I've have a history doing Data Science work and Software Engineering. On the side I'm infactuated with meta-learning, meta-cognition, metaphysics, psychology, and AI. When it comes to autistic training, I sometimes help people like myself, but thankfully, most people figure everything out on their own so no help is needed. I'm apart of a community of thousands of people who are on the spectrum in in Silicon Valley alone, and far more across the country. Less than 0.1% of us are diagnosed as autistic, primarily because there is no benefit in being diagnosed. We teach ourselves tricks like how to correctly look at others, how to pay attention to body language, how small talk works, and so on and so forth like professionalism. Because of this, when one is highly intelligent and autistic, no one can tell they're autistic, except other like minded individuals. The small fraction that are diagnosed are that way because paying attention to body language and facial expressions is not enough to look and act normal. I've worked with people who punch themselves while thinking, for example, but are brilliant otherwise. Psychological disorders are diagnosed by their disadvantages. If being highly intelligent and being able to self program, despite initially struggling at being well rounded and not being able to take social cues early on, is autism, then there is no reason to diagnose that kind of autism, because beyond initial disadvantages there are little to no disadvantages in later life. These kinds of autistic people are not recognizable, even to trained professionals, unless there is a good reason for them to be recognized, so there is going to be a bias towards what you can see, not what is actually there.

MichaelZuo 7y ago
Under diagnosis due to the incentive structure. It makes a lot of sense in this way! I am pretty interested in this, can you send over a message?