Intuition

From the MBTI website / Information: Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning?
This is called Sensing (S) or Intuition (N).

                            

Manipulation of the DSM-5: Robin S. Rosenberg, Clinical Psychologist

Abnormal Is the New Normal

Why will half of the U.S. population have a diagnosable mental disorder?

By Robin S. Rosenberg, a clinical psychologist in San Francisco and the author of Superhero Origins and Abnormal Psychology. Edited for length; bold my emphasis. Full article can be read in SLATE, Medical Examiner section, 4/12/13. 

In addition to classifying some medical disorders as mental disorders, the DSM also has been nibbling at the edges of “normal” by reclassifying as pathological the patterns of thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that were previously considered normal (albeit perhaps weird or odd). For instance, people who are extremely shy and concerned about how others might evaluate them, and who thus avoid certain types of activities, might be diagnosed with “avoidant personality disorder.” These same characteristics didn’t used to be considered pathological, and in some other cultures they are not considered to be so.

Another way that the increased prevalence of mental illness occurs is by lowering the threshold of what it takes to be diagnosed with a given disorder. For instance, DSM-5 will change in the criteria for “generalized anxiety disorder,” a disorder that involves excessive and persistent worrying. Whereas the criteria in DSM-IV required three out of six symptoms of worrying, only one symptom is needed in DSM-5. Similarly, whereas in DSM-IV the symptoms must have persisted for at least six months, in DSM-5 the duration has been reduced to three months.

One effect of a bigger mental illness tent is that there are fewer people standing outside the tent. Although the next edition of the DSM might not increase the overall number of disorders, if the criteria are loosened…then more people would qualify for a disorder. There are, and probably will continue to be, fewer and fewer people who will live their lives in relatively good mental health according to the DSM.

The normal trials and tribulations of life—the periods of sadness, or worry, of anxiety, or grief, of difficulty sleeping, of drinking too much caffeine or having caffeine withdrawal headaches—have been pathologized. They’ve been made into mental illnesses… providing a bigger tent for mental illness leaves us with an increasingly restricted definition of mental health and can make us all more likely to see mental illness even when it isn’t there—where there is just normal human struggle. We can become so used to seeing psychopathology that we think—erroneously—that being odd or having difficulties must be an expression of mental illness.

What is going in our culture that allows for this expanding definition of mental illness? There are many explanations. The first is related to payment for treatment. Psychological treatments and medications can be useful for a variety of problems, but for those treatments to be even partially paid for by health insurance companies, the problems must have a diagnosis. It’s not enough that there’s a problem that’s being addressed. It has to be a problem. (Of course, if you treat a problem before it becomes a mental illness, the health insurance company will have ended up saving a significant amount of money, but they don’t pay for early mental health intervention—there has to be a problem. But that’s a story beyond the scope of this article.)

Second, pharmaceutical companies search for ever-wider markets for their products. When more people are diagnosed with a given disorder (perhaps because of less stringent criteria), or a new diagnosis is created, it widens the market for their drugs. They push for “off-label” uses of their medications that in some way reduce a problem, and then they push for that “problem” to be redefined as a problem.

In fact, DSM-5 and the pharmaceutical industry have a significant number of connections: One study found that 70 percent of DSM-5 task-force members have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

Anyone who maintains that the diagnosis put forth in the DSM are science-based is CRAZY...

In a crazy world, sanity must be earned.

 

Myths about Asperger Women

This Esquire magazine cover is from the 1960's, and despite equal rights legislation, nothing has really changed, because hatred of women is embedded in American culture. Women are bombarded by the message that we are childlike idiots whose sole purpose is defined by men, and utterly disposable when we fail to conform to their prescriptions. Self-hatred is learned by girls through socialization, and demonstrates the susceptibility of the "normal" brain to "brain-washing."

Asperger females are accused of being unfeminine and unattractive. The old male prejudice that any woman who is competent, intelligent, and ambitious must therefore be 'masculinized' is still being propagated by psychologists. Asperger females are accused of having a "male brain," which effectively ejects us, and all smart women, from the female half of humankind.

It's quite a compliment, if you think about it.

