INTJ & Asperger & High Functioning Autism

[GOD]

I thought I'd do a review of Wikipedia definitions of Asperger and High Functioning Autism, basically because its been brought up a few times in various forums and I've even heard it mentioned by a fellow "seriously intelligent" INTJ.

So, here's what I've written. All is up for negotiation. My truth isn't fixed.

INTJ Personality Type - Asperger & High Functioning Autism.

[GOD]

Well, we have yet another article trying to somehow connect the introverts to autism simply because they are a minority and it promotes their "research" (Which worries me about all these psychologists, they are all trying to make a name for themselves by "finding" problems and all the drug companies running around saying we can solve these problems for a price).

Computer game addicts warned they could start behaving like autism sufferers | the Daily Mail

Does make me smile though, "Engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists are nearer to the non-empathising end of the spectrum, with people with Asperger's syndrome even further along again". Well, by implication do people that "suffer" from Autism play games more? Same to with "Asperger's"... bet they don't. Hence, already we see problems with the inherent logic; it’s not able to be reversed.

People who study too much, are too introverted, who gamble, party or doing anything to excess could easily be put into this type of argument. Now, if they could statistically show that a greater proportion of Autistic suffers played games to excess then we'd have some form of scientific merit.

[GOD]

I've located an interesting article on this topic, I was sure that INTJs were along the bell shaped curve towards these "traits", and this pretty much confirms my observations. My comments in blue, article passages in black. Link to article at the end of this post.

Original article credit to Simon Baron-Cohen of Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Cambridge (England).

This article challenges the received view through a subtle but important shift of emphasis. Rather than conceiving of autism as a deficiency, it instead considers if autism might be better characterised as a different cognitive style.

As we'll see its an orientation to the inner world of the self and towards systems, processes and patterns... depersonalisation is just a manifestation and not necessarily the "cause".

Autism is diagnosed on the basis of abnormalities in the areas of social development, communicative development, and imagination, together with marked repetitive or obsessional behaviour or unusual, narrow interests . Individuals with autism may have an IQ at any level. By convention, if an individual with autism has an IQ in the normal range (or above), they are said to have 'high-functioning autism' (HFA). If an individual meets all of the criteria for HFA except communicative abnormality/history of language delay, they are said to have Asperger's syndrome (AS). In this paper, we focus on AS and HFA since we accept that an individual who is lower-functioning necessarily has a disability in the form of retardation.

Note that High functioning autism basically states that the person can be well above average in the IQ stakes. Wouldn't it be fair to say that "High IQ coupled with unique observations, obsessive behaviour and pattern/systems orientation are ideal traits to success in many technical fields?"

