Some really cool people I know have Asperger’s syndrome or have Aspie kids. I guess I feel some kinship with Aspies because we struggle with some of the same stuff – inability to care about certain social conventions, or poor executive functioning, or boring people with our perseverations.
Kathleen is one of these really cool people and I’ve written about her before. If Asperger’s is something you care about, you might like to listen to this interview of her conducted by her husband as part of StoryCorps.
She’s uploaded two versions of the file, one mp3 (17 MB), the other wma (24 MB).
My very favorite patient was a struggling 11 year-old with Asperger’s Disorder.
In a true moment of “serendipity,” having just finished the story of the Anthropologist on Mars from Oliver Sacks’ book of the same title, I wrote to Dr. Temple Grandin, protagonist of the story. Sacks indicated some articles she had written, and given that they only appear in obscure journals, I asked for reprints. She kindly sent them and told me about her book, Talking in Pictures which details her “recovery” (re-birth?) from Autism. Both books are great sources of information.
We were taught that the kind of behaviour Kathleen describes is Schizotypal Personality Disorder, and it was highly comorbid with other personality disorders (e.g. paranoid); anything that struck as “bizzare.” I suspect for this reason, many are undiagnosed – and Schizotypal & Autism-spectrum patients are reluctant to seek help – and unhelped.
A wonderful, humorous, and helpful interview!
Comment by foofoo5 — Sunday, October 28th, 2007 @ 21:06