• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

What are the symptoms of neurotypical syndrome?

Status
Not open for further replies.
dragoncat16

dragoncat16

Active Member
A popular notion here and elsewhere on the internet is that aspies occupy one part of the entire human neuro spectrum, and that Asperger syndrome (or type 1 ASD) in itself is not a disability. What if we were the majority and what we call "neurotypicals" were the odd ones (though we would be the neurotypicals in that case)? If neurotypicalness were a syndrome, what would its symptoms be? Here are some I have come up with:
  1. tendency to judge others based on superficial criteria, such as their hairstyle and what they wear (compared with arbitraily determined fashion and hairstyle trends)
  2. commonly obsessed with spending a significant amount of time each day preening oneself according to the above mentioned trends
  3. commonly possess an inability to make decisions without cognitive bias (see my recent thread on the topic)
  4. tendency to perceive the world through several cognitive biases (e.g. confirmation bias, selective perception, etc.), but lack the ability to be aware of these biases
  5. tendency to invent social rules which they expect others to follow, but with a different set of rules for themselves and those they think of as socially more popular than themselves, and a complete lack of awareness of how hypocritical that is
  6. commonly lack the ability to focus on a particular interest without becoming distracted by other matters
  7. commonly engages in completely inane, useless conversation with others about irrelevant topics (small talk) and somehow finds comfort in this
  8. tendency to engage in "mob mentality" (going with the crowd) instead of thinking something through and coming to own conclusion
  9. tendency to shun, humiliate, or ridicule those that they perceive as different, in order to maintain their social standing or gain a higher social standing for themselves
  10. commonly obsessed with determining one's own status in society compared with the statuses of others, in order to determine how other individuals should be treated
  11. little interest in getting to know anyone they consider socially inferior
  12. tendency to expect praise or reward if they do condescend themselves to spend time with those they consider to be of a lower social status
  13. expectation for others to see things from their own point of view, but lack of willingness or ability to see things from the point of view of someone different from themselves
  14. when in a conversation, the inability or unwillingness to respond to anything that doesn't fit their own world view

Anyone have others?
 
15. May become hostile and aggressive if it takes a person more than a second to process what they just said.
16. Only feel connected to you if they can see your eyes, and many demand that your eyes have a very specific expression.
 
17. NT, middle age women generally will not put silver plastic cocktail forks in their hair and pretend they have antennas when they at an adult social function. (Doubt too many NT men do either) (assuming these are sober NTs, too)
 
7,13,15

7 nodded my head too quickly, my 'oh really' was too loud. Hated forever.
13 I said 'yeh that happened to me too. 'Why do you make everything about yourself?
15. Made the mistake of thinking causing delay. Hated forever,
 
17. Lack of originality or creativity in presentation. See 1 and 2.
18. Commonly believe being drunk will excuse any behavior.

Kay, this isn't a standoff. If knowing how NTs look to autistics makes you mad, you don't have to read it.
 
Ylva said:
17. Lack of originality or creativity in presentation. See 1 and 2.
18. Commonly believe being drunk will excuse any behavior.

Kay, this isn't a standoff. If knowing how NTs look to autistics makes you mad, you don't have to read it.
Click to expand...

Not quite understanding the idea of a standoff? Anyhoo, to clarify what I wrote in case it was misunderstood, my number 17 was just a very specific example of your number 17. It was what I did last Friday. And actually no one seemed upset by it, but half through the wearing of the cocktail forks it occurred to me that pretty much it's always only me doing that sorta thing.
 
kay said:
Not quite understanding the idea of a standoff? Anyhoo, to clarify what I wrote in case it was misunderstood, my number 17 was just a very specific example of your number 17. It was what I did last Friday. And actually no one seemed upset by it, but half through the wearing of the cocktail forks it occurred to me that pretty much it's always only me doing that sorta thing.
Click to expand...