The Asperger Mind Makes Art

My education is in geology, but I do not work in the field, rather, my appreciation for 'how the world works' is expressed through photography. I am fascinated by manmade objects being broken down (or not) by the desert climate, and most significantly, by the effects of wind that scours the landscape and by patterns generated by the freeze-thaw cycle. The desert remains a wilderness despite generations of human occupation; old dumps, although covered, have been exposed by natural forces.
     The photographs begin as color photos, which I then manipulate in the computer. My desire to make art began very early, but I had no dexterity - what I saw in my mind was impossible to create on paper. I worked as an advertising designer for many years, but could not draw a damn thing! I got around the problem by creating collages. Photography allows me to show what I see without the physical need to manipulate materials.


Top photo: the coils of an old box springs.
Left: Children's hand prints in paint on the side of a house.

Brilliant!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

The absolutely most true and hysterical video of what it's like to be an Asperger forced to deal with Neurotypicals.

Black & White Thinking is Necessary

The Algorithm is essential to modern technology. The Algorithm is a powerful tool in everyday life, despite being labeled “black and white” thinking and a “cognitive distortion.”  

Algorithm

Definition: an algorithm is a finite sequence of instructions, a logical and explicit step-by-step

procedure for solving a problem starting from a known beginning.

– the number of instructions must be finite

– to write the algorithm you first must know how to solve the problem!

– the solution must follow a logical path: the order of the instructions IS important

A flowchart is a graphic presentation of an Algorithm:

 

 

Neurotypicals are the true Black and White thinkers

The non-scientific term ‘black and white thinking’ pops up like a rash all over on the internet, in popular pseudoscience websites about autism and Asperger people. It also appears in articles written by psychologists, and has many synonyms: concrete, literal, all-or-nothing, dichotomous, polarized, and primitive thinking.  

I was shocked when I first encountered the claim that Asberger individuals are limited to black and white thinking; I personally use several thinking processes, including visualization, in order to navigate and understand the world. Each type of processing has its function; one or more processes may be appropriate or useful in any particular situation. More about that later.

Let’s start with some uses of 'black and white thinking' in articles, since writers rarely include a definition. Psychologists conveniently leave out 99.99% of what life and the universe are about: FACTS, a prejudice that effectively erases what an Asperger is. 

From the book – Asperger for Dummies

Concrete “black-and-white” thinking. Many people with Asperger Syndrome don’t understand unspoken rules, due to difficulties with interpreting figures of speech and nonverbal communication. They tend to rely solely on the words themselves. Difficulty with perceiving nonverbal communication causes significant challenges during social interaction. The same characteristic holds true for people with more classic autism. However, this trait tends to be more startling in those with Asperger Syndrome, due to their often superior verbal skills. Despite the fact that many persons suffering with Asperger Syndrome have high IQs, due to challenges in understanding the unspoken rules of employment, they’re greatly challenged in being successful at a typical job.

From this description we must conclude that having “superior verbal skills” leads to black and white thinking and that rules of employment ought to remain undefined and hidden – which is ridiculous; this common practice furthers discrimination, unequal pay and anxiety in employees. Overall the paragraph leaves the impression that neurotypicals are too lazy to acquire verbal competence and that reading body language is the most important qualification for employment, not talent, skills and hard work. As an Asperger individual who has worked in the business sector, “rules of employment” is code for kissing the boss’s ass and spending many hours of each day pretending to agree with those who have power in the hierarchy.

     If “mind / body reading” is so important, why do businesses and individuals rely on contracts? If one must be in the physical presence of another human in order to "read" facial expressions and body language, how did the telephone ever get off the ground? Books? Email? Written letters? Faxes?      

 

Asperger’s Syndrome and Nonverbal Learning Disorder from Orion Academy: California, a school for children with Neurocognitive disabilities. “…are very concrete thinkers, viewing everything dualistically—black and white, all or nothing, good or bad; keep in mind that everything you say to them will be taken literally.”

This statement is breathtaking in its black and white characterization of Asperger people. The use of “everything” and “everything you say” is indicative of black and white thinking. The writer sounds angry; the real point of the mini-tirade is that children are expected to be obedient, but that Asperger children are egalitarian, operate on facts, and have a terrific instinct for lies. 

