Talk:Autism

To do

 * List things Chris has blamed on his autism (like inability to get a girlfriend).
 * the e-mail from the Miyamoto saga where he discusses the differences between autism and Asperger's syndrome.
 * possible insight from the song A-U-T-ISM. --Champthom 09:39, 23 March 2009 (CET)

Some other things caused by autism
Chris bad hygiene might be caused by sensory overload, meaning that things live showering are actually extremly unpleasant or even hurtful for him. Autistics are very picky eaters; food has to have a certain texture and taste or they have a hard time eating it. And since fastfood is basically all the greasy same... The last thing is something that actually plagues many females with Asperger: They don't feel fully like a woman but also not like a man, their animus and anima are balanced out. I know this stuff from the German book "Aspergirls" which is about women with Aspergers... Don't know if there is an English translation of it, but I wanted to share these insights with you. --Raspberry

Question for people who know anything about psychology
This is just something I was thinking lately - I realised that good character design needs empathy too. Would anyone say that Chris's lack of empathy also shows up in his character designs? Because to me, he seems to be unable to come up with characters that are outside of his own capabilities, or their polar opposites. His "hero" characters all seem to think like he does. For example, Simonla (or whoever it was) in the date ed episode wanted to name her daughter before she's even found her date - because that's what Chris does too. His villain characters seem to be all based on his views and prejudices, and polar opposites of what he believes in, which makes it easier for him to picture them. Just look at Jason's rant in the Rage Against Garbage: rather than giving the characters unique personalities, he makes them list why they are evil. Good guys are good guys because they do things that are positive in Chris's mind, and bad guys are bad because they do things Chris doesn't approve of. --wwwwolf (wake me when you need me) 13:30, 11 July 2009 (CEST)
 * I think that's a fair thing to say. That's why most autistics and ASS PIES tend to become physicists or mathematicians and not writers and poets. --Champthom 09:44, 23 November 2009 (CET)

Autism papers
Incorporate shit from Autism papers into here. --Champthom 09:44, 23 November 2009 (CET)

Chris and Asperger Syndrome
I propose that we make this into a section on this article, as Chris has made his childish stance on Asperger's pretty clear. He went from seemingly confusing it as Alzheimer's Disease to out right denying it as an Autistic Spectrum Disorder or even a disorder similar to autism for some other kind of issue, likely an egotistical one. What does everyone else think?--Goatselover 20:17, 28 November 2009 (CET)
 * Not a bad idea. The Asperger's paragraph takes up a big chunk of the intro there, and I think I some more grist for that mill has shown up since that bit was written. Chris is still confused on the whole Alzheimer's/Asperger's tip, he obviously had them mixed up during the Father Call. Dkaien 20:31, 28 November 2009 (CET)

With his recent rants on the subject, which seem to indicate that he hates aspies the same way he hates homos, I'm thinking Aspergers Might deserve it's own article. Anyone with me on this? --Beat 06:02, 5 December 2009 (CET)
 * Yeah, if people wanna break down the comparison between autism and Asperger's in detail and extensively excerpt from the reams of all-over-the-map stupid shit Chris has said about it in the Mailbag, I think that should be its own article. Like I say, I thought the subsection of this article was getting way too big and unwieldy with all the pull quotes and whatnot. Dkaien 08:15, 5 December 2009 (CET)
 * Very good idea. I was going to transform the Asperger's CWCipedia article into it but I think we can still have a separate article on Asperger's and another of just CWCipedia's article since it's a major Chris writing that explains the difference. But definitely, Asperger's can become a separate article since we have a lot of details now, not to mention it's a huge, recurring theme in the Mailbag which can also be documented. --Champthom 09:02, 5 December 2009 (CET)

I think that it really needs to be noted that many people think of "Aspergers" and "high-functioning autism" as being essentially identical and interchangeable, so for that reason, a lot of people assume that Chris "has" Aspergers (whatever that means) and/or claims to have Aspergers (which is definitely not true). I'm not even sure if there really is a universal consensus regarding a distinction between the two. Senzuri 16:27, 5 December 2009 (CET)

Asperger's syndrome should still be mentioned here, as people might be coming here expecting to see something about Asperger's, so something brief about how Chris views Asperger's syndrome as being different from autism, with a Main article: Asperger's syndrome. --Champthom 11:51, 19 December 2009 (CET)

Does he even have any idea what autism is?
He seems to talk a lot about his "autistic shell" and the autism "putting the mute button on him" when he was younger. Is there any evidence to suggest that he thinks autism is anything other than just difficulty speaking?

