Science vs religious myth, according to a seven-year-old w/Asperger's

[Thirtieschild]

This morning's Sunday School lesson was Noah's Ark. When the teacher said the rainbow was God's promise that he wouldn't destroy the world with water, our seven-year-old grandson said, "Actually, the rainbow is the reflection of light off the back of raindrops." As I reported here several months ago, this is the same child who, when asked who was the first man, said "I know you want me to say Adam but it was really Austrolopithicus." During a test for autism when he was three, he got bored identifying pictures of a house, a car, a tree, identified a bird as "a bipedal creature." The person testing him didn't know what a bipedal creature was, thought he got it wrong. He's been conducting his own scientific experiments since he was three, says science is more fun than playing.
He's going to win the Nobel if he survives the autism.

Signed: Amazed Grandmother Who Had to Brag

[Tumbulu]

1. I hope he does not have to endure this ridiculous Sunday School anymore.

Thanks for sharing your grandson's amazing interactions with us. He sounds wonderful.

[Thirtieschild]

3. A religious education for this particular child might not be all bad

He thinks for himself, already questions what he's being taught, which I think is amazing at age seven. Btw, his fathber is athiest, his mother (our daughter) converted to Catholism in her 30s.

[elleng]

2. How wonderful!!!

Zillions of hugs to you and to him!

PS, no doubt he'll 'survive' the autism!!!

[Thirtieschild]

4. Thanks for hugs

I believe we knew each other in another forum some four years ago. I was Disorganized.

[elleng]

6. HI, Diso!!!!

GREAT to see you, and to hear about 'yours!'

[msongs]

5. or he may win a Nobel prize BECAUSE of his autism nt

[Odin2005]

21. Yup! n/t.

[Warpy]

7. You might want to get him out of Sunday school

and find an alternative. Really.

I was the kid who was always way ahead of everybody else, although I didn't have high functioning autism, just a total bookworm. I said the same things to the nuns who were peddling the feel good stuff to the kiddies and spent many hours kneeling on cold marble floors for my sin of knowing what the hell I was talking about.

I was left with an unsympathetic view of and deep contempt for religion. I no longer hold the view of religious people, but it took me a long time to get over that part.

Your son will be punished for knowing diplodocus died 65,000,000 years ago and not because it wouldn't fit onto the Ark 6,000 years ago. You can take that to the bank. The people who least like to be contradicted are the believers.

Get your grandson away from these people and he will blossom. It sounds like he's got a bright future somewhere.

[Thirtieschild]

9. There's nothing I can do. I don't have a choice about his religious education

He lives in West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom, we live in Southwestern New Mexico. Our daughter, his mother, converted to Catholism in her mid-30s, believes it all; she and I are opposite ends of the religious/scientific spectrum, can't discuss it. His father is an athiest.

[Warpy]

12. Well, I survived it

and so will he, although his mother is likely to be disappointed as he grows up and rejects the whole business.

I just have to feel a bit sorry for him right now because I know what they're going to try to do to him.

[Thirtieschild]

15. He's already questioning what they're teaching him.

I don't know how his questioning will affect him emotionally. Apparently, Christianity is a dying cause in the U.K. - churches are virtually empty there. He's in a Catholic school because it's the best one in the area. He told his mother he had naughty thoughts, that he wondered if there really was a God since you couldn't see him or prove him. She told him he needed to go with what he felt.

[ananda]

8. Autistic my eye!

Have any of you considered the possibility
that autism is WAY over diagnosed?

That the DSM manual is an abomination of
use and benefit to pharmaceutical companies
and the mental health system that only
wants to drug people instead of actually
helping them find a cure?

[Thirtieschild]

10. He takes no meds, the diagnosis was made in the U.K. after extensive evaluation

The process of diagnosis was amazing, all paid for by National Health.

1. Our daughter, his mother, called the school and asked for an evaluation.

2. School called an Autism clinic; clinic sent a specialist to observe him at school and then to spend an evening at home observing family interactions. Conclusion: probability of autism, additional testing called for.

3. Pediatrician conducted DNA testing to rule out syndromes that can masquerade as Autism.

4. Speech therapist studied speech patterns.

5. Parents and child met with psychologist; psychologist then spent evening with family to observe interactions, talk to child in his natural setting.

6. Autism specialist, pediatrician, speech therapist and psychologist met together to compare notes, make diagnosis. Diagnosis: Autism Spectrum Disorder.

I somehow doubt that the evaluation would have been so complete in this country.

Edited to add information.

[Warpy]

13. I worked at MIT some years ago

and it's Asperger's Central, plenty of ASD kids have found their niches there pursuing all sorts of research that baffles mere mortals. Tuning out all the emotional cues around them only seems to heighten their ability to concentrate on their work.

