Asperger's, Autism and Amanda Baggs

I learned something these past few days. I have been studying up on Asperger's Syndrome (AS) and Autism in addition to past research because of the recent trouble with Aspie Boy's school.

I discovered something very interesting. Ever hear about Autism? Maybe even up to the last 10 years, someone born with low-functioning Autism would end up in a mental hospital. Remember "Rain Man"? Tom Cruise had an Autistic brother who had been institutionalized because he was autistic.

You would think that people who are severely Autistic, or low functioning, are, basically, retarded. Not so. Check out this video by Amanda Baggs.

Now before you go there, keep these things in mind. The video lasts for 8 minutes and 35 seconds. The first couple of minutes are without words. You are basically watching a low-functioning Autistic person be herself, and you might think, as I did, "This is boring."

But after you watch those first few minutes, Amanda begins to explain what you saw. She's able to do this, even though she doesn't speak, by way of a computer program that translates her typing onto a keyboard and it comes out as speech.

In fact, the first time I watched it a few months ago, I got bored in the first minute or so and I quit watching it. I didn't know there was an explanation coming up.

If you keep watching, you will be treated to the mind of a person who appears to be a retarded person who simply cannot relate to "normal" people, or Neuro-typicals ("NTs"), in their own language. Autistics, it turns out, have their own language that Neuro-typicals don't bother to learn.

That's fine because, thanks to computers and the internet, Amanda has learned how to communicate with us. It would be nice to be able to relate to Amanda in her own language, but I have a feeling that that is not possible unless you are Autistic.

I am at once ashamed and excited.

I'm ashamed because I have looked at Autistics (like Amanda) as if they are just retarded. I would never have spent any time trying to communicate with Amanda or anyone like her. I would have assumed that she couldn't understand me and was unaware of the world around her.

I am excited because I found out, because of Amanda, what the link is between AS and Autism. I have learned, up until now, that AS is a "high functioning" form of Autism. Yet I couldn't relate AS to Autism. How could there be a relationship between AS and Autism?

To me, AS looked like we (AS people) are really smart, we just come off like ditzes (to explain it shortly and loosely) whereas Austistics look retarded! Where was the link that connected AS to Autism, if AS is simply a high-functioning form of Autism??

The link between Autism and AS is intelligence. It turns out that Autistics are very intelligent (please watch Amanda's video) as are people who are AS, but Autistics can't function, physically, as well as people who are AS. But Autistics are as intelligent as people with AS (possibly even more so, but we'll find out as this door is opened even further into their world).

But the other thing that I am made more aware of is that my son has a real disability of which I have not been as educated as I thought I was, even though I have AS myself. Let me explain this.

I didn't discover that I have AS until about 5 years ago, when I was 45-years old. At that time, I learned that I had AS when I joined a forum for people with ADHD and someone on that forum contacted me privately and said she thought I might have AS.

This opened a whole new world to me. I had spent my life being ridiculed for various aspects of my personality, and I ended up with very low self-esteem. It started in my family, where I would hear things like, "What, are you stupid?" Or, my dad's favorite, "When God said he was handing out brains, you thought he said trains, and you bought a one-way ticket." (I still don't know what that means.)

My sisters used to gang up on me (I had 4 sisters).

In school, I was told I was bright, but that I couldn't carry out simple basic steps. I remember my 2nd grade teacher admonishing me that "It's a think and do book, not a do and think book!"

I have always been treated as if I am stupid, even though I ultimately became an attorney and have been very successful with my cases so far.

The most distressing thing that I read, in learning about Autism, is that people with Autism are treated as if they cannot perform at all in society. I think this is so sad.

This caused me to look back over my own life when I was told to "give up, you'll never succeed!"

I remember when I was at UCI and I was belittled by the professor in one of my classes who scoffed at me because I didn't understand something he said, and he was dismissive of me after that. It was obvious he was done with me after that. He focused more on the other student after that. It was a special class where there were only 2 of us.

While I was at UCI, I spoke with my then-ex-husband's dad, who was the City Manager of Chino, and when I told him I was going to ultimately go to law school, he started laughing. Then he caught himself and said he was laughing with me, not at me. I wasn't laughing, and I didn't understand why he was laughing. Well, I understand now.

After I graduated from UCI with a B.A., I entered into a paralegal program because I was afraid of going to law school. About a year and half into the 2-year program, the director of the program pulled me out of class and told me that I should quit the program because I didn't appear to be understanding simple concepts.

It was around this same time that I had started an internship in an attorney's office and that attorney told me to go to law school. I dropped out of the paralegal program then and there and started law school the very next semester.

In my first semester of law school, I was in a legal writing course and on one of my papers, the professor wrote things like, "What is this crap? Are you sure you are in the right profession?" She wrote more than that, but you get the idea. I didn't give up, and I passed with a 1.3 GPA in that course.

I somehow managed to finish law school with a 2.3 GPA, and then it was time to start studying for the Bar Exam. I had, to this point, never figured out how to write the way we were supposed to write. I didn't have a problem with the multiple choice exams, though.

I didn't take any of the bar review courses. I studied on my own. I failed the first Bar Exam, but because I didn't do well on the writing portions. Something interesting: For the multiple choice part of the exam (called the "Multi-State") the exam-takers are given 3 hours for each multi-state exam, and there are 2 of them. I finished both of them in 1 1/2 hours each, and passed both portions. Most students need the entire 3 hours for each exam, and many students don't finish.

After I failed the first exam, I hired a tutor in order to learn how to write a better essay exam, since it was because of the essay writing that I could not pass the exam. I paid $1000 for 5 sessions.

It was during the middle of the 3rd session that the tutor told me that he thought I wasn't getting basic concepts that 1st year students could understand, and he advised me to forget about the upcoming exam and study for 6-months in order to prepare for the next exam after that.

I was so devastated, but my husband said that instead of being depressed, just prepare for the upcoming exam even though I would probably fail. He said to just look at it as a "practice" exam that I was going to inevitably fail, but that by taking the exam, that would be experience for the 3rd exam that I would ultimately pass.

Interesting thing is that I passed the 2nd exam. The tutor had been tutoring 12 of us that season. Only 2 of us passed, and one of them was me.

I have thoroughly had it pounded into my brain that I am a ditz. Not only because of the above, but I have always been made fun of for the things about me that were different. I get lost, I lose things, I get distracted, I speak my mind out loud, and many other things.

I speak loudly. I don't have volume control. I find things funny that others don't, and yet I don't get jokes that everyone else gets.

Okay, I'll quit going on about me. Now, even though I understand that I have AS, and even though I finally figured out that my son, Aspie Boy, has AS, I didn't understand how simply knowing that he and I have AS means that I know what to do about it with regard to his school.

Well, I still don't know what to do exactly, but this is where Amanda's video comes into play. She has said that just because she knows how to do some things doesn't mean she knows how to do other things.

This is my son's problem. The teachers need to understand that just because he's not as impaired (physically) as Amanda doesn't mean he isn't impaired in some ways. I think this is why some people are calling AS the "invisible disability."

Aspie Boy appears to be normal. He doesn't limp, he doesn't flap his hands, he doesn't rock back and forth in class. He just has a difficult time with certain concepts, following directions, getting distracted, etc. He appears to be behaving badly when he's just merely thinking differently.

We have an IEP meeting coming up. I'm not going in to bash heads. I'm going in with the hope that I can help my son.