Dyslexics, by virtue of having some kind of ‘disability’, are able to learn to succeed (say in the business world) from the experience of having to overcome their ‘disability’ at school;
whether Dyslexia, while obviously leading to certain deficiencies in mental processing, also offers some specific advantages to mental functioning - even in the complete absence of any hardships in school.
if a disorder can be viewed in some circumstances as an advantage, then should it be treated at all?
I think the best answer may be to do with the following:
using treatment(s) to be able to function effectively while playing to your strengths while minimising harm to society, rather than using the treatment(s) to try and remake you into a ‘normal’ (normal as in ‘non-disordered’!) person/state.
Now Chain mentioned driving. Well that might be a classic example of the approach I mentioned above.
people with untreated ADHD, being more distractible and/or daydreamy, are much more likely to be involved in car accidents and therefore be a danger on the roads for themselves and others;
treating people’s ADHD, say with the frontline neurostimulant treatments, improves their driving performance:
“[Mixed Amphetamine Salts Extended Release] in young adults with ADHD yields significant improvements in simulated driving performance and ADHD symptoms.” [PMID: 18815438]
a wandering mind and daydreaming, which are hallmarks of ADHD, are actually benefial for problem solving. For example, a 2009 University of British Columbia study found that brain areas associated with complex problem-solving – previously thought to go dormant when we daydream – are in fact highly active during these episodes. (source: Brain’s Problem-solving Function At Work When We Daydream)
so the correct solution might well be:
a) to treat people’s ADHD effectively, whether it be via neurostimulants or some other recognised treatment like working memory training or neurofeedback; after all, among other things, people need to be protected on the roads (including the ADHD drivers themselves)!
b) at the same time do not try to ‘remake’ ADHDers into ‘normal people’. Even with the treatment, they will not exactly be ‘round pegs in round wholes’. Indeed they have an important function to play in society - we need plenty of problem solvers in the world! So you also need to try to preserve and harness what they have.
Specialisterne (The Specialists) is a Danish company using the characteristics of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder as competitive advantages in the business market. Formed in 2004 by Thorkil Sonne, who himself has a son with Autism and who saw the potential that such people could bring to the workplace.
The company’s focus is on Software Testing and it utilises Autistic traits like extreme attention to detail, long term memory recall and being methodical. At the same time, it seeks to minimise their exposure to factors in the workplace which can often be barriers in the careers of those with Autism.
The company has recently expanded to Scotland, with plans afoot to open offices in Iceland and other European countries.
Already the Specialisterne example has been followed in a number of other countries. In the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, England, Israel, and Japan, companies have sprang up with similar ideas - to harness Autistic strengths for careers in Software Testing (and related fields). While Thorkil Sonne wants Specialisterne to remain a for profit company (partly to guard against any ‘jobs for charities’ type labels), a US non-profit equivalent has recently opened up in suburban Chicago - Aspiritech.
I take Ritalin for ADHD. I was diagnosed rather late (Grade 13), as apparently I can make up for some of the deficiencies naturally.
It works well, I only need to take it when I need it. No need on the weekends if i’m just relaxing.
I’ll tell you what, I wouldn’t be able to do Engineering without some sort of med. It’s just too hard for me to focus on one thing for an extended period of time (studying all day for example) without medication.
Outside of school, I won’t ride my motorcycle (sportbike) without it. It requires too much concentration (both on the road and the race track). There’s so many variables and things happen so fast, that I need the ability to focus.
Whether it be a car pulling out in front of me on the street, or the braking point before a sharp corner on the track, there is a definite advantage for me.
I don’t feel like taking medication is a bad thing (the general sense I got from skimming the quotes in the first post). It helps me do the things I enjoy, to the best of my ability.
If you have ADHD, then taking the medication (the frontline treatment, Ritalin) is probably the right thing to do.
I mean it reduces your chances of:
automobile accidents like you mentioned;
recreational drug use (which are likely to be much more dangerous than therapeutic doses of Ritalin!);
impulsive/risky behaviours like unprotected sex with casual partners, etc.
I will dig studies up and edit this post when I have more time but various studies repeatedly demonstrating these facts can be found through pubmed.
In an ideal world, I think high quality non-drug treatments like Working Memory Training, HEG Neurofeedback or QEEG guided Neurofeedback could be encouraged by governments and corporations for such issues. But these treatments take a lot of time and effort whereas taking a pill doesn’t! There are ways to get these treatments done quiet cheaply though without too many expensive medical personnel appointments. For example through Brain Workshop or Pocket Neurobics.
It would be nice though if:
a job had (confidentially based) allowances where say 30-45 minutes a day of such treatments could be incorporated as time taken away from the work day;
regular financial rewards could be paid for reaching above certain quantitative benchmarks for treatments like Working Memory Training and/or QEEG guided Neurofeedback;
conversely, financial punishments would be imposed if benchmarks weren’t reached in these treatments (or weren’t maintained);
such deals could be organised by externally licensing bodies independent of the workplace (and indeed a person’s confidentiality of diagnosis within the workplace would be assured).
