Hm, I don't know - they seem to share the trait of not getting the underlying meaning of things, so perhaps one would babble at the other and not understand the geeky response (if there was one).
ooo I don't think I've seen that one before. Autistics (well Aspergers in particular that is) are seen as "extreme male brain" cases (the excel at man things and fail at woman things, the description is widely (fully??) accepted by psychologists) where as this does seem to be an "extreme female brain" syndrome. I wonder if there's an equivalent lot with relatively normal IQ (though of course Iq tests are a crap way to measure intelligence and there is a bias towards male skills in the subtests, so maybe they couldn't pass).
hmmm although there doesn't appear to be much of a female bias in the cases (that's from the deep research of the pics on the first few pages of google images)... whereas autism is 1:5 male to female... and I can't find any text to say that the williams syndrome is anything other than 1:1 male:female...
Alex Biescar is a good example. Even at the age of three he hadn't uttered a single word, not even mama or dada. Then one day he happened to be at his speech pathologist's office, waiting in the reception area. A whirring floor fan caught his attention, and since Alex shares a common Williams fascination with spinning things, he approached the fan and began staring at it. Concerned that he might stick his fingers into the fan, the receptionist switched it off. Alex switched it back on. She unplugged it. Alex plugged it back in. Next she switched it off and unplugged it. Alex solved this problem as well. Just then, however, there was a power failure. Alex flipped the fan's switch a couple of times and nothing happened. He wiggled the plug and nothing happened. Frustrated, he uttered the first words of his life: "Jesus Christ, this doesn't work!"
hi i got pionted here by ciphergoth. Although the social skills aaspects of Williomas syndrome do seem like the opposite of autism a lot of the other charicteristic seem exactly them same. I have NLD (non-verbal leraning disability) which is on the autistic spectrum (and i'm aslo dyslexic which is prolly pretty obviuos by now!). I've been described (by people who like me!) as being a mixture of very stupid and very clever - there is a 45 piont diffrense in my verbal and non-verbal IQ scores. A lot of NLD people (and some other kinds of autistic people) have probelms with numbers (personally i'm unusulaly good at maths concepts for an NLD person but make lots of mistakes with basic number handling and sums). NLD and Asperger people are often very good with language (like Williams people but not like some other autistic peopple) but can lack understanding of subtexts. The "cocktail party speach" mentioned in the wiliams sydrom article is often found in austict people when they have grasped the idea of wanting to interact with others but haven't quite got it right yet. Dyspraxia (probelms with co-ordination and visual-spatial perseption) also has a strong overlap with autism and some peoolle include it on the autistic spectrum (i couldn't relabaley tie my shoelaces until i was 26). And althouh Williams syndrome is a specific gentic condiotion which cause very specfic facail features a lot of people on the autsitc spetrum are described as looking "elfin". And i belive (but will have to go and check) that Willisms people are like austistic spectrum people in having big probelms with "central coherence" which is about seeing the big picture instead of all the small details.
I find the austitic=male idea very annoying becauee i'm not male but i am autistic. I think it make turn out to be wrong anyway - whe i was first diagnosed as dyslexic i was told only one in 10 dyslexic people where female - now the offical figure is one in 3. Girls wern't diagnosed because they wre quite rather than disrutive when they had problems and pschologists and teachers who belived dyslexia was largley a male think just wern't looking for dyslexic girls. I think they same will happen with autistic spectrum disorders.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-13 04:30 pm (UTC)I'm sure it's not that simple in reality, but hey..
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-13 04:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-13 04:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-13 06:06 pm (UTC)Autistics (well Aspergers in particular that is) are seen as "extreme male brain" cases (the excel at man things and fail at woman things, the description is widely (fully??) accepted by psychologists) where as this does seem to be an "extreme female brain" syndrome. I wonder if there's an equivalent lot with relatively normal IQ (though of course Iq tests are a crap way to measure intelligence and there is a bias towards male skills in the subtests, so maybe they couldn't pass).
very cool :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-13 06:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-13 06:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-13 07:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-13 07:06 pm (UTC)I find the austitic=male idea very annoying becauee i'm not male but i am autistic. I think it make turn out to be wrong anyway - whe i was first diagnosed as dyslexic i was told only one in 10 dyslexic people where female - now the offical figure is one in 3. Girls wern't diagnosed because they wre quite rather than disrutive when they had problems and pschologists and teachers who belived dyslexia was largley a male think just wern't looking for dyslexic girls. I think they same will happen with autistic spectrum disorders.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-13 07:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-13 08:53 pm (UTC)