Brain scans can detect autism long before any symptoms start to emerge, according to an article in Nature.
Category Archives: Autism and ADHD
Reporting from the trenches of Autism & ADHD: Experiences, Tips, Strategies, Background stories
Chemtrails, WTF?
Four hours after coming home from work: Find myself Googling chemtrails.
Fuck you ADHD! How the hell did I get here? You’re wasting my life, and what the fuck Asperger, did it really took you four fucking hours to figure out what the hell was going on? Get me out of here! NOW!
Rrrrrggghhh!
Autistic brains unique!
The connections in autistic brains are idiosyncratic and individualized
An Ars Technica article discusses the brain chemistry of autistic people and shows that each person is different in a unique way.
Focus Cards: How to keep focus
Focus Cards can be used by people with high level of distraction and bad short term memory to quickly regain focus when they get distracted.
The problem
Since I’m a person with a pretty bad short term memory (due to Asperger, I think), and are pretty good at getting distracted (mostly due to ADHD), I’ve found, that part from my to-do-lists (in GTD-style), I need something to keep me focused while I am working on a task.
Seeing patterns
I’ve understood Aspies are good at seeing patterns (from a discussion group on the diagnosis criteria at Asperger center in Stockholm, among other sources).
The thing is I might be too good at it or seeing the wrong patterns.
Cocktail Parxshrorichhheeeeiii – Or, what did you say?
Something very strange is going on when I hear several people talk at the same time.
I think the best way to describe it would be to say that I get a few tenth of a second of one conversation, then a few of the other, and then back to the first. It becomes a completely unintelligible noise. I don’t hear words… I guess doing it with text would be like:
John (whom I am talking to) and Peter (who’s talking to Bob on the other side of the 2×2-table island) at the same time: sdoi dwhyaotu’sk ntohwe tvheerysihoanv?e a new web site?
Me: what did you say?
John, a bit impatient, apparently not having any problem whatsoever that Peter and Bob are talking at the same time we are: what’s the version?
I’ve tested my hearing – it was perfect. Or at least good enough not to warrant any form of action.
My problem isn’t my hearing. I just can’t separate people’s voices.
At a cocktail party, this becomes an explosive and rather fantastic wall of incoherent sounds… almost like music.
That’s all fine, but when someone tries to talk to me… I am not able to say more than, “aha”, “okay” etc – I have no clue what they are talking about… I guess lip reading would be a way to go.
It does take small talk to a completely new level, though.
I hear everything the guys in the other end of the room are saying…
Before I started medicating my ADHD I was unable to work or concentrate with other people around unless I wore headphones. The problem was two fold. I was unable to filter out sounds in my surrounding, and I kept wanting to answer people’s questions, even if they were having a conversation in the other end of the room.
The first one was a problem for me which I solved with an iPod before I started medicating. After that, I was soon able to get work done even without my iPod.
Continue reading I hear everything the guys in the other end of the room are saying…
Getting Organized
If you are an Aspie you probably have a lot of things. Old stuff you cannot throw away.
Perhaps you collect things? I’ve heard examples of anything and everything from model airplanes, to plastic buckets, to rubber boots, to pictures of horses. Aspies seem to have the collector gene in spades!
As a consequence, you probably have a rather messy home. I know I used to. I had piles of things covering the floor, only leaving small “paths” snaking through the mess and connecting my bed, my computer, the kitchen and the hallway.
Given that an Aspie can get rather stressed out by a too cluttered surrounding or by not being able to find stuff, this is usually a problem that needs to be solved.
Facial blindness
I’m suffering from a mild form of facial blindness. I’ve understood some Aspies does, but I also think some of the cases are linked to my ADHD.
My case is not as bad that I can’t figure out who killed who in a movie, but there are cases where I’m drawing a complete blank on a person’s face.
Science and facts
Even though I like to talk about my own experiences and discuss things from a personal perspective, I also want the scientific side of things.
For me scientific means things that has been peer reviewed and conclusions from experiments where I can study the method and figure out if there was any problems with the experiment.
I’ve come up with this category to keep my personal view and the more scientific discussion separated.
As of right now, the scientific outlook is a bit bleak… there are no posts yet… part from this post.
Talkwards 