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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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When I was in fifth grade, my brother Alex started correcting my homework. This would not have been weird, except that he was in kindergarten—and autistic. His disorder, characterized by repetitive behaviors and difficulty with social interactions and communication, made it hard for him to listen to his teachers. He was often kicked out of class for not being able to sit for more than a few seconds at a time. Even now, almost 15 years later, he can still barely scratch out his name. But he could look at my page of neatly written words or math problems and pick out which ones were wrong.
Many researchers are starting to rethink how much we really know about autistic people and their abilities. These researchers are coming to the conclusion that we might be underestimating what they are capable of contributing to society. Autism is a spectrum disease with two very different ends. At one extreme are “high functioning” people who often hold jobs and keep friends and can get along well in the world. At the other, "low functioning" side are people who cannot operate on their own. Many of them are diagnosed with mental retardation and have to be kept under constant care. But these diagnoses focus on what autistic people cannot do. Now a growing number of scientists are turning that around to look at what autistic people are good at.
Researchers have long considered the majority of those affected by autism to be mentally retarded. Although the numbers cited vary, they generally fall between 70 to 80 percent of the affected population. But when Meredyth Edelson, a researcher at Willamette University, went looking for the source of those statistics, she was surprised that she could not find anything conclusive. Many of the conclusions were based on intelligence tests that tend to overestimate disability in autistic people. "Our knowledge is based on pretty bad data," she says.
This hidden potential was recently acknowledged by Laurent Mottron, a psychiatrist at the University of Montreal. In an article in the November 3 issue of Nature, he recounts his own experience working with high-functioning autistic people in his lab, which showed him the power of the autistic brain rather than its limitations. Mottron concludes that perhaps autism is not really a disease at all—that it is perhaps just a different way of looking at the world that should be celebrated rather than viewed as pathology.
Having grown up with two autistic brothers—Alex, four years younger than I, and Decker, who is eight years younger—Mottron's conclusion rings true. As I watched them move through the public schools, it became very clear that there was a big difference between what teachers expected of them and what they could do. Of course, their autism hindered them in some ways—which often made school difficult— yet it also seemed to give them fresh and useful ways of seeing the world—which often don't show up in the standard intelligence tests.
That is because testing for intelligence in autistic people is hard. The average person can sit down and take a verbally administered, timed test without too many problems. But for an autistic person with limited language capability, who might be easily distracted by sensory information, this task is very hard. The most commonly administered intelligence test, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) almost seems designed to flunk an autistic person: it is a completely verbal, timed test that relies heavily on cultural and social knowledge. It asks questions like "What is the thing to do if you find an envelope in the street that is sealed, addressed and has a new stamp on it?" and "What is the thing to do when you cut your finger?"
This year Decker was kicked out of a test much like WISC. Every three years, as he moves through the public school system, his progress is re-evaluated as a part of his Individualized Education Plan—a set of guidelines designed to help people with disabilities reach their educational goal.
This year, as part of the test, the woman delivering the questions asked him, "You find out someone is getting married. What is an appropriate question to ask them?"
My brother's answer: "What kind of cake are you having?"
The proctor shook her head. No, she said, that's not a correct answer. Try again. He furrowed his brow in the way we have all learned to be wary of—it is the face that happens before he starts to shut down—and said, "I don't have another question. That's what I would ask." And that was that. He would not provide her another question, and she would not move on without one. He failed that question and never finished the test.
A test does not have to be like this. Other measures, like Raven's Progressive Matrices or the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI), avoid these behavioral and language difficulties. They ask children to complete designs and patterns, with mostly nonverbal instructions. And yet they often are not used.
The average child will score around the same percentile for all these tests, both verbal and nonverbal. But an autistic child will not. Isabelle Soulieres, a researcher at Harvard University, gave a group of autistics both WISC and the Raven test to measure the difference between the two groups. Although she expected a difference, she was surprised at just how big the gap was. On average, autistic students performed 30 percentile points better on the Raven test than on WISC. Some kids jumped 70 percentile points. "Depending on which test you use, you get a very different picture of the potential of the kids," she says. Other studies have confirmed this gap, although they found a smaller jump between tests.
