I was watching this online commercial about how Google pictures its Project Glass working:
If this kind of technology became common, one of the positive effects I could see would be for people who struggle with face blindness. It wouldn’t be a very big leap to create a way to “label” people with their names. The names could even follow them around like the labels hovering over characters in video games like Minecraft:
My brothers and I exploring the uncharted seas together. (The name labels are too small to read, but you can see they are there.)
That’s certainly what I would do with it! It could also help with executive dysfunction by providing a framework for keeping an organized schedule, kind of like how the guy in the commercial uses it as a dayplanner. I truly believe that the technology of the Internet has been and can be a tremendous help to people with Asperger’s if it’s used wisely.
At the same time, though, I can also see lots of potential drawbacks. One, of course, is the fact that you have to wear the Star Trek-like headset that might make you look a bit like this:
Did Google make Geordi's VISOR?
Or, at least, like this:
Major Kira tests another Google prototype?
Of more concern is the fact that other people would have the advantage of using this information too. A salesman could use it and say, “Oh, here comes a guy named Nathan; my records say he just visited a Star Trek site. I’ll try to sell him my Star Trek DVDs.” That would be annoying.
Even more likely is that Google could sell ad space, so if I used this as my dayplanner, it would be yet another way to advertise, this time literally right in my face! The commercial, after all, is not just targeting ukelele-playing boyfriends– it is also catching the notice of businesses like the bookstore, the concert promoter, and the coffee truck, which all get business from the guy in the commercial thanks to Google’s invention.
It’s also interesting to ponder how such a device could affect the way people think. One commenter on the news article announcing this project said something like “Goodbye spontaneity.” It’s true– what might seem freeing to people who struggle with organization and socializing could be very restricting to people who are social by nature.
And if you have a guide to help do something for you, it might cause you to stop exercising the muscle (or in this case, mental facility) that allows you to do it yourself. The idea is a little amusing to me– could reliance on technology like this make everyone think a little more like an Aspie?
CBS’s 60 Minutes ran a segment about face blindness last night, and I figured I’d share some thoughts about it.
If I could add captions to the movie, that would be fun, but I don’t know how to do that. So I’ll try writing a running commentary according to the time index of the video.
Part 1:
0:10 It’s been a while since I watched this program. Goodness, they are being dramatic, with correspondent Lesley Stahl giving her introduction from an endless black void with a creepy picture hovering behind her!
0:45 As you might expect, the report mostly focuses on some of the most extreme examples of face blindness, because… well, that’s more dramatic! My own face blindness is not as severe as most of the examples they will talk about in this segment. (Also, while face blindness is often a trait of autism/Asperger’s, many faceblind people are not autistic.)
I have never had trouble recognizing my close family members or myself in a mirror. And I was able to recognize my high school classmates right away at our reunion. But I’ve spent years with those people where I saw them on a daily basis and spent time getting to know them. I start to have trouble with people I only see from time to time.
1:20 This is something I’ve always wondered about 60 Minutes. Do they make sure that the stopwatch is always at the right minute and second based on when the commercial breaks come, or do they fudge things a bit? It looks like the watch is running about 20 seconds fast here, but I think that’s because they cut the “Tonight on 60 minutes…” part out of the video. What? Oh, face blindness. Sorry.
2:00 I have at least some facial recognition ability, because I can recognize most of these celebrities. And the ones I have trouble with are possibly due to unfamiliarity with the celebrity rather than face blindness. But this is easier than real life facial recognition, because 1) I already know it’s a celebrity, and 2) the faces don’t move or start to wonder why I’m staring at them.
2:22 This camera shot is a more accurate representation of the task in real life. All those faces going by– how can I pick out the ones I’ve seen before? Do other people’s brains really do that automatically? If so, that’s amazing!
3:20 There’s no “Aha!” moment for me when the faces go from upside-down to rightside-up. It’s just the same image flipped. Most people don’t have to turn their heads to read words that are printed upside-down, do they? It’s the same for me with faces– if I don’t know them upside-down, I won’t know them rightside-up. But flipping the image seems to cause instant recognition for Lesley Stahl.