The arguments for viewing AS/HFA as a difference rather than a disability

1. The child spends more time involved with objects and physical systems than with people (Swettenham et al., 1998); (This has the Thinking and judging traits all over it - INTJs)
2. The child communicates less than other children do; (Greater Introversion, Thinking more and less connectivity with non thinking kids - INTJs).
3. The child tends to follow their own desires and beliefs rather than paying attention to, or being easily influenced by, others’ desires and beliefs (Baron- Cohen, Leslie & Frith, 1985); (INTJs sticking to their orientation and not being constrained by group behaviour)
4. The child shows relatively little interest in what the social group is doing, or being a part of it (Bowler, 1992; Lord, 1984); (INTJs)
5. The child has strong, persistent[2] interests; (INTJs select their interests and tend to follow them vertically into immense detail)
6. The child is very accurate at perceiving the details of information (Plaisted, O'Riordan & Baron-Cohen, 1998a; Plaisted, O'Riordan & Baron-Cohen, 1998b) (Thats a function of intuitive projective thinking which means that causal patterns infer the requirements and detail).
7. The child notices and recalls things other people may not (Frith, 1989); (INTJs are always scanning for exceptions (not pattern conforming) and looking for detail around the edges that is the key to the answer. Also, when they are interested they are really interested, bit of the obsessive trait coming through).
8. The child’s view of what is relevant and important in a situation may not coincide with others (Frith, 1989); (INTJs starting building their logic framework at a very early age, a piece of information can be very important to an INTJ child if it conflicts with his/her logic or if it somehow or someway is far more important than its acknowledgement.
9. (dates, . The child may be fascinated by patterned material, be it visual (shapes), numeric timetables), alphanumeric (number plates), or lists (of cars, songs, etc.); Obviously this is the INTJ pattern forming traits. I do somehow believe that its almost that patterns offer non personalised mind communication, like a riddle that needs to be solved and brought to order (Like with the Judging function). INTJs command the physical world, structure order, predictability and efficient action. Understanding patterns is like to leverage the logic, if you understand the pattern you Intuitively know the outcome. The more patterns solved the greater the intuitiveness.
10. The child may be fascinated by systems, be they simple (light switches, water taps), a little more complex (weather fronts), or abstract (mathematics); INTJs are fascinated by the achievement of outcomes from systems, they appreciate the intellect of the maker of the machine. By understanding the machine they understand the logic of how and most importantly why.
11. The child may have a strong drive to collect categories of objects (e.g., bottletops, train maps), or categories of information (types of lizard, types of rock, types of fabric, etc.); and (Because INTJs tend to dive vertically into the depths of detail, where the topic has limited detail then they are likely branch towards closely connected items. Categories of an item are more logically connected).
12. The child has a strong preference for experiences that are controllable rather than unpredictable. (Systems are controllable, they are the master. Unpredictable situations reduce power to control or influence).

The list could be expanded but these 12 behavioural features are sufficient to illustrate that children with AS/HFA are different in ways that can be described in value-free terms: none imply any necessary disability. Rather, most of the above facts show the child as immersed in the world of things rather than people. This might be a basic way of defining the difference between a person with an autism spectrum condition and one without it .

There's lots more to say on this article - as time permits. The orginal article in full length can be found here -> http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/7138/lobby/disability.htm One thing to note is the hightend propensity of high performing intellectuals to have this condition and the increasing incidence (Which I believe is more related to the ability of "birds of a feather to flocking together" and having children which was less the case with lower social mobility and less meritocracy in the past).

[GOD]

Being more object-focused than people-focused is clearly only a disability in an environment that expects everyone to be social. But a moment's reflection highlights the injustice of this expectation. Thus, people who show the opposite pattern (of being more people-focused than object-focused) are not necessarily considered disabled. On this view, people with AS/HFA would cease to be disabled as soon as society's expectations change. For example, a child with AS/HFA who prefers to stay in the classroom poring over encyclopaedias and rock collections during break-time, when other children are outside playing together, could simply be seen as different, not disabled. It is not clear why the child with AS/HFA is seen as doing something less valuable than the other children or why their behaviour should be seen as an index of impairment.

Not sure about “that everyone expects to be social” is exactly right, it’s more that group majority expectations that people interact with other people.

One thing I am not absolutely sure about is that “who prefers to stay in the classroom poring over encyclopaedias and rock collections” is entirely correct. While I believe they have a propensity to learn and understand it’s just as much a deficit function that all the other children they could interact with share little of their interests. And by this I don’t mean “rock collections”, I do in fact mean the depth and understanding of "any" topic, its like the children talking about others being “mean and unfriendly” when they in fact want to talk about “why and what makes people different”, as an analogy it’s the difference between reading a trashy celebratory magazine versus reading psychology theory. If there was other information/hobbies/interests that the child could easily get hold of then they wouldn't just read encyclopaedias - I'd say that often because society "expects" bright kids to be boring and enjoy 1950s stereotypes they get pushed with rock collections and encyclopaedias. Its a real pity they don't get pushed topics that will eventually help them bridge to others rather than just increasing alienation.


I remember at school when we were 13 writing a story each for the local primary school, a very bright classmate wrote a story about different cloud formation types which was so detailed and complex that it bored everyone let alone the 5-7 year olds. Sadly to say he was committed in his early 20s to an institution. My memories from that time where that he was incredibly bright, incredibly naïve and there was a definite enduring sadness behind his presence. I do in fact wonder if most of these conditions are really a function of depression, with the bright patients evading detection (usually) and eventually solving their own problems with the less bright not being able to cope and being diagnosed.