Oh, all right. I misunderstood. Thanks for clarifying. :)
 
kay said:
17. NT, middle age women generally will not put silver plastic cocktail forks in their hair and pretend they have antennas when they at an adult social function. (Doubt too many NT men do either) (assuming these are sober NTs, too)
Click to expand...
For me, that type of thing would really give life to an otherwise boring and tedious social function, but NTs tend to frown on such behaviour. Their reaction just makes no sense.
 
dragoncat16 said:
A popular notion here and elsewhere on the internet is that aspies occupy one part of the entire human neuro spectrum, and that Asperger syndrome (or type 1 ASD) in itself is not a disability. What if we were the majority and what we call "neurotypicals" were the odd ones (though we would be the neurotypicals in that case)? If neurotypicalness were a syndrome, what would its symptoms be? Here are some I have come up with:
  1. tendency to judge others based on superficial criteria, such as their hairstyle and what they wear (compared with arbitraily determined fashion and hairstyle trends)
  2. commonly obsessed with spending a significant amount of time each day preening oneself according to the above mentioned trends
  3. commonly possess an inability to make decisions without cognitive bias (see my recent thread on the topic)
  4. tendency to perceive the world through several cognitive biases (e.g. confirmation bias, selective perception, etc.), but lack the ability to be aware of these biases
  5. tendency to invent social rules which they expect others to follow, but with a different set of rules for themselves and those they think of as socially more popular than themselves, and a complete lack of awareness of how hypocritical that is
  6. commonly lack the ability to focus on a particular interest without becoming distracted by other matters
  7. commonly engages in completely inane, useless conversation with others about irrelevant topics (small talk) and somehow finds comfort in this
  8. tendency to engage in "mob mentality" (going with the crowd) instead of thinking something through and coming to own conclusion
  9. tendency to shun, humiliate, or ridicule those that they perceive as different, in order to maintain their social standing or gain a higher social standing for themselves
  10. commonly obsessed with determining one's own status in society compared with the statuses of others, in order to determine how other individuals should be treated
  11. little interest in getting to know anyone they consider socially inferior
  12. tendency to expect praise or reward if they do condescend themselves to spend time with those they consider to be of a lower social status
  13. expectation for others to see things from their own point of view, but lack of willingness or ability to see things from the point of view of someone different from themselves
  14. when in a conversation, the inability or unwillingness to respond to anything that doesn't fit their own world view

Anyone have others?
Click to expand...

This list makes me uncomfortable. Because aspies and NTs are all diversely uniquely different, with combinations of all these attributes. There are diagnosed aspies with some of these attributes too! Even in these threads there are judgements, bias, and stereotyping. This kind of stereotyping does not help anyone except for a sad type of “entertainment.”
 
I thought the list by OP was meant as a joke.
A satiric review of what is assumed to be
"normal" from an alternate point of view.
 
Why is it OK to have lists (and whole books) on Asperger traits, trying to understand the types of behaviours and attitudes that this sort of hardwiring bestows? But suddenly when it's a list of NT characteristics, it's "stereotyping"? Suddenly individual differences are highlighted.

19. Love events - fancy-dress parties, Halloween, hen do's, stag do's, Christmas parties, welcome parties, leaving parties, especially events with fireworks. Any excuse to dress up to see and be seen and be able to advertise their social connectedness on Facebook afterwards.

20. NTs tend to respond with awareness of how other people will react to what they're saying/doing, which may cause them to distort the truth or suppress it altogether, in deference to social-political implications; Aspergers on the other hand tend to prioritise the truth above all social-political considerations - generally they will put forward the truth regardless of whether they themselves come off badly from it or someone else does. Aspergers usually only learn to factor in the social-political implications of their utterances and actions after they've attracted outrage, opprobrium or ostracism from the social environment - even then they will still err, despicably, on the side of the telling the truth.

21. NTs instinctively know what social and cultural practices, institutions and gestures etc bestow high status and low status. They know what to gravitate towards and what to shun. Aspergers are usually (initially) oblivious to these evaluations, which NTs tend to pick up from the environment by osmosis.
 