4:00 Those poor people… I feel terrible for me too. (Just kidding.) : )
4:45 When you don’t automatically recognize faces, you use context to help you keep track of people. If I understand what Dr. Novotny is describing, she can become familiar with a person as her current patient, but when they step outside into a crowd of people, their context is completely changed. Now they are just one of many people visiting the hospital. She might remember that the patient was a young woman with medium brown hair, but now there might be three other people in the room who fit that description, and if she makes an assumption, it could be wrong.
5:08 This is a nightmare scenario for me. I would have to ask for the coworker’s e-mail address or try to text them, because even if he tells me his name, I will probably not recognize him in a different context.
Whenever I arrange to meet someone, I am usually not looking for a face I recognize. I am looking for someone who fits the general description of the person I am meeting (age, gender, skin color, hair color, hair style, etc.) and who appears to be looking for me (by making eye contact or smiling when they see me). Until I am sure who they are, I hedge by pretending to recognize them in a way that is hopefully also plausible as simple friendliness if they turn out to be someone I don’t know.
6:00 This exact thing happened to me with a friend who changed her hairstyle between school quarters. She no longer had her hair in a ponytail, and that was enough to make me unsure that she was the same person until she greeted me by name!
I don’t experience quite as much dissonance as Jacob Hodes appears to, though. If I saw a person change their hairstyle in front of me, they wouldn’t “disappear.” I know they’re the same person because they haven’t gone anywhere.
8:00 The interview with artist Chuck Close is probably my favorite part of the segment. I think he does a good job of explaining the thought processes a faceblind person uses to identify people, and showing how you can still be good at recognizing people by paying attention to details. I think I also recognized the picture of Leno by the chin and of Tiger Woods by the lips. I thought Tom Cruise was Doug Flutie, though.
Until I read about face blindness, I thought this was how everyone recognized faces.
10:00 I can echo what these people are saying. The idea that most people have a mechanism that instantly and automatically “labels” faces for them seems as weird and unexpected to me as face blindness appears to be to Lesley Stahl. Half the people I know say they are bad with faces, so I just figured I fit into the same category. Maybe I do, and it’s a spectrum like autism rather than a sharp divide between “normal” and “not normal” the way the segment makes it appear.
11:05 Thanks, Ms. Stahl. What a cheery thought! (sarcasm)
12:00 I haven’t had the experience of not recognizing my own face, but I don’t really need to recognize it very often. I mean, when I look in a mirror, the person in the mirror is going to be me, right? Other people stay on my side of the mirror.
A lot of what you read about autistic and Asperger’s personalities tends to focus on their typical weaknesses, like social awkwardness and difficulty connecting with other people. There’s a lot written about how traits like introversion can be a hurdle for autistics trying to fit in to a workplace or to form relationships.
But it’s a huge mistake to dwell only on the negatives. Let’s ask a different question: What are the strengths of an Aspie personality? Can a person with Asperger’s or autism be a good coworker, a good friend?
I believe that the answer is yes, without a doubt! People with autism, Aspies, shy people– have a lot to offer, especially if others are willing to listen and be patient with them.
I think that the character of Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter series is a great example of some of the strengths of an Aspie personality, and the way her friends accept her is a great example of how to treat others who may seem a bit different.
Speaking as an Aspie, it tends to be hard for us to talk about our strengths because we are so constantly aware of our weaknesses, but I think it’s a little easier to point out the strengths of a fictional character like Luna.
With that in mind, here are five positive character traits I see in Luna that I think she shares with a lot of Aspies:
1. The fruit of time spent alone in thought.
Aspies tend to need a lot of time alone to sort out our thoughts. It’s not that we are smarter or deeper thinkers than anyone else, but we are more easily distracted by all of the sensory data bombarding us from every angle and the conscious effort it takes to participate in the give-and-take of interacting with other people.
