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Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 11:40:47 -0500
From: Gary Chapman
Friends,
Below is my Los Angeles Times column for today, Monday, September 27, 1999. As always, please feel free to pass this on, but please retain the copyright notice.
This is likely to be a controversial column, and possibly disturbing and even offensive to some computer professionals. My original draft of the column had more than 350 additional words than the version that was published this morning, and I tried, in my first draft, to "soften" the link between computer professionals and the stereotype of the "geek" and "nerd." I've also risked offending parents of young people with autism. In any case, a sensitive but, in my opinion, fascinating subject.
Carol and I are doing well, settled into our routine of work and social life here in Austin. We're hoping that it will cool off and that we'll have some rain soon -- we've gone about eight weeks without any rain, and with high temperatures, and the vegetation around here is really suffering. Global warming, I suppose. . . .
Best wishes to everyone.
-- Gary
gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu
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Monday, September 27, 1999
DIGITAL NATION
Even if "Geekness" Is a Disorder, There's No Rush to Find a Cure
By Gary Chapman
Copyright 1999, The Los Angeles Times, All Rights Reserved
To the surprise of many people, and the dismay of some computer professionals, the formerly derogatory labels "geek" and "nerd" are now being used with pride -- or at least resignation -- by a growing number of young computer experts.
What makes a computer geek?
There is some fascinating speculation going on these days that the well-known stereotype of the computer geek or nerd may actually be a description of mild autism, especially a form of autism known as Asperger's syndrome.
Unlike classic autism, which often involves mental retardation and a lack of verbal skills, Asperger's syndrome is at the "high functional" end of the spectrum of autistic behavior, experts say.
People with Asperger's syndrome have normal or above-average IQs and may even display savantism, or exceptional abilities in a specific skill. What they lack is human empathy, a deficiency sometimes called "mind-blindness," which shows up as a distinct inability to read routine human nonverbal cues of attitude such as kindness, anger or love.
Asperger's syndrome patients, who usually develop their traits at a young age, often have these tendencies: excellent rote memory; fascination with fantasy worlds and arcane facts; facility with math and science; physical awkwardness or clumsiness and sometimes an unusual gait; hyperactivity but with an ability to focus on interesting problems for hours at a time; poor social understanding; hyper-verbal activity but without the ability to make contextual connections in conversations; and an appearance of insensitivity and eccentricity. They are commonly victims of teasing in school.
And, apparently, some can do well in the computer world.
Indeed, some people claim that a paradigmatic case of Asperger's syndrome is displayed by Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp. and the richest person on earth.
They say that Gates is famously negligent about his personal appearance and schedule and that he has the autistic behavior of compulsively rocking in his chair, which reportedly began early in his childhood. They say he has temper tantrums and is abrupt and abusive to his employees. He is also regarded as one of the smartest people in American industry.
It's important to note that success and skill with computers do not depend on any mental condition such as Asperger's syndrome, if there is a connection at all. It appears that some people who may have a mild form of this syndrome may simply find computers and computer culture more comfortable than other professions.
An autistic woman who has a successful career in programming told ComputerWorld magazine that when she's programming, "my code just flies," and she can accomplish more in four hours than other people can in two or three days. This is a widely known phenomenon in the programming field -- such productive people are sometimes known as "super-programmers" and are highly valued by employers. Few are clinically autistic.
Asperger's syndrome was first described in 1944 by the Viennese psychiatric researcher and physician Hans Asperger, who called his child patients "little professors" because of their interest in arcane subjects and their advanced verbal skills.
Not surprisingly, research published in German in 1944 was destined to be ignored, so Asperger's work was not translated into English until the 1970s, and it was only in 1994 that the syndrome became part of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), the bible of psychiatric diagnosis.
There is still a great deal of controversy over what set of behaviors the syndrome covers and its link to some computer and software engineers.
Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, professor of child psychiatry at Yale University and one of the world's leading experts on autism, thinks that the concept of a mild form of Asperger's is bunk.
"The children we see with Asperger's syndrome are horribly, horribly impaired," he said. He admits that there is a debate among psychiatric experts over how far the boundaries of the syndrome should extend.
Diluting the definition of autism to cover personality traits may divert resources away from severely autistic patients who desperately need help, Volkmar said.
"The dilemma right now is over what people mean by Asperger's syndrome," he said. "We don't have enough data yet. It's likely that in the next 10 or 20 years, we'll discover a great many new syndromes that we don't understand well enough now. We do know that many people with autistic-like behaviors can be highly functional and successful in society."
A common reaction to the entire Asperger's debate, among self-professed computer geeks, is a big "So what?"
They typically view non-geeks as relentless self-promoters, obsessed with their own trivia such as fashion, style and money.
The geeks of the world, they say, are moving society forward with new technologies, new ideas and a fierce commitment to free-thinking intelligence. The last thing we need, they say, is a "cure" for geekness, whatever its source.
Even if Thomas Edison had Asperger's syndrome, we need more Edisons and not more pop stars, they argue.
Maybe the geeks shall inherit the Earth.
Gary Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu.
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