I got to know a lot of them and tend to see it as a gift more than a curse. Since there are a lot of us out here who recognize their limitations as well as their gifts, your grandson should have a full and meaningful life.

It's just not going to mean the same to him as it will to the majority of people, especially the religious ones pushing rainbows.

[Odin2005]

18. Fuck off, my Asperger's is not a "disease" that needs to be "cured"

[Nihil]

25. Your lack of interpersonal skills suggest otherwise ...

:P

[Odin2005]

26. *WHACK!*

:evilgrin:

[Nihil]

27. *Thud*

:pals:

[Sequoia]

32. Here, here...!!!!!

Or is it..."Hear, hear !!!" Either way, you are correct about pushing the drugs on kids.

[MedleyMisty]

11. He sounds more intellectually gifted than autistic

Giftedness is often misdiagnosed as autism. And of course, they can also go together. That's called twice-exceptional and a search on that term will give you plenty of information.

I was kind of struck by how you seemed to be saying that his intelligence was a product of his autism. Also, 75% of gifted people are introverted and introvertedness is often pathologized because it doesn't fit the extroverted norm - introverts are only 25% of the overall population. I myself score near the cutoff point on online tests for Asperger's because I'm introverted, but I don't fit any of the actually disabling characteristics.

I did a search and found a detailed article with lots of information.

http://www.gt-cybersource.org/Record.aspx?NavID=2_0&rid=11381

[Thirtieschild]

14. Thanks for the article

I'll forward it to our daughter. It does raise questions. I see his gift as a combination of (1) photographic memory (2) curiosity (3) logic. The problems are poor motor skills (he'll fall off a chair at dinner), inability to read people (doesn't recognize when he's boring someone with a lecture about geology, etc), extreme sensitivity to noise (will run to the bathroom with his hands over his ears if the classroom is too noisy).

I bookmarked the article, will also do some Google searches. Thanks.

[semillama]

16. Have you read Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime"?

It's a novel, not non-fiction, but it's written in the first-person from the perspective of a boy with Asperger's syndrome. I think you'd really enjoy it if you haven't read it already - your grandson sounds similar to the boy in the novel from what you've described.

[Thirtieschild]

17. I read it when it came out

At that time I didn't realize my grandson had Asperger's. I think it's time to read it again. Thanks for reminding me of it.

[Odin2005]

19. The giftedness is often the result of the autistic traits.

That is why I despise the notion that I need a "cure". The giftedness and the disabilities are two sides of the same coin. I notice a lot of things, injustices especially, in society others miss exactly because I don't have an intuitive grasp of little intricacies of social interaction.

[Odin2005]

20. Ha, I have Asperger's and that sounds EXACTLY like me at that age.

Get that kid out of Sunday school, he's too smart for such fairy tales and the religious idiots surrounding him will punish him viciously because he dares use his brain.

[eppur_se_muova]

22. Let me really really really recommend the book "Born on a Blue Day" ...

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=7-9781416549017-5

also Temple Grandin's books, "Emergence" and "Thinking in Pictures". http://www.powells.com/s?author=Temple%20Grandin
and an interview here: http://www.powells.com/interviews/templegrandin.html

Both have new books out recently, but I haven't read either. I'm really interested in getting Tammet's: http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781416569695-8

Of course, you might have read them already. :)

[Thirtieschild]

23. Thanks for the suggestions.

I'm a long-distance grandmother, which means my job is to learn what I can and make suggestions. This child was born logical. When he was three and his mother read him a children's bedtime story, he told her the giraffe would never eat leaves like that, and when he was four he threw different things up in the air, finally asked why they always came back down. He started school a few days later and said, "I hope we don't learn silly songs. What I want to learn is gravity."

[Sequoia]

31. Because of you I went to the library and got that Born on a Blue Day

and his latest one also. Thanks for the suggestion. Sigh, I wish numbers were easy for me to understand.

[Sequoia]

24. Science more fun than playing?

Science can be playful. Sounds like a little Tesla to me. What a wonderful little boy.

[BlooInBloo]

28. ...

[Thirtieschild]

29. Good point

Our grandson doesn't want to take his first communion because he doesn't believe in God, but says he might go through with it because he can always use a mid-morning snack. He's able to destroy each point his mother makes - when she told him 47 percent of scientists believe there is a God, he asked what about the 53 percent. He says God is lazy, that he needed a day to rest and since then he hasn't interfered. Life, after all, is all about nature. I'm amazed at the reasoning ability of a seven-year-old child. His athiest father has pointed our to his passionately Catholic mother that he's going to leave the church and she's got to let him do what he needs to do. I guess you'd call this a mixed marriage.

[Odin2005]

30. LOL, VERY smart boy! n/t.