Equally, a child with AS/HFA who has strong narrow interests of an unusual nature (learning the names of every kind of bird) may be different to a typical child who has only been interested to learn the names of common animals. But surely the narrow deep knowledge is no less valuable than the broad, shallower variety, and certainly not a necessary index of deficit? A final example should help drive this point home. Just because a child with AS/HFA notices the unique numbers on lamp-posts which the rest of us are unaware of, does this make him impaired? We could say it is simply different. The same argument can be applied to all of the other facts listed above.

With respect to “noticing the unique numbers on lamp-posts which the rest of us are unaware of” I need to go into detail on this one, as I simply don’t think many if any psychologists get this at all.

Firstly, if the child is orientated to processes and patterns with limited interest in “people” this coupled with introversion clearly restricts their observation of the world. As a child what can they see? What is before them. Their knowledge base is also far lower. Hence, lightposts and other physical objects/processes are within their domain. Because they are also bored and like to connectively learn (every piece of knowledge links and forms part of their growing framework of understanding) they focus on that observation (say lightposts) and examine it in great detail. Like “why do the lampposts have serial numbers?” they ask the questions to their “mentor” adults and get both positive interactive feedback and answers. The positive feedback is also coupled with the notion that the child might also think they are talking on par with the adults which can further incentivise this approach. Remember, these kids are trying to interact based on their perception of the world…

Lastly, just as these children can notice the serial numbers on lampposts.. does anyone not realise that they may be equally as observant of people and their changing temperments? And this may well be one of the reason's they prefer introversion? (Lack of consistency) I think psychologists completely underestimate this ability. There is a big difference between fitting group culture and understanding individuals.

IV. The difference view is more compatible with the 'continuum' concept
A further argument for favouring the difference view over the disability view is that it is easier to accommodate within the now widely accepted notion that autism appears on a continuum . The notion of a continuum assumes that there is an underlying dimension or set of dimensions along which all people vary. There is still debate over precisely what constitutes the underlying dimension. Later in the paper we consider two models which aim to characterise the autistic spectrum.

Yes, would believe that there definitely is a continuum, however where it is thinned it appears as a step change. I think a step change exists at the point where the patient eventually cannot bring themselves back into some approximate alignment with society (or sufficiently mask it).

Arguments for viewing AS/HFA as a disability rather than a difference


1. Differences are caused by cognitive deficits

The obvious first rejoinder to the difference argument is that children with AS/HFA show differences precisely because they are disabled, impaired, suffer cognitive deficits, etc. Thus, one might argue that they are less influenced by others because they do not spontaneously stop to consider other people's points of view, feelings and thoughts (the theory of mind deficit) ; they may communicate less and may be less socially focused for the same reason; their unusual perception may arise because of their "weak" central coherence ; whilst their strong interests may reflect a "failure" to switch attention flexibly, possibly as a sign of their "executive disorder" . For all these reasons, the rejoinder goes, we should retain the notion of AS/HFA as a disability.

This could be regarded as unfair because there may be a chicken-and-egg problem in the logic. We cannot yet prove that their difference is due to a disability and not the other way around. For example, is their "mindblindness" the cause of them being less socially-focused/more object-focused, or a consequence of it? The development of a mind-reading skill may require months of social input so a lack of early social interest could contribute to mindblindness. One could make a similar case in relation to their weak central coherence: Is this a cause of their relatively greater interest in detail , or simply a consequence of it?

One problematic aspect is that of “reinforcement”. That the child is introverted and travels down a particular path and follows it for a long period of time that the logic and everything else that comprises of their knowledge framework is clustered along that way… So they have expert knowledge in particular areas but a naïve understanding in others. With reinforcement I mean positive (That incentivises them towards reward by following that path) and negative which is a function of progressively less fitting into peer areas (who are gaining abilities, e.g. Say, social norm’s and expectations)). So, they seek the positive and recoil from the negative.