Black-and-White Thinking
Another associated trait (with Asperger’s) is 'black-and-white thinking.' There are several definitions of this term: The fallacy that anything must be true of either all or none of any group (an instance of the Fallacy of False Dilemma).

1. 1.A tendency to evaluate anything as all good or all bad.
2. 2. A mode of thought concerned with definite, observable facts (e.g., "The sky is blue," "The Eiffel Tower is in Paris") as opposed to vague judgments ("Chewing with your mouth open is inappropriate")

3. A mode of thought that utilizes a scientific theory of the Universe. 

4. Mathematical thinking.

This list contains a huge clue as to why social people mistakenly claim that Asperger individuals exhibit black and white thinking. We operate on FACT, whereas social individuals abhor facts. Many people who are considered to be normal, such as religious fundamentalists, deny that facts exist. Facts are inconvenient because they get in the way of social coercion, manipulation of individuals and groups, and the incessant negotiation of status with the social hierarchy. Lies, not facts are the basis of social interaction.

Asperger's individuals show higher than normal Fluid Intelligence

Superior fluid intelligence (abstract reasoning ability) in children with Asperger’s disorder

• Mika Hayashi^a, Motoichiro Kato^a, Kazue Igarashi^b, Haruo Kashima^a

Abstract

Asperger’s disorder is one of autistic spectrum disorders; sharing clinical features with autism, but without developmental delay in language acquisition. There have been some studies of intellectual functioning in autism so far, but very few in Asperger’s disorder. In the present study, we investigated abstract reasoning ability, whose form of intelligence has been labeled fluid intelligence in the theory of Cattell [Cattell, R. B. (1963). Theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence: A critical experiment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 54, 1–22.], in children with Asperger’s disorder. A test of fluid intelligence, the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices Test, was administered to 17 children with Asperger’s disorder and 17 age-, gender-, and FIQ-matched normal children. The results showed that children with Asperger’s disorder outperformed on the test of fluid reasoning than typically developing children. We suggest that individuals with Asperger’s disorder have higher fluid reasoning ability than normal individuals, highlighting superior fluid intelligence.

Why Don't Psychologists Like Facts?

Recognizing and embracing fact is necessary to understanding reality, but the complex system of  thought and activity that depends on factual evidence (The Scientific Method) is labeled "cognitive distortion" by psychologists. It is no mystery as to why science education in the U.S. is failing miserably.

Asperger's: An Unsought Individuality

Being diagnosed as Asberger's confers a strange unsought individuality.

We exist at the edge of the human domain, not looking inward to an anthropocentric land of incessant squabbles and breathtaking cruelty, but deeply, into the complex manifestation of matter and energy that is our earth. We also look outward to the inhuman universe, whatever it may be. We see what social humans refuse to see. Humans are not the summation of evolution, but one flicker in an emerging image.

 

 

Boston Children's Hospital: Autism and Asperger's are Different

from: VECTOR Boston Children’s Hospital’s science and clinical innovation blog.

Autism and Asperger’s are different… at least on EEG by Nancy Fliesler on August 15, 2013

Asperger’s syndrome vs. autism spectrum disorders:
This histogram separates children with Asperger’s (in red) from those with autism spectrum disorders (green) based on EEG coherence variables. Although there is overlap with high-functioning autism, the Asperger’s children clearly form a distinct group. (Courtesy BMC Medicine)

Is it Asperger’s syndrome or is it autism? Since there are no objective diagnostic measures, the diagnosis is often rather squishy, based on how individual clinicians interpret a child’s behavior. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition (DSM-IV), early problems with language development are an indicator of autism; if there are behavioral symptoms but no early language problems, the child has Asperger’s. However, if the diagnosis is made late, parents’ recall of early language development may be fuzzy.

Under the new DSM-V, published in May, Asperger’s is included under the general “autism spectrum disorders (ASD)” umbrella. This has raised concerns among families who feel their children with Asperger’s have unique needs that won’t be met in classroom programs designed for autism.

Frank Duffy, MD, a neurologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, believes it’s possible to objectively differentiate Asperger’s from ASDs using a new wrinkle on an old technology. Originally trained as an engineer, Duffy is expert at interpreting electroencephalography (EEG) signals—the wiggly lines that represent electrical activity in the brain.

