Monday, April 14, 2008

Another Post on Aspergers (Thanks Ian)

This is kind of a comment on Ian’s post but I got into it enough to make it my own blog post. Another attribute of Aspergers is severe depression, mood swings, anxiety, and paranoia. Also just to note many people with Aspergers will be unconscious of nervous hand movements/twitches. All of this I’ve learned through experiencing second hand my cousins at the age of 10 already battling with Aspergers. I posted a blog a month or so ago about historical people with genetic disabilities and came to find out that many prominent people in history are thought to have had Aspergers and these aren't just limited to the mathematical community. Men of science and art and even people like Lincoln made the list. What is curious to note is that predominantly Aspergers is found mostly in men.

My 10 year old cousin was diagnosed at the age of 3 with it, and various other relatives in my family display symptoms as well. In modern times they start early by putting him in some special classes to teach him how to relate with other students whereas back when it usually went unnoticed and undiagnosed until symptoms are more severe. I am very curious as to how my cousin will turn out as an adult living in modern America with Aspergers.

Getting back to A Beautiful Mind however I look at the character of Nash who had schizoid tendencies but to me he also displays almost every attribute of someone who suffers from Aspergers. I wonder if from the beginning if he had been treated for the social disorder if he wouldn’t have turned out very differently. Is it the introverted nature of Aspergers that leads to the person become consumed and obsessed with math or science or art or is it the other way around. If he had been treated from early life would he have never uncovered mathematical theorems and developed game theory of economics. The treatment in his latter life for schizophrenia made it difficult for him to work on math which would lead me to believe that, no he would not have produced theories on the same level.

1 comment:

Ian B said...

You know, looking back on the beginning of ABM, I did notice some aspergers like traits in Nash. The lack of eye contact and the curious hand to forehead thing were pretty indicative, huh?