People who are praised more than they are criticized do better at all sorts of tests, including external assessments of their likeability, than those who are criticized more than praised.

It's hard to believe that this wouldn't apply to AS folks, as well.

Even with dimmer social perception, it feels good to recognize that people are happy to see you, appreciate your contributions, and think well of you. And it seems like a healthier, more pleasant state for those around AS people. So why not look for what's good and praiseworthy?

I think to some extent even the notion (the nouveaux notion that is) of savantry is a social construction, ill defined at it's border, though I always go by the Treffert version because somewhere along the line he agreed with my definition a few years back :) which is as good a reason as for any for going along with it. (he might have forgotten in the meantime what it was being as he is calling for a new definition, but I have not.

Buffoonery done with, I don't even know if I could nowadays reproduce the trick I once performed without the amazing Randi being in the audience, (that always spooks people) that is to say having unconsciously memorised minute flaws in the cutlery I was routinely using at my former college in order to pronounce that I was not going to use "that knife", because I had eaten with it before and did not like it.

I content myself nowadays with more mundane memory feats that can be validated against google.

I like to think my long term memory is more reliable than an NT equivalent, given that NT long term memory is notoriously unreliable according to the research.

I had this inkling that a particular phrase were contained within a comic strip of Mandrake the Magician (qv never mind Derren Brown, Banacek and whatever happened to the amazing Kreskin, sans the fictional Mandrake where would they be?)

Unfortunately google was not my friend on this occasion and the nearest evidence I could find was in French, which was not an exact translation of what I recall

Given that illiterate Yugoslav bards used to be able to (maybe they still can in Macedonia or whatever they call the province in question nowadays) recite epics longer than the oddysey itself preserved by verbal transmission I think if anything these abilities were more common in pre literate societies and there is one hell of a lot of cultural gloss over it all.

Yes there are only a few people who really stand out, like Stephen Wiltshire, remarkable in any age or Kim Peek who has memorised more books than most people have read, though there are some who have read and forgotten more books than he has.

The rest of us are just wannabes in the foothills never mind what Pat Howliin would like to assert, cos if it's one in three well it is a less than even chance I could even figure in her definition, crazy stunts with cutlery notwithstanding cos even my dad could have done that being as his job depended on that degree of visual accuracy.

BTW my avatar for this site does bear a bit of resemblence to the aforementioned Mandrake, there is a story behind that.

My brother sent me an article in the Economist saying much the same kind of a thing [I think it was the Economist?]

I think I agree with just about everything you've written, the need to get the balance right between the two.
Best wishes

AUTISTIC autistic Autistic that one word stops people in there tracks, its like if I dare say I become an instant alien. I have Aspergers and other neurological differences and to me it is not about any label but understanding real self and how we impact on others. To be honest I use to think everyone else was stupid until I was tested and realized it was me who processed and saw things differently, I am fine now I understand, but others continue to question.

I am proud to be an autistic person and share genes with some of the most brilliant minds on this planet, every individual has strengths and weakness on or off the autism spectrum and just like those not on the autism spectrum we are as diverse and different as each other, its about time people started to see the ability not disability, the able in the disabled!

My "definition of intelligence" is the more we learn the more we do not know, just like autism as mysteries as the universe, does there always have to be answers, maybe time to focus on the good, what can be done because while others continue to question us we struggle to be excepted and allowed in society and children continue to have often unnecessary fad treatments forced on them, another label for the unexplained will it change anything! Aspergers Parallel Planet - http://www.asplanet.info

@Alyson. "To be honest I use to think everyone else was stupid until I was tested and realized it was me who processed and saw things differently, I am fine now I understand, but others continue to question."

I think we always question ourselves to make sure we are on the right path. I really liked what you said. I think the others look at the world the way you do. But they don't question themselves. They are ignorant. They go through life noticing that things don't make sense. But they never ask Why. You do. I think that is the difference.