That would be some kind of corporate social responsibility too I guess?
Back to Specialisterne. Interestingly, having an employee with High Functioning Autism / Asperger’s Syndrome on board, may ‘soften the workplace atmosphere’…
It’s so nice to have you back around sir. I’m always amazed by the complexity of your posts, but put in such a way that even a simpler person could comprehend. Thanks for that.
I was diagnosed with Dyslexia as a child and the school wanted me to go to a “special” education class and ride the short-bus. My mother would have none of that. Thankfully she also was well aware of the advantages I would have later in life by overcoming my dyslexia. She was, apparently, many years beyond the scope of normal thinking.
It was a difficult challenge for me to overcome and I struggled throughout school including HS. It’s probably why when I got out of HS I never wanted to go further. I was always stressed and just hated school for many years. Although the parties and chicks were cool . I remember in my first couple of months of junior year and I was just disgusted in the whole process. Everyone was learning slow, a chapter a week and it was I who had the learning disability. I was considered a troubled kid back then and again mom refused any drugs to “alter” my personality.
I made a deal with the school board. If I pass all my state administered required tests, I get my diploma, just like anyone else, but if I don’t pass, I go to alternative school. There was no way I could pass. I was absent all the time, never paid attention to anything, never did homework, troubled, learning disabled, said to have ADHD, OCD and a slew of other ailments. They said I had a week to study, I told them I was ready right then and there.
I aced those tests and graduated with my class a year and a half later when they were finally done. In the meantime I joined the Army worked in a machine shop and did some really cool stuff.
Moral of the story is labels are there to make other people feel better about themselves. Be the best you can be and use everything to your advantage. Life comes at you fast and many people would rather drug or re-educate that which is different from them. Society has taken the easy way out. To think they call this the civilized society when we are so quick to drug our children.
I’d rather watch a child run and play all day and be a little hyper than in a drug induced stupor.
Since HS I have enough college coursework completed to have two degrees. Knowledge is what enthralls me, not a piece of paper that says I have that knowledge.
My wife is dyslexic, and so I’ve had the opportunity to study her functioning over the years. My suspicion is that dyslexia is more a social disorder than a neurological one. It seems to be induced by rigid educational conditioning, which attempts to force processing of information into channels which are not a good fit for every neurological setup. As a result, the affected individual gets a sort of a kink in their information pipeline. They want to put it through in a way that is natural to them, but have encountered so much resistance to allowing that process to develop naturally that they’re essentially trying to do two things at once.
ADHD is another disorder I take issue with. The label indicates that it is a deficit of attentional capacity, but that has not been my experience of this disorder at all. The same people who are unable to sit still during tasks they find uninteresting tend to exhibit prolonged maintenance of attention on tasks with they do find interesting. I think it should more properly be called an attention dysregulation disorder. The problem is not a lack of attentional capacity, but rather a lack of control over that attention. Like most psychiatric treatments, I think prolonged stimulant treatment for ADHD is probably ill-advised.
In both cases, treatments like neurofeedback and hypnosis can be used to help affected individuals develop more effective strategies for processing information and regulating attentional states.
It is interesting that there is a focus on a multifaceted approach that involves education managers and co-workers, carving out assignments that play to the individual’s talents, and putting reasonable accommodations in place. Also the HR bodies of the company’s hiring the employees find themselves working closely with organisations that help prepare those with Asperger’s for the workplace as well as providing ongoing support throughout the employment relationship.
It sounds like really, truly great work in this area and hats off to all the companies/organisations involved. A lot could be learned from the approaches in that article.
I like the systemised approach that Specialisterne uses myself where everything is done by one company and there is one main type of work particularly suited to those with Autism Spectrum Disorders (Software Testing). See the following for a more detailed article of what Specialisterne does: Harnessing the Power of ASD. I like the way it is truely trying to harness some kind of ‘A Team’ of Autistic ‘commando’ Software Testers and the way Sonne focuses on competing in terms of value and quality to Specialisterne’s clients rather than any kind of ‘jobs for disabilities’ type deal. Though of course in reality, some companies are likely to take corporate social responsibility into account when deciding on working with them.
Adding a compulsory, effective treatment to things, not to cure anyone of their issue, but simply to make them more functional in today’s world, would be the final touch IMHO!
It’s so nice to read stories about people making the right choices to help each other out. There are so many stories in the world of people taking advantage of one another. The tube is proliferated with reality shows. I guess its nice to see people more messed up than yourself and is one of the main reasons I no longer watch TV.
A fascinating and poetic ode to grit, but one which seems to be using a pretty narrow and non-standard set of criteria for diagnosing autism. Here’s the DSM criteria:
Like any psychological disorder, autism is the twisted end of a continuum that we all have running through our minds and behaviors. I think it’s valuable to recognize the strengths represented within the autistic character, but I’m not really sure I agree that obsessive interestedness and intellectual endurance are “autistic” in and of themselves. It is an interesting idea, though.