In some ways, the magical world of Hogwarts seems like it could be a nightmare for someone who is prone to sensory overload. It has all of the noise and busyness of a school, with people headed every direction all the time. But I think the most annoying thing would be the pictures.
All of the paintings on the walls at Hogwarts are enchanted, so the people and things in them can move and talk. So you can be walking down the hall by yourself, and one of the pictures might try to start a conversation with you. If have a light on late at night, they’ll all start complaining that they’re trying to sleep. Sure, sometimes it’s funny, but I think it would get annoying feeling like you’re always being watched. (And then even if you get away from the pictures, you still have to deal with the ghosts!)
Luna grew up in this sort of magical world, so maybe it doesn’t bother her that much. On the other hand, it’s not that different from having to contend with blaring advertisements in a crowded mall or airport in the real world.
But she does seem to appreciate time alone. In Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter finds her in the forest feeding thestrals, the silent winged creatures that are invisible to most people. When Harry asks why no one else seems to see them, Luna explains that she and Harry can see the thestrals because they have seen death– Luna lost her mother at the age of nine in an accident, and Harry was orphaned when he was just a baby. Just months ago, Harry also witnessed a friend and classmate being murdered by the killer of his parents, the dark lord Voldemort.
At this point in the story, Harry is feeling isolated from his friends and ignored by his mentors. He knows that Voldemort is about to strike openly and try to seize power, but the authorities are in denial. They refuse to even speak Voldemort’s name and have published stories in the “respectable” papers portraying Harry as a liar. Some of the people that Harry thought were his friends are avoiding him, and he has started to avoid them.
Luna quietly observes that perhaps Voldemort wants Harry to feel isolated. “If I were You-Know-Who,” she says, “I’d want you to feel cut off from everyone else. Because if it’s just you alone you’re not as much of a threat.“
This isn’t the sort of insight that occurs to someone without the benefit of a lot of time spent sorting out her thoughts. Who would expect a shy little girl to have spent time considering the strategy of a ruthless enemy? It’s an insight she has arrived at only after a great deal of thinking quietly by herself. Luna, too, has felt isolated, because of the teasing of the other students and the fact that she has experienced a loss that most children her age can’t relate to.
It turns out to be the insight that Harry most needed at that point in his life.
Let’s go back to the scene in the carriage from early in Order of the Phoenix. After getting off to an awkward start, Hermione tries to recover the conversation by commenting on Luna’s necklace. “It’s a charm, actually,” Luna responds, then leans forward. “It keeps away the Nargles.”
There are a few seconds of silence that seem uncomfortable for everyone but Luna. Finally, she pronounces, “Hungry. I hope there’s pudding.”
The scene that just unfolded is actually a good example of what a conversation with an Aspie can be like. (Or at least, I can certainly remember having conversations that went that way with classmates my age.) It may not seem like it, but I think Luna is trying her best to politely participate in the conversation in this scene.
It can be a challenge to keep a conversation going with an Aspie. Hermione actually started out really well by commenting on something literal and specific, Luna’s necklace. The intense focus on details that tends to come along with Asperger’s means that, as long as the topic is something I have “data” about, my mind almost instantly brings up a catalog of information to answer with.
It’s a lot trickier to come up with an answer to a question that’s more open-ended, like “What’s going on?” or “How is your day going?” (First, I need to remind myself that these questions usually don’t literally mean that the other person wants to know everything that’s going on in my life. Then, I need to select an answer that matches the level of depth the other person actually wants.)
Assuming I’m not stumped for something to say, there are still a couple of pitfalls that can derail a conversation at this point. One is to give a response that answers the question but doesn’t suggest anywhere for the conversation to go.
For example, suppose someone messages me on my computer asking “Hey, what are you doing?” and I respond “I’m going to watch a movie.” I have answered their question directly and fully. If it were a question on a test, I should expect full credit.
