AUTISTIC INTELLIGENCE

NEUROTYPICAL SYNDROME
Neurotypical is a label for nonautistic people. Neurotypical syndrome (NT) is a neurobiological disorder characterized by a preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and an obsession with conformity. By autistic standards, the “normal” brain is easily distractible, is obsessively social, and suffers from a deficit of attention to detail and routine. Normal people are good at “folk psychology” (social interactions), and people with Asperger’s are interested in “folk physics” (how things work). Neurotypical is only one kind of brain wiring, and, when it comes to hi-tech, quite possibly an inferior one.

Thus, people on the spectrum experience the neurotypical world as relentlessly unpredictable and chaotic, perpetually turned up too loud, and full of people who have little respect for personal space. Autistics find most neurotypical people annoying and illogical.
There is no known cure for neurotypical syndrome.

The general public and the hiring companies don’t understand autistic people. Many fall through the cracks due to their “odd” behaviours, despite having so much to contribute if given the chance.

Traits associated with Asperger’s syndrome are observed, in milder versions, in many so-called neurotypical people. One often sees Asperger-like traits in family members of people with autism: a father who is a computer programmer with poor social skills, an eccentric uncle, and other family members with depression or anxiety. Often, these “shadow syndromes” acquire no specific label or diagnosis.

ASPERGER INTELLIGENCE
Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk — what unites these exceptional individuals? It is widely accepted that all were/are geniuses, but something else exists. Neuroscientists believe that all suffered/suffer from Asperger’s syndrome. Applying these characteristics to famous or historical figures may allow a better understanding of the significant positive impact great Asperger’s ancestors have left behind toward an enlightened and improved society and world.

The whole definition of the term “neurological disorder” implies that something is going wrong in the brain. However, there is a growing recognition that when it comes to the processes in our brain, “going wrong” does not necessarily mean “going bad”. Our brain is too complicated a mechanism to be interpreted in simplistic terms. Some neurological disorders produce a peculiar state of mind often associated with high artistic and scientific achievements.

A distinctive cluster of aptitudes, skills, attitudes, and abilities is part of autistic intelligence. They can see things and events around them from a new point of view. In favourable cases, this ability can lead to exceptional achievements that others may never attain. Hans Asperger may have been the first clinician to notice that his patients’ imaginations occasionally anticipated developments in science by decades, forcing him to amend his statements that their interests were “remote” from real-world concerns.

Children with autism have trouble relating and interacting with the world around them. However, they may also possess unique strengths that may help them thrive later in their chosen careers. Some areas in which children with autism commonly have average or above-average skills are specialist knowledge in a particular area, good visual and spatial memory, methodical and organized, ability to understand abstract concepts, and problem-solving/logical reasoning.

Some people with Asperger’s are visual thinkers, and others are math, music, or number thinkers, but all think in specifics. The Asperger’s mind enjoys and focuses on details, while the normal mind is more skilled at assembling whole concepts from more information. Individuals with Asperger’s syndrome may do poorly in school, but their interests are likely significantly narrowed and focused.

Autistic children want to figure out how things work; rather than art, they study biology, chemistry, and physics. Kids formerly ridiculed as nerds and brainiacs have grown up to become the architects of our future. People with autism, dyslexia and other cognitive differences make contributions to society that so-called normal people are incapable of making. The tribe of industrious hermits invented the modern digital world.

These activities focus their minds and provide a sense of comfort. If they are forced to leave their projects, they may become distressed. Likewise, if their projects are failing, fostering these narrowed interests is important for emotional and mental support.
Rather than being considered a normal child trapped within an “autistic shell,” waiting to be rescued, Asperger’s is “a way of being” that colours every experience, sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence.

But in the social terrain, streamlined concentration became awkward and unwieldy.

1. Hyperfocus. Hyperfocus is the perpetual and unrelenting state of intense, single-minded concentration fixated on one thought pattern at a time, to the exclusion of everything else, including one’s feelings. It is the underlying factor responsible for the autistic person’s withdrawal into an entirely mental inner world.
Hyperfocus keeps a person’s awareness trapped in the intellectual/analytical left frontal lobe with little ability to access whatever may be happening in the right frontal lobe, where emotions and social connectivity are felt. Autistic hyperfocus explains most traits of Asperger syndrome.

