Ultra-hyped mirror neuron theories picked to pieces (AKA "aspies have no empathy" = BS.)

[Odin2005]

A blow to the popular BS notion that people on the Autism Spectrum have an "empathy deficit".

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17192-role-of-mirror-neurons-may-need-a-rethink.html

[mr blur]

1. My son is diagnosed Asperger's -

He is one of the most empathic people we know. It causes him a lot of anxiety from time to time.

[Deep13]

2. Have it. Have trouble expressing it. nt

[charlie]

3. Anyone who believes that

should read Daniel Tammet's biography, Born on a Blue Day. Not only is he autistic, he's a savant, able to ace challenges like reciting PI to 22,000+ digits, and learning Icelandic to converse on a TV talk show... inside a week. His book is a rare gift from someone who can explain what happens in his mind when he displays his bewildering talents.

He's as empathetically connected as anyone else. He has trouble with uncertainty in how he can express those feelings, and with deficits like poor facial recognition and acute sensitivity that can sometimes turn his world into an overwhelming cacaphony. He's sweetly and hopelessly in love with his boyfriend, which of course couldn't happen to a mechanical droid, and draws confidence from his relationship that allows him a measure of ease with others.

Here's his appearance on the Letterman show that was recounted in the book:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXG-1YLGAS0

You see the easy charm and rapport he has with Dave and the audience. Doing this would've once been unimaginable (he was long a solitary child), before he learned how not to be waylaid by sensory overload and fear. Even then, it took a good amount of bravery to do it, because he knew it could still go terribly wrong.

[Odin2005]

4. I'm a big Daniel Tammet fan!

I've read both Born on a Blue Day and his recent book on neuroscience, inteligence, and Savantism Embracing the Wide Sky. An amazing guy! I thought it was funny that his Asperger's makes him so good at learning languages that while he was in Lithuania (or was it Latvia?) tourists mistook him as a native speaker!

[charlie]

5. Me too

I read his other book as well, right after the first.

It took remarkable gumption for the guy, the neighborhood's "oddball" loner, to uproot himself from the only safe haven he could rely on and go to Lithuania, just by sheer dint of will and a burgeoning curiosity about the world he was long excluded from.

He's also an admirable skeptic. I liked how he showed that Oliver Sacks' oft-recounted story of the matchstick-counting twins is likely not a demonstration of their abilities, but something more prosaic. His little test of whether Kim Peek has a photographic memory or not (he probably doesn't) was good, too.

[Odin2005]

6. Yep, I liked his criticism of Sacls.

Oliver Sacks is a great guy, but I think his description of Savantism put a lot of misleading ideas in peoples heads.