But look at it from the other person’s point of view. Now they don’t have anything specific to respond to! They could try again with a different question, but at some point they will start to wonder whether my closed-ended response really means “I don’t want to talk right now.”
A better response might be something like “I’m going to watch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Have you ever seen that one?” Providing more information (and especially asking a question) tells the other person that I want the conversation to continue.
The other extreme can happen if the conversation turns to a topic that falls under an Aspie’s specific area of interest. “Finally, we’re talking about something I love!” I think, and a ten-point lecture begins spilling out in a burst of enthusiasm. This has a tendency of scaring the other person away.
Getting back to the scene, Luna’s special area of interest is magical creatures, particularly ones that most people don’t know about or don’t believe exist. She spends a lot of her time thinking about them. In explaining the purpose of her necklace, she brings up the topic of Nargles, which she could surely spend quite some time talking about. (She suspects they have been stealing her possessions.)
If I had to guess, Luna has already discovered that most people aren’t interested in hearing about creatures that they think are figments of her imagination or made up by her father’s silly tabloid. It’s part of why they tease her. Even though she could surely regale Harry, Ron, and Hermione with all sorts of fascinating facts about Nargles, she holds back from saying more. I think this is either because she has been made cautious by previous experiences of trying to share about her strange obsession, or because she is trying to be polite by not dominating the conversation.
In either case, Luna’s caution proves justified, as none of the others is interested in hearing about more creatures that quite possibly don’t exist. They’re uncomfortable saying any more because they don’t want to hurt Luna’s feelings by letting her know how strange she seems to them. And so the group falls silent.
My family recently finished watching through the Harry Potter movie series, and I thought I’d write a bit about my favorite character in the story, Luna Lovegood. As far as I’m concerned, Luna steals every scene she’s in.
In case you’re not familiar with the series, Luna Lovegood is a wizarding student attending Hogwarts one year behind Harry Potter’s class. She isn’t introduced until the fifth story in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It’s not difficult to believe that we never saw her before year 5, though, because she mostly keeps to herself, and no one wants to talk to her because she seems very strange.
Luna’s mother died when she was nine, and her father, Xenophilius (literally “lover of strangers/strange things”), is the editor of a paper called the Daily Quibbler, which is the magical equivalent of those tabloids they used to have in supermarket checkouts with front-page stories about Bigfoot being kidnapped by flying saucers.
No one takes such things seriously, except apparently Luna, who is always talking about magical creatures that no one (not even wizards!) has ever heard of and making other observations that seem to come from nowhere. She tends to speak in a soft monotone and stare with a distant, almost expressionless gaze.
Luna (Evanna Lynch) introduces Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) to a thestral.
Does it surprise you when I say that a lot of Harry Potter fans with Asperger’s syndrome or autism can see a bit of themselves in Luna? She is often mentioned in discussions online about fictional characters who may be “Aspies.”
Such discussions almost always become quite tricky. Even moreso than with a real person, a fictional character is shaped by the reader’s own perspective– he or she originally exists in the author’s imagination, but then each reader’s imagination “fills in the blanks” in its own way when picturing a character.
J.K. Rowling did not explicitly write the character of Luna Lovegood as a person with Asperger’s. But because she is a good writer, she created a character with a distinct personality that is also familiar in many ways. It’s an interesting balance– Luna seems like someone you might meet in real life, in large part because she is entirely different from any specific person– just as every individual is unique. (I told you it was tricky.)
The nature of Asperger’s syndrome itself makes the prospect of “diagnosing” a fictional character even more nebulous. Asperger’s itself is just a label for a set of traits that are often observed together– actually, not unlike a story. It defines a rather blurry category, but the traits themselves do not describe any person exactly. Nor does every person with Asperger’s look, think, or behave the same.
All of this is meant to explain that I’m not trying to argue that Luna Lovegood has Asperger’s syndrome. I think that people in a lot of different situations can identify with her. What I’m more interested in is describing the aspects of Luna’s personality and behavior in the movies that I identify with as a person with Asperger’s (and perhaps also a fairly quiet/shy person).