2. Abstraction ability is a prerequisite for scientific endeavours. The autistic mind is like a vehicle streamlined for rapid passage through the fluid of thought, capable of maneuvering with little outside friction. They turn away from the everyday world, from the simply practical, to rethink a subject with originality.

3. Use of logic and common sense. Thought processes are confined to a pedantic, literal, and logical chain of reasoning. Temple Grandin said, “I like the logical way that I think.  I’m totally logical. In fact, it kind of blows my mind how irrational human beings are,” She said. “If you get rid of autism, you’d have nobody to fix your computer in the future.”

4. Quantifiable data, highly organized systems, and complex machines fascinate many autistic people. It runs like a half-hidden thread through autism.

5. Intense curiosity. Autistics are irrepressibly curious observers of society from the outside, an “anthropologist on Mars,” as Temple Grandin put it.

6. Accept nothing on faith. Asperger’s people are innovators in their field of interest precisely because they were constitutionally unable to take things on faith.

TYPES OF INTELLIGENCES COMMON IN THE AUTISTIC BRAIN
a. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence. Good at logical reasoning, problem solving, recognizing patterns, and numerical understanding. These individuals tend to think conceptually about numbers, relationships, and patterns.
Have excellent problem-solving skills
Enjoy thinking about abstract ideas
Like conducting scientific experiments
Can solve complex computations
Pattern recognition. The Asperger’s brain tries to make sense of its surroundings, so a break in the pattern may show itself quite clearly. Pattern problems like math and art may be very enriching.

b. Visual-Spatial (Photorealistic) Intelligence: These individuals are skilled at visualizing things in three dimensions, mentally manipulating objects, and understanding spatial relationships. They are often good with directions, maps, charts, videos, and pictures. Research suggests that visual-spatial abilities are essential for reading, arithmetic, and overall academic achievement.
Read and write for enjoyment.
They are good at putting puzzles together
Interpret pictures, graphs, and charts well
Enjoy drawing, painting, and the visual arts
Recognize patterns easily
In her book, The Autistic Brain, Temple Grandin presents three types of specialized thinking.  They are the photorealistic visual thinkers who think the way she does, math/pattern thinkers, and word thinkers. For autistic and photo-realistic visual thinkers, such as Grandin, understanding comes from seeing and working through a concept in images, creating what is, in effect, a virtual reality program that plays out in the brain.  In this manner, Grandin, who didn’t speak until she was almost four, conceptualized down to minute details her design for a humane livestock restraint system now used on nearly half of the cattle in the U.S.
“When I said that early stuff, I didn’t realize how different my thinking was. I was doing a lot of construction projects in the early 90s. Before I attempt construction, I draw something and test-run the equipment in my imagination. I could draw the layout for a meat-cutting line and make the conveyors move. I visualize my designs being used in every possible situation, with different sizes and breeds of cattle and in different weather conditions. Doing this enables me to correct mistakes before construction”.
”Visual thinking is an asset for an equipment designer. I am able to ‘see’ how all the parts of a project fit together and see potential problems”. She began to think of herself as having a powerful digital workstation in her head, capable of running instantaneous searches through a massive library of stored images and generating 3-D videos from the sketches on her drafting table.
Likewise, Nikola Tesla, possibly the greatest inventor of all time, was a photorealistic visual thinker. He embarked on his career as an inventor when he discovered he could visualize theoretical machines in minute detail. He even set them running in his mind, tweaking his design as parts wore out. “I needed no models, drawings, or experiments,” Tesla recalled in his memoir. “I could picture them all as real… It is immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance.”
I do not doubt that Elon Musk also has this ability.

