| | Michael E. Marotta: I totally agree that the brain is largely self-made. I had magazine articles published on that topic in the late '80's in connection with early childhood computer-enhanced education, when I was consulting with private schools. The evidence suggests strongly that training and practice, especially during infancy or early childhood, can radically impact intelligence and various skills and both perceptual and intellectual capabilities.
There are limits, however. The brain is damaged by too much cortisol, for example, and so, when a boy is physically assaulted repeatedly and seriously or a girl is sexually assaulted, there is definite and clear damage to certain parts of the brain that is long-lasting or permanent, due to the overdose of cortisol hitting the brain in the active areas and killing off brain cells and tissues, such as those having to do with empathy, thus leading to the common syndrome of abusers raising more abusers.
I think that Bob may be a case of this, as well. I have met a fair number of identified Aspies over the recent years as people began to become aware of this syndrome, as well as some adults who suffered through autism. Unlike Bob, the Aspies never told me that they didn't feel and the literature and accounts of parents that I've read indicate that the typical Aspergers kid feels things as strongly if not more than non-Aspies. This tells me that possibly Bob either has a different varient, or dealt with his situation in a different manner than usual, leading to a different style of brain development in which feelings are not as accessible, or may have suffered trauma early on that has resulted in this emotional blindness.
The problem with the typical Aspy is that their feelings, while perfectly strong, are invisable or significantly less-understandable to the non-Aspy and vice-versa. Mothers of Aspies generally relate that they are able to empathize with their Aspy kid, but that they often have great difficulty in dealing with teachers, for example, who typically think that the kid is lying to them all the time.
I recall being accused of stealing another kid's wallet in elementary school, just because I, along with several other kids, had been exploring a crawl space that stretched under the bleachers in the gym, where this other kid had apparently lost his wallet. The principal, without any evidence at all, seemed convinced that I was the culprit, even though I had no record of ever doing any such thing. That's just one example - of hundreds, I'm sure, in my own personal experience, but the overall problem is that non-Aspies find our failure to respond correctly on an emotional level to be suspicious, and without any rational basis, they tend to assume that we are guilty of whatever went down.
It's similar to the issue with Hispanic girls that we used to have out here in Southern California. If a good Hispanic girl is brought before an authority, such as a principal, then she is supposed to lower her gaze and never, ever look the authority in the eyes, which is equivalent to a challenge to fight in that culture. This was being consistently misinterpreted by school authorities as evidence of guilt in whatever situation was happening, and so the most innocent of the girls would be blamed and punished over and over, while the bolder guilty parties would get off scott free, until someone brought the issue to public attention and the school authorities were taught about cultural differences.
Like the Hispanic girls, we Aspies don't give off the right vibes. We may appear to be smiling when in fact we are quite unhappy - or that's one common glitch that I've noticed on my own part - and in general this kind of thing causes other people to consciously or subconsciously conclude that we are hiding our true feelings and thus must be a culprit or enemy or con-man, etc.
Another difficulty is that when we have good ideas - which is more often than the general populace, as Aspies tend to have high IQs - we have trouble selling them, as, once again, people instinctively mistrust us. I, for example, came up with a complete design for a browser with full hypermedia linking capabilities in the mid-80's and tried to convince programmers in my local Amiga computer club to take on the project. It was a little beyond my resources to complete on own, although I did have something of a prototype, done in compiled BASIC.
However, they all treated the idea, which was remarkably similar - text-based hyperlinks, etc. - to Mosaic, as a joke. Then the Mac came out with HyperCard and suddenly the Amiga programmers were scrambling to catch up - althought they still didn't see it in the context of my idea which was essentially a web page. The Amiga - as later events proved - was fully capable in 1985 to have supported a modern internet web, but it didn't happen simply because nobody tried to do it.
(Edited by Phil Osborn on 3/11, 7:54pm)
(Edited by Phil Osborn on 3/11, 8:05pm)
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