Tuesday was another travel day. We took the Eurostar train directly from London to Paris. I remembered reading about the completion of the Channel Tunnel (or “Chunnel”) when I was a kid, and how some Britons weren’t keen on the idea, since they rather liked being on an island. One of my classmates had a bit of fun with the train staff by asking them “Are we in the Chunnel now?” when we passed through a small tunnel less than 5 minutes after leaving the station.
Apparently the train attracts strange characters, but we didn’t see this guy (naughty language/British humor warning).
The trip provided us with time to practice a few simple French phrases. My Mom and Dad had gotten me a French, German, and Italian phrasebook, and I wanted to at least try to make an effort to communicate in the proper language. I tried to use the phrase “un bon vin blanc” (a good white wine) to remind myself how the nasal vowels were pronounced. I made sure to practice saying “Excuse me” (Excusez-moi) and “I’m sorry” (Pardonnez-moi) in each language, because I was sure I would make plenty of mistakes and would require people to be patient with me.
I think the most complicated thing I ended up actually saying was “Je voudrais…” (point to food) “…s’il vous plait.” (I would like [that], please.) Thankfully for me, I didn’t run into a situation where I couldn’t get by speaking English– everyone I interacted with spoke English much, much better than I spoke any other language. It was humbling to be in a culture where to be multilingual was normal and expected, and to realize that I would not be much help to a visitor who didn’t speak English, since it was the only language I knew.
We arrived in Paris that evening. I think we spent a while waiting at the station for our bus and doing things like getting currency exchanged. It was getting late by the time we got to our hotel, which I’ll say more about in the next post.
It’s interesting how some things stand out sharply in my memory, while other things are a complete blur. For instance, the names of almost anyone who went on the trip with me. (Sigh– I don’t know whether it’s faceblindness or self-centeredness or both.) I really did have a great time with all of the classmates who went with me on the trip, and I’m so thankful for them– it’s just that, with a few exceptions, I cannot remember their names. Isn’t that awful? I even have a list of them, and I can’t remember who’s who.
Other things have blurred for me, such as what day things took place on. I talked about getting caught in the downpour of rain on Saturday night, but based on what I wrote on the postcards I never got around to sending, that actually happened on Sunday night. It’s strange that I seem to be able to remember things from early in life better than I can remember things from ten years ago. There are several possible explanations for this, of course:
My memories from early in life consist of the most memorable events over a period of several years, while my memories of this trip come from a period of just two weeks.
My brain became overwhelmed by input by the time I was in college, and it dealt with this by not bothering to store things long-term.
My “hard drive” ran out of memory about when I turned 18.
Anyway, classmates with better memories are welcome to dispute the details of when we did what.
: )
Monday was mostly a “free” day; I think the only thing on our schedule was a visit to the British Library. Among the items on display there were the Codex Sinaiticus (a 4th-century copy of the Old and New Testaments in Greek from before lowercase letters OR spaces were used!), the Magna Carta, the Gutenberg Bible, and some of Shakespeare’s writing. All of them much older than my entire country. Pretty amazing!
Here’s an example of how awesome my classmates on this trip were. When we were on the bus tour, they noticed that the Palace Theatre was advertising Broadway musicals like Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables, at prices that you would never see in the U.S. Several people in the class were interested in trying to go, though it didn’t seem likely we’d be able to get tickets during the short time we’d be in London. But my classmates stopped by and got tickets to see Les Miserables on Monday evening, the night before we were to leave for Paris!
I was excited; I loved the story and had a CD with all the songs on it. It’s one of the most powerful portrayals of Christ-like love and mercy I’ve encountered in art. Our seats were up in the balcony, but the view was fine. The seats cost only 10 pounds, which was about $15. And the performance was terrific.
A few other random memories of London:
The pavement near the crosswalks had “LOOK RIGHT” written on it in big letters to keep people like me who are used to cars driving on the right from instinctively looking the wrong way and stepping out in front of traffic. That was considerate.