True, there are language delays associated with autism, but his description of his autistic shell sounds more like anxiety over knowing that every single social interaction he's ever been in before whichever one he's in his autistic shell over has failed miserably. His fucked-up and out-of-control behavior that he refuses to do anything about trying to change is more symptomatic of autism than his knowing other people aren't going to respond well to it. I mean, if you were a grown man thinking about blithering on to a decent human being about the piece-of-shit, sexually perverse, rip-off children's comic you center your life around but never draw, wouldn't you be a little anxious about it, too?

Am I just fucked up here, or...? —Thepicklesuitintheman 19:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure that he has a general idea about what it is and what it does, but since this is Chris we're talking about; I doubt that we should expect him to understand all of it. --Shotaru 19:28, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe. I mean, maybe he can define it or read off a printout of a description of it or whatever, but can you think of any specific reference he's made to any symptom in his life other than having difficulty talking? Not in general like just that he's a virgin or something—not that he doesn't blame that on not talking and people hating autistic people or whatever. —Thepicklesuitintheman 05:16, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you're on to something. I don't know that there's much we can actually write about it, because most of what there is to say would be guesswork and inference, but I'd wager that most of what Chris knows about autism boils down to: one, he has it, two, it makes him special, and three, it's a catch-all excuse. The autism awareness/sports bra video might be a springboard for adding a new section to the article, maybe - when Chris wanted to talk about autism in any kind of detail he had to print himself out a crib sheet from Wikipedia. Dkaien 11:34, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, he definitely doesn't understand all of it, but I can imagine his parents nagging him about it to an extend where he at least has a general idea of what it does. I agree with Dkaien though, you're definitely on to something. --Shotaru 12:14, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I can definitely understand wanting to avoid guesswork and inference. Obviously, no one knows exactly what's going on inside someone else's head. I guess at the very least I'm suggesting a list of things Chris hasn't blamed on his autism that maybe he should. He claims to hate autism and want a cure for it and this and that, but then he fucking loves Sonichu as though Sonichu isn't just a major, debilitating symptom or outgrowth of the autism. —Thepicklesuitintheman 03:45, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Not entirely Chris related, but...
I just read an article in popular science about how there are more autistics now than trained therapists, so to cope with he shortage people are inventing "theraputic robots" that somehow make it easier for autistic children to be sociable. The results are pretty hit-and-miss at this stage but what I took away was that autistics are better at handling predictable machines, but could be gradually exposed to more unpredictable circumstances. Maybe we could apply this in future plans? I think the reason CWCipedia collapsed was either our trolling became too predictable, or we made his "comfort zone" too sporadic. Bill Lumburg 02:30, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 0.5% of the entire population is autistic and they recon that that population is rising, however autism is over-diagnosed. On Chris ide think the best way to troll him is to claim that he is not autistic and/or simply retarded. Leekduck
 * Hmmmm! That idea ain't too shabby! I'd suggest discussing it in the troll forums. Perhaps that way we can finally obtain the Holy Grail of fail?---Bealtespip122 10:12, 4 September 2010 (PDT)

List of autistics
Should we make a list of succesful people who have or are thought to have autism, and compare them to chris? I know of a lot of famous people who were diagnosed with autism, and a lot of people who were thought to have it.
 * I was thinking about this for a while, but I don't really see how a detailed comparison is better than just saying "Chris does shit he can't blame on autism". What would be the advantage of this? Freecell 06:09, 20 December 2010 (PST)
 * I think something like that would be too distracting to the Chris focus that the article should have, not to mention people who want to see such as list can find one elsewhere. --Champthom 17:40, 20 December 2010 (PST)
 * how about we make a link to the wikipedia for it --MrMaXimo 12:17 24 December 2010 (PST)

This goes here?
I was reading over the last e-mail exchange with Jackie and Chris's phrase "Hurtful Truth Level" jumped out at me as another example of him making things concrete in his mind, such as Scale of Respect or Heart Level. I made mention of it in what I think is the proper place in this article, but I was wondering if it deserves its own CWC-ism. Draygoon 23:12, 3 January 2011 (PST)