c. Musical Intelligence. Good at thinking about patterns, pitch, rhythms, sounds, and music comprehension. They have a strong appreciation for music and are often good at musical composition and performance.
Enjoy singing and playing musical instruments.
Recognize musical patterns and tones easily.
Remember songs and melodies.
Have a rich understanding of musical structure, rhythm, and notes
Musicians and composers thought to be autistic include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Glenn Gould, Courtney Love, Susan Boyle, Michael Jackson, Ladyhawke, Adam Young, Bela Bartok, John Denver, Bob Dylan, and James Taylor.

d. Linguistic-Verbal Intelligence. The ability to use language effectively for reading, writing, storytelling, speaking, and communication. These individuals are typically very good at writing stories, memorizing information, and reading.
Remember written and spoken information.
Enjoy reading and writing.
Debate or give persuasive speeches
Can explain things well
Use humour when telling stories
Some autistic people use imagination and a fantasy life to create another world in which they are more successful. Searching for an alternative world can lead some children to develop an interest in another country, culture, period of history, or the world of animals.
Sometimes, the degree of imaginative thought can lead to an interest in fiction as a reader and author. Some children, especially girls, with AS can develop the ability to use imaginary friends, characters, and worlds to write some remarkable fiction. This could lead to success as an author of fiction for children or adults. For example, Hans Christian Anderson and Lewis Carrol had Asperger’s syndrome.
The escape into imagination can be a psychologically constructive adaptation.

THE WORLD WITHOUT ASPERGER’S PEOPLE
The world needs Asperger’s people. After all, the social people who sat around the campfire talking were probably not the makers of the first stone spear. It is also likely that most social people did not create the great culture of our civilization, such as literature, art, engineering, music, science, and mathematics.

If the genes that caused autism were eliminated, there might be a terrible price to pay. Efforts to eradicate autism from the gene pool could put humankind’s future at risk by purging the same qualities that had advanced culture, science, and technological innovation for millennia. People with bits of these traits are more creative, or possibly geniuses. If science eliminated these genes, maybe the whole world would be taken over by accountants.

Most cases of autism are not rooted in rare de novo mutations but in ancient genes that are shared widely in the general population while being concentrated more in certain families than others. Whatever autism is, it is not a unique product of modern civilization. It is a strange gift from our deep past, passed down through millions of years of evolution.

This is a list of famous people known or strongly suspected of having Asperger’s syndrome. It reads like a “who’s who” of anyone who has made a significant contribution to science or the arts. Where would society be if none of these people lived?
Mathematicians, Physicists, Chemists, Biologists: Sir Isaac Newton, Henry Cavendish, Charles Darwin, Nikola Tesla, Marie-Curie, Albert Einstein, Paul Dirac, Barbara McClintock. Alan Turing, Carl Sagan.
Inventors and Businessmen: Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Temple Grandin, Steve Jobs. Bill Gates, Elon Musk.
Authors: Emily Dickinson, George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Isaac Asimov.
Children’s authors: Hans Christian Andersen, Lewis Carroll.
Artists: Michelangelo, Andy Warhol, Vincent Van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky
Actors, and Directors: Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Hopkins, Dan Akroyd, Jerry Seinfeld, Daryl Hannah, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, Woody Allen, Michael Palin, Robin Williams.
Musicians, Composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Ludwig Van Beethoven, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Glenn Gould, Courtney Love, Susan Boyle, Michael Jackson, Ladyhawke, Adam Young, Bela Bartok, John Denver, Bob Dylan, James Taylor.
Others: Bobby Fischer, Greta Thunberg.

EDUCATION
What is the best teaching method for them? Teach these children how to put their autistic intelligence to work. Create a comprehensive intervention program emphasizing music, movement, and techniques to help integrate the confusing barrage of information from his senses. Find individualized approaches to education that would enable these children to make the most of their innate gifts while ensuring they have the resources to cope with the challenges of their disabilities.

Patience is key. Instead of comparing the arc of development to an idealized set of milestones, the children have to unfold at their own pace. Two steps forward and three back—and then one day, a hurtling leap into their own future, as if they’d been saving up. Little tasks become self-rewarding because they play to a classic autistic strength: pattern recognition.