I liked the simplicity of using the London Underground (the subway) to get around the city. It kept me from ever getting totally lost. I also liked the famous simplified underground map, which I would eventually study as an example of efficient technical communication.
The British one-pound coins were my favorite coins from the trip. They have a nice thickness and weight that feels good to hold in your hand (appropriate for a coin worth more than a dollar). Like all British coins, the “heads” side has the queen on it, but there were a lot of different designs for the “tails” side. My favorite was a dragon– unfortunately, I don’t think I managed to hold on to that one, because I needed it for a bus ride back to the hotel. It occurs to me that this was before the U.S. started making a quarter for every state in the union; the different designs may not have made as big an impression on me otherwise.
We walked through Harrods, a famous department store with all sorts of things much too expensive to buy. I noticed a chess set there with an American Revolution theme, with Washington and his blue-clad colonials facing off against the British redcoats. I remembered the old rule “white on the right, and queen on her color,” and looked closely at how the pieces were set up. Sure enough, the red queen was on a white square, making the British the white pieces and thus the forces of good in this chess game.
: )
I felt so much better on Sunday morning after getting a good night’s sleep. I found out that all of England was in a celebratory mood, because England’s national soccer team (more properly their “football team,” since we were in Europe) had just defeated Germany 5-1 in a World Cup qualifier that evening while we slept. In soccer, 5-1 is a major beating, and this win had come against a historical rival on their home turf, in Munich. England’s Michael Owen recorded a hat trick (three goals in one game), which is cause for celebration in ice hockey but truly a rarity in soccer.
We got breakfast in the hotel’s cafeteria. I got there a bit late asked the woman at the cafeteria line for some scrambled eggs, and she responded with something I didn’t understand. I repeated myself, and she repeated herself a few times, until finally she gave up and served me some scrambled eggs. Finally, one of my classmates explained that she had been trying to tell me that the hot breakfast items weren’t included in our room fee and I’d have to pay for them. I had the money to pay, so it was no problem, but I felt bad that I hadn’t been able to decipher her accent. It was strangely ironic that during the course of our whole trip, the only time I couldn’t understand someone speaking English, it had happened not in France, Germany, or Italy, but in England.
We attended a morning service at All Souls Church, an Evangelical Anglican church in London. According to Wikipedia, the building has stood since 1823 and survived damage during World War II. The church itself has withstood a trend in 20th-century Christianity (in America as well as in Europe) to focus on preaching about what humans should do to improve our lives rather than what Jesus Christ has done to save us from the penalty for our sins. Influential evangelical leader John Stott, who passed away just a few months ago at the age of 90, ministered and worshipped at All Souls Church for most of his life.
I found the service very encouraging. As we sang the hymns and worship songs and read the Lord’s Prayer, I thought about my family, who would be going to church back home in Ohio in a few hours. They were probably praying for me, and I could pray for them. We were on opposite sides of the ocean, but we were loved by the same God. All the years I had been going to church in the U.S., there had been believers in England and other countries, in every continent, meeting to worship God.
The sermon that morning was from Zephaniah 3, which I’m having a hard time summing up because so much is in it. It’s a message from God to Jerusalem, the capital city of his covenant people Israel. At the start, God declares “woe” upon the city because its leaders– the rulers, prophets and priests– are preying on the weak and leading the people to disobey God. The preacher was quite bold in talking about leaders within the church in Britain who were leading people astray. (He made the point that God’s message in this passage is directed towards those who consider themselves very religious– not people who don’t go to church.)
God promises to be the righteous judge that those disobedient leaders were not; he will pour out his anger on those who deserve it. Which is bad news for me, because I too have disobeyed God, and I’m sure I’ve led other people to disobey him, even if it was just by watching how I behaved. But that is why we need a Savior. As impossible as it may seem, our hope is to turn to that same God who promises to punish sin. God tells the city that “the remnant of Israel will trust in the name of the Lord.”