He’s devised computational techniques that measure the degree of synchrony among signals gathered from 24 different electrodes on different parts of the scalp.

These “coherence” patterns, though not evident to the eye, reflect how the brain is wired, and how it processes and integrates information. And they clearly reveal different patterns of brain connections in children with Asperger’s as compared to children with autism.

“It’s very easy to separate Asperger’s from autism patients by EEG measures,” Duffy asserts. “We could eventually come to the point where diagnostic differences are defined directly by differences in brain activity.”

First, we need to rewind to last year, when Duffy presented results from studying 430 children, ages 2 to 12, with “classic” autism and comparing them with 554 neurotypical controls. The autism diagnoses relied upon the DSM-IV, the Autism Diagnostic Interview, Revised and/or the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Children with Asperger’s syndrome or very low or high-functioning autism were excluded. In the end, Duffy computed EEG coherence readings for more than 4,000 possible combinations of electrodes.

In the autism group, coherence tended to be reduced in brain areas at short distances from each other, while long-distance coherence was sometimes reduced, sometimes increased. Ultimately, Duffy found several dozen coherence factors that consistently distinguished the children with autism from the controls with more than 90 percent sensitivity. 

BMC Medicine: Autism and Aspergers are Different on EEG

Autism and Asperger’s are different… at least on EEG by Nancy Fliesler on August 15, 2013

The Asperger’s difference

In the new study, published July 31 in the open-access journal BMC Medicine, Duffy compared these two groups with an additional 26 children meeting behavioral criteria for Asperger’s.

Using 40 coherence factors, Duffy’s algorithm classified 25 of the 26—96 percent—as belonging to the autism sample. So clearly, the children with Asperger’s were closer to the autism profile than to the neurotypical controls. However, further coherence analysis correctly classified 24 of the 26 children—92 percent—as having clinical Asperger’s syndrome as distinct from ASDs. These classifications held up on repeated analyses.

What was different in the Asperger’s group? Duffy zeroed in on four EEG coherence factors (Factors 3, 15, 33 and 40) that best distinguished them from the group with ASDs. This graphic illustrates the differences in brain connectivity; imagine you’re looking down at the brain from above (see the nose at the top of each “head”):

The red and black dots indicate electrodes. Red lines between the dots indicate increased coherence between pairs of signals in the Asperger’s group, and blue-green lines indicate decreased coherence in the Asperger’s group.

So what does this mean?

Duffy hypothesizes that Factor 15, indicating reduced connectivity in the arcuate fasciculus, a brain structure involved in language, indicates a language deficiency, but that the Asperger’s brain compensates for this with increased connectivity in the left temporal region (Factor 3), allowing children to acquire language skills.

“Children with Asperger’s have very unique aspects to their language,” says Duffy. “The difference in coherence may account for their more stylized, literal use of language.”

As for Factors 33 and 40, which each show reduced coherence values in the Asperger’s group, Duffy proposes that they correspond to differences in visual-spatial functioning and in right-hemisphere areas thought to be involved in perceiving social and language nuance.

All this, of course, invites further investigation. Duffy is planning another study using coherence factors to distinguish children with autism from those with global developmental delay, which can often look like autism. With a larger sample size, he hopes to investigate whether there are differences between Asperger’s syndrome and high-functioning autism.

But in the meantime, since EEGs are relatively cheap diagnostic tools, Duffy feels they could eventually be developed to provide a diagnostic tool for autism in settings where there aren’t enough skilled behavioral clinicians, such as developing countries and certain underserved parts of the U.S.

“With some public and private support, I believe this could potentially be translated into a practical tool within my lifetime,” he says.

Citation:
Duffy FH, Shankardass A, McAnulty GB, & Als H (2013). The relationship of Asperger’s syndrome to autism: a preliminary EEG coherence study. BMC medicine, 11 PMID: 23902729

Social Beliefs vs. Scientific Reality

Factual reality is fundamental to the Asperger understanding of our world. The social majority believe that they live in a magical universe. The supernatural dimension, which social people believe to be real, is a product of the human brain, and exists nowhere else.  

This divide is very serious and cannot be smoothed over by social clichés.