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Artificial Asperger’s

I was witness to a young boy that had parents in a mental retardation halfway house. He was raised in a challenged environment and although he was sound mentally,he took on the persona of the people he was raised amongst. Ricky has undergoing speech therapy and a few other related issues to prepare him for a mainstream education. They had to reset his clock so to speak. I believe that anyone raised in what could be considered a different setting may also apply to this.
 
The kid was placed in a special education class and one of his teachers spotted that he was actually very bright. That was one case where the proper education the kid received was from an intervention by someone who saw firsthand what he was really all about. The social worker that explained his dilemma said Ricky was environmentally retarded.
 
I have never heard that before, "environmentally retarded." That must have been some time ago since "retarded" would not be considered PC these days, though it does make sense.
It was 1981
 
There were about a dozen people living in a group home that had jobs in the same facility. I guess that what went on after hours was something they didn't do anything about.
 
There are stories of children being kept in horrific conditions in Romanian orphanages, neglected of the most basic human contact who, when removed for those environments, show autistic-like traits. When given proper levels of attention and love these qualities then diminish. It illustrates that autism isn't solely an environmental factor, more proof that the outdated idea of "refrigerator mothers" was very incorrect.

I don't know about autistic children developing more autistic qualities through neglect though. It would certainly hamper any chance of intervention from occurring naturally.
 
I don't know how accurate the assessment was, but there were claims that many kids adopted from Russian orphanages suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome, compounding any other issues.

There are also the cases of children raised as captives (as a result of kidnapping, wacked parents, etc.) having serious socialization, language and learning difficulties, that were alleviated or virtually eliminated by special care and education.
 
Any behavioral challenges that arise from dysfunctional environments or traumatic upbringing will fall more into the Post-Traumatic Stress disorder category. Many of the sensitivities and social difficulties are similar, as is the emotional abnormalities. With proper therapy these people can learn or relearn normal thinking, feeling, and coping skills. but PTSD and Asperger's are two very different disorders. PTSD is more environmentally caused, while Autism Spectrum Disorders would be more genetically caused.
 
There are stories of children being kept in horrific conditions in Romanian orphanages, neglected of the most basic human contact who, when removed for those environments, show autistic-like traits. When given proper levels of attention and love these qualities then diminish. It illustrates that autism isn't solely an environmental factor, more proof that the outdated idea of "refrigerator mothers" was very incorrect.

I don't know about autistic children developing more autistic qualities through neglect though. It would certainly hamper any chance of intervention from occurring naturally.


'Refrigerator mothers', can you please explain this, sorry but not heard the expression... and this particular topic is very interesting to me.
Thank you.
 
Any behavioral challenges that arise from dysfunctional environments or traumatic upbringing will fall more into the Post-Traumatic Stress disorder category. Many of the sensitivities and social difficulties are similar, as is the emotional abnormalities. With proper therapy these people can learn or relearn normal thinking, feeling, and coping skills. but PTSD and Asperger's are two very different disorders. PTSD is more environmentally caused, while Autism Spectrum Disorders would be more genetically caused.


I think there could be a huge debate here regarding the PTSD and Aspergers. Be interesting to see what can come from this given genetic and environmental factors.
 
'Refrigerator mothers', can you please explain this, sorry but not heard the expression... and this particular topic is very interesting to me.
Thank you.

The theory of"refrigerator mothers" was used by professionals around the 1950's and onwards until around the 80's. It was thought that autism was caused by mothers who were uncaring and 'cold' towards their children, not giving them the attention they crave during the critical stages of development. This meant there was a big stigma around mothers of children with autism which caused unnecessarily damage to families.
 
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Although it has been long since proven that refrigerator mothers don't cause autism, could they create such an environment to cause a child to emulate autism; hence, Artificial Autism (Asperger's)?

I wouldn't think so. To be pseudo-autistic I would think you'd need to be in an environment that offers no human comfort whatsoever such as those conditions of children in Romanian institutions.
 
I beg to differ to be honest.

There's two sides of the fence to this in my theory.

See, I think the main thing that the majority fail to extinguish is the FACT that the genes are a big part of this conundrum.

Nature and nurture. I've been battling this in particular ALL of my life, in turn I can now see the resemblance in my one parent (and step parent for which was a part of my upbringing from age 3), my eldest son (previous to me being educated) and my youngest son (for which I can now pin point particular areas) And I can now see the patterns in true form colour for which previously I had no clue myself.

I do not know my real dad, however I can now see that where I once blamed my upbringing (as in being dragged up by two parents that blamed me for everything, blatantly).......... and then went through education in the humanistic (person centred) theory.... and realising I just 'didn't grow up and had choices through life (apparently) ............. I was then passed the word Aspergers for which ............ It has got to be ignorance in the parents, else otherwise we would not still be struggling in our 40's for which many of us are.

My eldest was diagnosed with unsocialised contact disorder at age 9. This was in 1999.... Aspergers, I have only in the last 5 or so months became AWARE of was actually KNOWN of at that time.

Tut tut tut to those who tried to make out I was crazy. When fact is, I knew there was something wrong with me for not knowing or understanding my son, just like I knew there was something wrong with him.

All the evidence was there and I was shushed.

I knew it was hereditary. And was denied support.

This is why professionals need to learn.
 
Has anyone seen or know of any studies on Artificial Asperger’s? That is to say, can someone grow up from birth until they leave their environment in such a dysfunctional home that their way of thinking, including difficulties with stimuli and/or sensory overload, can emulate Asperger’s even to the point of fooling clinical exams?

If you do not believe that Artificial Asperger’s could occur, could one have mild Asperger’s, but have it become exacerbated over the years by living in a dysfunctional environment?

There are much smarter people on here than me, so I’m looking forward to some lively discussion on this.
A specific situation came to me when I read this; my ex(who probably has AS) raised our dog under all his strict norms. He would give him 10 pieces of dog food. Exactly ten lol. And he would congratulate and reward him when he sat straight. So, consequently, all the people who met my dog told me "your dog isn't like a normal dog, right? he doesn't run around, he is very still all the time... he seems serious" lol.

I always thought he seemed aspie like my ex, but when he was a puppy he wasn't like that. So, my dog may have a case of artificial AS....
 
That's one of those things that make you go, "Hmm." I'm sure some of the eggheads where I work would have a field-day studying that. Seriously, it does make me wonder, because I know of a young man that was raised in a VERY dysfunctional home to the point that his mother forced her personality on him; he now emulates his mother and acts almost like an Aspie.
yeah I think it makes a lot of sense that a kid raised by and aspie parent would appear to be aspie himself. After all, we do emulate our parent´s(or the people who we are closer to) behaviour.
 
Me too.
It would make a refreshing change than to simply be accused of blaming everyone else. When reality is that we learnt what we could with all we had to learn by.
 

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