The “high functioning” autistic children, with the least severe version of the disability, were not the only ones to score higher. Soulieres conducted a study recently at a school for autistic children considered intellectually disabled. Using the Raven test, she found that about half of them scored in the average range for the general population. "Many of those who are considered low-functioning—if you give them other intelligence tests, you will find hidden potential," she says. "They can solve really complex problems if you give them material that they can optimally process."
What this means, she says, is that schools are underestimating the abilities of autistic children all across the spectrum. The widespread use of the WISC in schools has helped set expectations of autistic kids too low—assuming that they will not be able to learn the same things that the average child can. Based on the test results, people come to the conclusion that autistic children cannot learn, when perhaps they do not learn the same way other people do.
The hidden potential of autistic people seems to fall in common areas—tasks that involve pattern recognition, logical reasoning and picking out irregularities in data or arguments. Soulieres describes working with an autistic woman in her lab who can pick out the slightest flaws in logic. "At first, we argue with her," Soulieres laughs, "but almost each time, she's right, and we're wrong."
Recognizing these talents, rather than pushing them aside to focus on the drawbacks of autism, could benefit not just autistic people, but everyone else as well. Mottron chronicles how much better his science got by working with his autistic lab partner. I got far higher marks on my homework than I would have without Alex, even though his corrections were sometimes infuriating. And many think their potential extends beyond science to all professions, if given the right chances.
Just because a test says someone has potential, that does not mean it is easy to realize. My brother Decker’s teachers are convinced—and the tests confirm—that he has hidden potential. But in class, he often falls behind when trying to listen to instructions and gets frustrated when trying to catch up. "It doesn't mean that it's easy for them in everyday life, or that it's easy for their parents or teachers," Soulieres says. "But it shows that they have this reasoning potential, and maybe we have to start teaching them differently and stop making the assumption that they won't learn."
More and more people are starting to wonder what gems might lie hidden in the autistic brain. And if my brothers are any indication, if we keep looking, we will find them.
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50 Comments
Add CommentSchools, whether they intend to or not, are more about forcing kids into accepted modes of behavior and thinking, which (obviously) does not work well with most autistic kids.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for some new perspectives.
Well done. Autistics are just different. Autistics have their strengths and weakness, too often we miss the strengths and fixate on the weaknesses. Who knows what benefits we might get if we simply let them do what makes them happy rather than what makes their relatives happy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou may want to direct this discussion toward the man on the grassy knoll about conspiracies like this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLove this article. Why do many of the best computer programmers have Asperger's syndrome or OCD? It works really well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid anyone else notice that the correct answer to the second question on the Raven test doesn't quite look right? I think the white box in the pattern should be shifted to the right a little bit, because it doesn't quite match. Anyone else agree?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're right. It's actually way off. The question is flawed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhoa, Nellie!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNeither sample is a cookie-cutter excision of the main pattern -- I would expect the "test" to be indicative of matching patterns rather than matching puzzle-pieces.