Mainstreaming
Like most everything else regarding autism, psychology, and, well, anything, Chris doesn't understand this. The ultimate goal of mainstreaming is to allow the patient to live as independently as possible in a normal environment, rather than being dependent on a caretaker to adapt the environment to suit the needs of the patient. In other words, adapt the autistic to live in the real world, as opposed to adapting the real world to fit the autistic. What mainstreaming means to Chris is to just not do any therapy at all and dump the kid into a world he/she cannot handle after being in retard day camp for a few years. It's amusing that Chris parrots good advice without actually knowing what it means. Anonymous one 15:56, 2 April 2011 (PDT)

Parental age
There are studies showing a significant statistical correspondence between age of the parents (particularly the father) and the incidence of autism in the offspring. (Some studies show no correlation, but most authorities accept the theory.) Wikipedia link This probably deserves mention on the page, but I'm not sure where to put it. Smokedaddy 14:58, 2 May 2011 (PDT)

Potential trouble for our autistic hero?
http://t.co/pbwjRmpY --ItLurksInTheWalls 15:07, 25 January 2012 (PST)
 * Not a forum. --T K 19 16:06, 25 January 2012 (PST)

Connection With Obesity?
This LA Times story talks about a link between fat ass pregnant women and autistic children. Is this worthy of mention? --IwegalBadnik 21:42, 9 April 2012 (PDT)
 * Barbara appears significantly thinner in older pictures than she does in more recent ones, so I doubt there's any connection.Bzam 20:46, 25 November 2012 (PST)

Genetics and Autism
Since autism is something that can be passed on to offspring, who did Chris get his autism from? Steampunk Mage (talk) 03:14, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

It's debatable. Autism is caused by a combination of hereditary factors, genetic mutation, and physical environment. If Chris's was genetic, then it's unlikely that it was inherited, as no one else in the family had clear signs of autism. Based on my rusty knowledge from AP Biology, if Chris's autism was genetic, then he would likely have had a small, yet rare variation in the lettering sequence of his DNA transcription. Humans usually have a couple letters in their DNA transcription varying from the regular mean (~1% of the RNA). However, rarer mutations usually lead to more serious consequences, Chris being a possible example (not proven). It should also be noted that offspring of two parents aren't exactly products of the parents' genes blended together; while they do inherit traits from their parents, but they also have their own individual traits as well. In other words, the creation of offspring is a lot more complex that Mendel would've wanted it to be. In Chris's case, his autism probably not an inherited cause, even if it was genetics.

I hope this isn't too much information to take in, and that it answers your question!

-Camille 2:49 1 November 2017 (PDT)

section on Chris spelling names backwards
I think there needs to be a section that talks about how Chris thinks spelling names backwards is clever. Where would that go?

Rewriting the symptoms section
As it is, the symptom section is broken into rough sections with bullet-point symptoms that are also complete paragraphs. Instead of this strange piecemeal approach, I have another way that should preserve the underlying idea. I actually have a print copy of the 1987 DSR-III-R, which most likely would have been the edition in use when Chris was diagnosed, and would not mind going through its list of symptoms and showing how Chris meets Autistic Disorder's formal criteria, with examples (Classic and recent) like in the current article. Would this be worthwhile? ChanOfTartary (talk) 21:16, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

A rewrite would help tremendously. The section is convoluted and hard to read, and it has no direction. It might be best to use the DSM-V criteria instead, though, since it's better at describing modern Chris's behavior. Maybe divide the page into subsections based around the criteria, followed by examples in Chris's life. Also, removing "xxx is a symptom of autism" whenever it's mentioned in the text, because if something wasn't an autism symptom, it wouldn't be on the list. The DSM-V has two main criteria, Social deficits and Restricted/repetitive behavior, and several smaller criteria within them. Chris not only meets, but exceeds every point. AAE (talk) 04:25, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Does the Health Disclosure template fit here?
The template says the page isn't a substitute for a diagnosis. But Chris is confirmed to have been diagnosed with autism. Hurtful Truth Level (talk) 20:10, 13 February 2021 (UTC)