Last edited:
It just reminds me of stereotyping, bully’s, and picking on others. I think most of us have been there. So it’s ok to do it to others?

I can express myself. Don’t mind me. Go have your fun. A lot of aspies are part NT ....
 
This whole thread is testimony to the fact that Aspergers are inured to seeing themselves as flawed, in the wrong, disabled, disordered, in need of reform and intervention, while NTs are very much inured to seeing themselves as whole and correct and beyond reproach.

People have a field-day analysing and dissecting how Asperger's differs from 'the mainstream', but when the tables are turned and neurotypicality is put under the microscope and objectified as a way of being, there is outrage and hurt feelings. People are "uncomfortable" and feel "bullied"; it has to be framed as a "satirical" exercise; moral tenets get invoked about turning the other cheek. No problem when the spotlight was on ASC.

Neurotypicality IS a syndrome - as much as Asperger's is. But I thought we'd moved away from pathologising it and we now refer to it as ASC - autistic spectrum condition. Further definitional clarifications: Asperger's = social and political deficits. Classic autism = social and political deficits + cognitive deficits and maybe also linguistic deficits.

This thread shows how little <being problematised, questioned, scrutinised and dissected> is part of the NT condition, whereas it's a taken-for-granted aspect of the Asperger condition. Aspergers have their shadow-side rubbed in their face on a daily basis and, these days, from birth. Some Aspergers even tell people preemptively "I have [sic] Aspergers" - to preempt any negative judgements that are about to ensue, a rationale for any offending words or behaviour, a pre-justification of the other person's negative judgement.

One of the most profound insights I read on this forum was by Suzanne: "The NUMEROUS times I have been insulted and yet, for some bizarre reason, I am supposed to let it go; but those who I insult can really attack." How do you handle humiliations?
There definitely seems to be one set of rules for Aspergers and another set for NTs. This leads me to identify another facet of the NT condition:

22. Irate and indignant at the slightest suggestion that anything in their values might be questioned, their practices found wanting, their chosen pastimes problematised. Objectifying themselves and extrapolating patterns in their behaviour is not only anathema, it's unfathomable. Anyone who turns the spotlight on NTs and tries to figure out what makes NTs tick is a BAD person, a pariah, a heretic. Aspergers are so clearly the problem, the worthy targets of pathologisation. Obviously. Duh.

Would there be accusations of "stereotyping" and "bullying" if the positive aspects of neurotypicality were written about?
e.g., can often hold the bigger picture in mind instead of getting bogged down by details; often reach out to others, bring them in and make them feel part of the group; can use their social skills to give talks, lecture, teach, promote things, sell ideas etc; often generous to charities and good causes; often feel empathy for tragic cases; a penchant for holding functions of celebration, gratitude and remembrance; their many devices for enabling others to save face and come away with their egos protected.
= With all the personal variation within each of these broad trends, from decent, upstanding and kind on the one end of the NT moral spectrum, to mean, bullying and psychopathic on the other - no less than for Aspergers.

If I were president for a day, each paragraph written about Aspergers would be counterbalanced by a paragraph written about NTs, so that we cease to see neurotypicality as a blameless backdrop against which Aspergers are the quirky anomaly. Aspergers would just be one of the differences, like male and female and everything in between, and black and white and everything in between. Where Aspergers' particular skills and abilities are acknowledged and recognised, we would have a corresponding paragraph celebrating the skills and abilities of NTs. Where Aspergers are faulted, problematised and criticised, we would have a corresponding paragraph faulting, problematising and criticising NTs.

With this regime, there wouldn't necessarily be a reduction of societal suffering and human misery, but we wouldn't be projecting so much onto others and blaming others for what is in fact a part of our own psyche. Below is an extreme case of when projecting onto others is left unchecked:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5740145/Couple-guilty-torturing-murdering-nanny.html
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

New Threads

Top Bottom