Finally! Someone with Asperger’s tells us ‘how’ he does it!

Following is a clip from the blog of John Elder Robison, author of Look me in the Eye. It is a fascinating and inspiring account of how someone with a disability in some part of the brain can overcome that challenge using more developed ‘executive’ functions.  See below:

“I think the answer to this question speaks to how we use our brains. Most of us (Aspergian and autistic people) can’t read faces and sense social cues the way nypical people can. But many of us have very good logical reasoning abilities.

I now use my reasoning power to take the place of weak or non-existent social instincts. So instead of looking at a person and sensing, he really likes me and he’s friendly toward me, I arrive at a similar conclusion by logical reasoning. I watch the other person carefully, and note what they do. Do they smile? Move toward me? Move away? I process what they say. I watch their hands.

You might say, that’s what a nypical person does instinctively. And you’d be right. But I do it with a different process, and a different part of my brain. Instead of knowing the social answer, I figure it out. Rather than sense, “she wants this” I deduce, “most people in her situation would want this.” So I don’t act from certainty of that specific person’s feelings. I act from analysis and consideration of probabilities of what most people would do in her situation. That’s quite different on the inside, but it looks similar on the outside. My results may not be as good as the sense of a good nypical, but it’s enough to get by. It’s enough to pass for eccentric instead of weird, and to seem normal in some situations.

I have, in effect, substituted one part of my brain for another to mask a deficiency. Why did I only do it when I was older? First, I had to know the opportunity existed. I didn’t know about this until I was middle aged. Second, I needed a large database of life experience from which to draw good logical inferences and conclusions. Third, I had to have the desire to change. The positive feedback I’ve gotten since finding out about Asperger’s has provided an incentive.
By John Elder Robison, Author of “Look me in the Eye”