Reminds me of some of the farther-out treatment models for eating disorders. Do you know what kind of dissociative might somebody has to wield in order to disregard severe hunger pangs? It’s kind of awesome, when you think about it, and when you work with these patients from a strengths-oriented perspective you find that you can apply that same power to all kinds of other things that can actually be beneficial to the patient. You can help them learn to own and harness their unique gift. But I wouldn’t want to reverse the nomenclature and call that type of ascetic stamina an “anorexic trait.”
Tks for the comments - I’ll come back to this thread later. But I think there is a place for everyone in the world and in the workforce (as long as noone is being hurt). I believe that those with Autism and ADHD could be harnessed better perhaps. But we can also learn from many other people too perhaps who haven’t been harnessed optimally. An inclusive approach would work best.
Treatment every day requires that these issues be recognised in some way every day (confidentially of course) so that they are being worked on.
Labelling definitely has its negatives, but there are many positives too in terms of identifying a widespread problem (coming under a ‘label’ like a specific disorder) and using the best of modern knowledge and technology to find a replicable solution.
Also this idea seems to follow the path of ‘positive psychology’, attempting to focus on factors that lead to maximal success for the ‘disordered’ and minimum burdens on society (source: Teaching Psychology for Sustainability: A Manual of Resources):
I didn’t see the author diagnosing autism or Aspergers in anyone, although he does refer to a specific instance: Michael Burry - the hedge funder who played the crackup of the credit bubble to perfection - who has been diagnosed as autistic, as has his son.
Rather, he seemed to me to be exploring whether traits and behavioural patterns that are manifested in a raw and extreme form in the clinically-diagnosed autistic person might not be at work in a more subtle and refined matter in people who nobody would think of as having any kind of disorder whatsoever.
Perhaps there is a problem with the medicalisation of deviation from the norm in today’s world. Would Newton, Einstein, Macaulay Sr + Jr, Samuel Johnson (the quirky English writer), Michael Burry, and huge numbers of engineering + creative types throughout history have net benefited from being diagnosed with a ‘disorder’ and treated according to the present-day ‘gold standard’? Or is it possible that in some ways - despite the lack of medical knowledge of previous ages - English culture and society at its best previously sometimes did a better job than we often manage today of integrating those with differences.
It’s funny, the whole time I was reading the article I was thinking “Are you calling me autistic??” Because, like the protagonist, I hop from obsession to obsession, painstakingly absorbing and cataloging information until some internal signal tells me my task is complete. My wife marvels at the strange hobbies which allow me to somehow unplug from the stresses in real life only to plug into the types of things that other people go to school for. As the years go by I become encyclopedic.
But I’ve never heard this trait referred to as ‘autistic’ before. I’m able to function in social and professional settings, and although I have my introverted periods I generally desire and seek company with other people. When I think about it this way, I suppose it does make some sense to assume that these are traits which an autist might be engaging in to the extreme. But I think I’m of the opinion that autism is more a lack of the ingredients which keep me connected to other people rather than an overabundance of the ingredients which cause me to immerse myself in various topic areas. There are some savants, but they’re rare. Most people with autism are just stuck in themselves.
I think you’re right about overmedicalization. Everyone has to be organized some way, has to use some set of characteristic defenses to balance internal and external demands and so preserve their sense of self. It’s ironic, because the psychoanalytic community finally grasped this truth, probably largely as a byproduct of being thrown out of academia. You look at something like the Psychoanalytic Diagnostic Manual and find a framework that understands people at every level of functioning as operating on the same small set of basic organizational principles. The only distinction between healthy and sick is that healthy people are flexible enough to switch from one operational mode to another as needed.
And there is magic out at the extremes. But there’s a fine line between genius and madness because it’s a rare individual who can go out much farther than the normal range and still be able to freely return. Joseph Campbell said that the schizophrenic is drowning in the same water where the mystics swim. The farther reaches of human experience have always been threatening to civilization, because they suggest alternate realities and alternative ways of existing. Medicalizing functional traits like hyperactivity is just the latest way of saying we don’t like them.
But autism, I don’t know. Would an autist survive in the wild?
Dr. Thomas Armstrong, author of Neurodiversity: Discovering the Extraordinary Gifts of Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Brain Differences, is a big proponent of ‘niche construction’.
Niche construction is about devising ways of helping an individual change their surrounding environment to fit the needs of their unique brain. There are many tools, resources, and strategies for altering the environment so that it it meshes with the needs of a neurodiverse brain.
Armstrong has provided plenty of scientific evidence to support the view that positive niche construction can literally change the developing brain. The brains of young children are especially “plastic” or susceptible to stimulation (both positive and negative) from the environment during the first few years of life.
