A syndrome for success

From A syndrome for success – Health – Specials – smh.com.au.

People with Asperger’s Syndrome – a developmental disorder on the autistic spectrum – may seem socially odd and they may have difficult relationships with their partners, children and parents, but they’re in good company.

Director Steven Spielberg has been diagnosed with AS. Einstein probably had it. Researchers speculate that Mozart, Michelangelo and Andy Warhol may have had Asperger’s traits. Bill Gates also seems to have some AS traits.

“Most of the major advances in science and art have been made by people with Asperger’s, from Mozart to Einstein,” says Dr Tony Attwood, a Brisbane-based world authority on the disorder. He describes AS as a different way of thinking.

Also there was this nugget in the article:

Judy Singer is the co-ordinator of ASPAR, a support group for the adult children of a parent with Asperger’s Syndrome. Singer’s mother has AS – something Singer only realised when her own daughter was diagnosed.

“Medical classification systems have finally caught up with something that every six-year-old schoolyard bully has been able to diagnose at sight since time immemorial,” Singer writes on her website, describing Asperger’s as the “nerd’s disorder”. Asperger’s support groups and rights groups abound on the internet, where some “Aspies” (as they’re fondly known) decry the persecution they have suffered at the hands of non-autistic people, whom they call “neurotypicals” or “NTs”.

I highly encourage anyone who reads this post to read the aforementioned article. It may be six years old, but I think it is one of the best articles about Asperger’s Syndrome.