28 October 2008

Pathologising the nerd - a brief rant

Autism spectrum disorders (including Asperger syndrome and autism) are very real and often debilitating conditions. I am getting a little tired of uninformed people labelling anyone who is intelligent with slightly dodgy social skills as "autistic" or "an aspie". Just because someone is a nerd does does not mean they have Asperger syndrome or autism.

Mmmkay?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who called you autistic?

Mary said...

LOL, nobody! It's just something I hear more and more and it annoys me lots.

Anonymous said...

Mary - I hear you. Dropped in via Picklebums. Still reading your backstory so don't know your details yet but our eldest (J, recently turned 10, eeek) is high functioning autistic. The only thing that bothers me more is the ignorant folk who think all ASD kids are savants because that's what they saw on 60 Minutes once. Sigh.

Cheers,
Lizzie
www.lizzieshome.com

Mary said...

Lizzie, the savant assumption would drive me nuts! Grrr to 60 mins and Today Tonight and all those terrible shows that dumb things down so much.

BTW, there's no autism in our family, just nerdiness. LOL

Off to read your w/s now. :)

 
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