The second half of the chapter is as joyful and tender as the first half is severe: “Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, Daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy.” God promises his people “I will bring you home.” How can this be, if being a righteous judge requires him to punish the city? It is only possible because God poured out that judgment on his own perfect Son, who willingly took the punishment we all deserved in order to save us.
Sorry; that got a bit long– I told you it was hard to summarize briefly. I’m not sure I did it justice. One of my favorite souveniers from the trip is a recording of that sermon. I really wanted to share it with my parents, but the group was getting ready to leave, so I did something I don’t like to do and asked a stranger where I could get sermon tapes. At first the elderly man didn’t understand what I was saying, but after I repeated myself, he said, “Oh, TYPES!” (pronouncing the “A” like a “Y”) and pointed me in the right direction.
That afternoon, we visited the British Museum. I stuck close to Dr. B. and took digital photos of each artifact according to his instructions, using a notepad to record the identity of each object. I wish I could give more detail about the things we saw there, because they were really neat, but the museum visits have blended together a bit in my mind, and so I can’t remember which things I saw in which museum. The British Museum had artifacts from Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, some of which were old when Zephaniah was still alive.
I drive from Danville to Bloomsburg, along the same path the school bus took me for twelve years. The trees crowd in beside the road, and it feels so quiet– I’m amazed at how little traffic there seems to be. I guess I’ve gotten used to Cincinnati. But this definitely still feels like home.
I’m going to the park for my 13-year class reunion. Why 13 years? Because we’d never had a reunion before, and we wanted to have one. I worry a little that I won’t recognize some of my classmates. That could be embarrassing.
But as they arrive one by one, I know them instantly without a doubt! This so rarely happens to me anymore even with people I know well. It really feels nice.
Eight of us were able to make it out of a class of 26. I’d say that’s pretty good, considering how many of us have spread out all over the country and how many are busy with family and job obligations.
I get to meet their spouses and children, and I do my best to remember their names, but it will take me a while. I’m thankful that I’ve had the chance to learn some of them from Facebook.
We talk while the children play on the playground– there are so many stories to tell. I stand in between two conversations, listening to both and smiling. My friends are so very much the same people I knew from school. They’ve been to some amazing places and lived through some tough times, but God has preserved what is good in each of them.
I don’t think I have a lot to add myself. My experience is still mostly as a student. I’m still trying to find a career, still hoping to start a relationship with someone.
I probably seem a lot like I did when we were all in high school. I lagged behind socially then– at a middle school or elementary level– and as a result, I didn’t interact much with my peers. Now, I’m probably up to a college or high school level socially, but I don’t always feel fully a part of the adult world.
When someone asks me what I’m doing currently, I stammer and pause for a bit as I try to answer. A nasty part of me is telling me “You don’t belong here. You don’t have anything to talk about,” but I know that’s not true. We go out for drinks, but I haven’t developed a taste for beer or wine, so I order soda. I hope they don’t think I’m looking down on them by not sharing a drink– it’s such a symbol of friendship.
Before I came to the reunion, I was worried a little about negative thoughts like these, but they are no match for the joy I feel. I sit and listen to all the stories as my friends share– about meeting their husbands and wives, about funny or sad things at work, about pregnancy and childbirth and picking names for children and the unpredictability of two-year-olds. I imagine that my parents had conversations like this about me when I was little. I hear how God has blessed each family and prepared them for the things He brings into their lives. Everyone’s story is different, but also the same.
I realize that I have grown in thirteen years. When I was a senior in high school, I was afraid to drive a car. Today I made two trips by myself, and I enjoyed them. Even though social interaction is tiring, I am seeking it rather than avoiding it– planning my weekend around it and learning how to get enough rest in between so that I can be fully present and part of the conversation.
I wonder if my classmates know what a blessing they have been to my life– both those who are there and those who could not come.
