Undiagnosed Autistic Spectrum?

While on my usual perusal of the internet, I came across the latest video from TED. In it Temple Grandin talks about the Autistic mind, the different ways of thinking, and how they are all important. It’s a great little 10 minute talk.

Temple’s lecture got me thinking about myself. For most of my life, I’ve known that I’m a little different from most people. For the longest time, I thought that I might be undiagnosed ADD or something like it, but now I wonder if I am just on the edge of autistic spectrum.

In her lecture, she talks about how she is a visual thinker, and how that makes her different. She also mentions a different class of thinker that I think that I fit into, which is the pattern thinker. I see patterns easily, and I think in logical steps. She also mentions how being on the autistic scale makes you a specialist thinker. While I may be good at math, patterns, puzzles, and logic, I am terrible at spacial relations as well as verbal memory. (Strangely though, I have an almost uncanny ability to know where I was when I was listening to a part of an audiobook when I am driving.)

Another thing that I have always struggled with is social interactions. When I was in school, I had real trouble relating to other kids. As I have gotten older, I picked up most of the social skills that people learn at an early age, but it took me a long time, and it didn’t really come naturally. I still struggle with irony though. I frequently can’t tell when people aren’t being serious without specific ques. I’ve often wondered how I can be so gullible, but I think that it might be that my brain just isn’t naturally wired to pick up on subtle social ques.

I’ve never considered this before. I’ve always assumed that while I may be a little weird, that everyone more or less thought in the same way as I do. Now, I tend to think that I might actually process information very differently from others. It’s odd. It sort of makes me rethink how I have interacted with others in the past, and how I should in the future. Not in a major way, since people are people, but it explains some of the confusions that I have had.

Is this really the case? I don’t know. I don’t think that i ever really can know, short of some genetic marker or something. If it is, then I am really thankful of my parents for how I was raised. I know that I was a challenging child, but I came out pretty good.

Certainly something to think about.