At times, others find it hard to believe that I have Asperger’s just from observing me. I think some of this may be due to personality– my strong desire to avoid confrontation has likely kept me from clashing with others.
But there was another big difference in my life, the people around me. In so many of the stories I read online about people with Asperger’s, their years in school are not remembered fondly. Stories of bullying seem almost universal, and in a lot of cases, the best advice people can offer is “Wait until you graduate; it will get better.” I read about people who still deal with the effects of bullying decades later.
I wonder if my classmates know that they are proof that it doesn’t have to be that way– that kindness can have just as much of a positive impact on a life. None of us knew about Asperger’s, but anyone could see that I was different in some ways, lagging behind in others. But I wasn’t given grief for it. I was just given friendliness, time, and a safe place to grow.
I’ve been wanting to continue posting about what I was like growing up, hopefully to help people understand Asperger’s syndrome better. But I’ve been a little nervous about writing this part, because it feels a bit like bragging. It’s honestly not my purpose to boast, though, and I hope it will make sense once you’ve read the rest.
Hans Asperger described the children he studied during the 1940s as “little professors,” because they tended to study a specific interest in great detail, and then repeat the facts they had learned to anyone who would listen. They would use formal language as if they were delivering a lecture, an effect that can seem comical coming from a young child.
I definitely had the “little professor” trait. I learned to read when I was quite young– I honestly can’t remember not being able to. My favorite sort of books to read were reference books that used pictures and symbols to communicate information along with words. I would spend hours reading these books over and over again.
What sorts of things captured my interest?
Road maps. A long while ago, I posted a funny story about how one year I said my favorite Christmas gift was a Philadelphia road map. I was fascinated by the symbols used on maps for different types of roads and the names of the roads themselves. I could watch for the road names on signs when I was riding in the car and figure out where all of the places we visited were. At home, I would spread the map out on the floor and use highlighters to trace paths on it. When my youngest brother Andrew was born, I told my grandparents how to get to the hospital when I went with them to visit my Mom for the first time. I was four years old.
The states in the U.S.A. and the countries of the world. I had an old atlas in my room that I turned through until the pages were falling out. I liked how each country was marked by a change in color and had its own flag. Finding all of the countries on each map was like a game, especially in the case of tiny ones like Liechtenstein. Before long, I could draw a map of state or country borders from memory.
The bones and organs of the body. Another of my favorite books was a human anatomy book; it was like a map of the inside of the body. I liked learning all of the strange names for bones– vertebrae, phalanges, scapula, femur– and I could feel where they were inside me. I read about the path that food takes through the body after you eat it. I learned about the circulatory system (heart and blood vessels) and respiratory system (lungs). I liked how I could ask my Dad, the doctor, any question, and he would know the answer to it.
Astronomy. I loved learning facts about the planets. Each one has its own day (Jupiter’s is 10 hours; Venus’s is 243 days) and its own year (Mercury’s is 88 days; Pluto’s is almost 250 years). On some planets, I would weigh just a couple of pounds; on others, I would weigh a ton. Then there were the constellations– 88 of them, just as many as there are keys on a piano. I had a wonderful book by children’s author H.A. Rey that taught me how to recognize the brightest constellations in the sky, but I wanted to learn about all of them, even the ones without any bright stars, like Lacerta the lizard and Camelopardalis the giraffe.
Math. Before I was old enough to start school, I did math workbooks for fun. Really! I enjoyed books that taught arithmetic by lining up rows of circles or squares so I could see what 9 + 5 or 3 x 10 looked like. I would spend hours drawing squares so I could see what a hundred looked like– then a thousand. (It didn’t occur to me until just now that I seem to have been a very visual learner. Strange, because I’m actually diagnosed as having a non-verbal learning disability. Are diagrams and maps considered verbal or non-verbal information?)
I’ve been thinking about why children with Asperger’s display the “little professor” behavior. Some of the writing I’ve seen on the subject argues that these children are merely “parroting” information they’ve heard or read and don’t really understand the complicated subjects they are talking about.