Then why would they have the cutout? It clearly suggests a puzzle piece.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo interesting to read about Alex. He reminds me of my autistic son, Howard, who did not speak until he was 9 or 10 but was quick to learn and even quicker to correct mistakes in books and magazines etc. He is an adult now but when he was a child the Education Dept. did not allow him to attend school until he could talk and that was a school for children with learning and behavioural difficulties. Years later I met his former headmaster who told me that Howard corrected everything at classes and that he was always right. He told me that Howard knew the registration numbers of all the teacher's cars, and even the numbers of the cars they used to have. He had a photographic memory of anything in which he was interested, such as numbers inside and outside all the buses and other public transport. He learned to read and write in no time and his syntax was always perfect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Wechler Intelligence test is not 'completely verbal'. Wechsler attempted (fairly sucessfully) to construct all of his tests in two sections - one verbal, the other non-verbal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn response to Lampora, Asperger's syndrome is a high-end form of Autism and there is disagreement whether the term should be dropped altogether. Of course computer code is a written, nonverbal language as is mathematics. It is a system of symbols that takes the pressure off having to rely on verbal skills to express what's going on cognitively. No comment on OCD.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCould it be that autism is merely the genetic growth and development of the human brain along its way to its next iteration?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaving an anxiety spread disorder, timed tests have always scared the daylights out of me... never completed one in my life. I blew the SAT but somehow managed to get a BA. Took the GRE twice and their were more empty columns than completed ones on both occasions. Severe anxiety is a killer for getting through a school system. My grandchildren are both autistic, at the lower end of the continuum. There is no way that they will preform the timed standardized tests that our educational system relies so heavily on. Their brains are simply organized differently and schools need to accept this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes! and up - it doesn't fit into the space at all really!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyes that was bothering me I think it would need to be shifted up - it doesn't really match at all!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi all,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo those who pointed out the Raven test doesn't line up exactly, you're right! Clearly I'm not very good at pattern recognition. Here's a better example: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18730825/RPM%20example.jpg
I thought so too. I asked my son who has Aspergers and he said A first and then said, "No,D. So we both agree with you on that one:)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI must agree with you for in it's present state there was only an answer that was partially correct.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen will education and intelligence testing be able to recognize more than the few responses it does now. These are outdated and not even as intelligent as modern computer programs. First what is 'intelligence' is there an accepted definition? Intelligence tests are an elimination mechanism.It is sad that Procrustes is still alive making the lives many a misery.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have ASD and since i graduated Magna Cum Laude from UCSD i'm guessing that means i fall in the HFA group. I find it interesting that the test i was given to enter the Air Force electronics field focused on something similar to the Raven patterns you described. Since i had flunked out of high school before entering the Air Force, this test was the only reason i found a good trade in the Air Force. The Air Force test was for my ability to read circuits and decipher complex cabling systems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think i'm also glad that i wasn't labeled as ASD, or ADHD which i also have, early in life because i think it would have limited me. In fact my ADHD often lead me to try things that others said i couldn't do, like serve in the military, graduating from college and 30 years of a good career in science and software development. I'm not saying these disorders were a blessing, but i am saying that i agree with the author of this article, we should search for the gifts that each person brings to the table rather than focusing on their limitations. But that requires a socially supportive culture rather than one where each individual must fend for themselves.
I think a lot needs to be done to educate the public so they will recognise the potential contributions that autistics may make and to help compensate for some of their shortcomings. Once while working on a farm a man operating a frontloader could not make it work. A group of people attempted to help but were not systematic in their approach. It was a poorly designed hydraulic system but it still responded to Boolean algebra.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere we go again, re-inventing the wheel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost good teachers already know the facts outlined in the article.
When I trained as a teacher in Sydney 40 years ago the Raven PM test was already acknowledged as a very useful diagnostic tool (though by no means the only one) to use with children displaying cognitive or functional difficulties.
But diagnosis is one thing, a workable plan for action quite another.
As Candide says, the education system(s) often tries to "mainstream" children with learning difficulties but this approach is doomed to failure as the frontline teacher has to direct their efforts toward the majority of their cohort.
The impost on time required to tailor lesson planning toward individual children, coupled with lack of specific training in the area of non-verbal instruction methods, guarantees a minimal result at best.
The alternative to most educational authorities is quite unpalatable due to cost constraints ie to institute "special" schools staffed with expert teachers working with very small class numbers and a high ratio of ancillary support staff.
As I indicated at outset, most educational authorities have known about this problem for ages but without a significant investment in resources will never be able to address it.
Further research would indeed be wonderful but what is really required is political will plus hard cash.
Given the difference between government in US and Australia i am not surprised that teachers in Australia already understood this information, and equally true, i'm not surprised that US teachers are completely unaware.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObviously you do not know any one autistic. Schools do in fact try to force an autistic kid to be normal. I have been battling this problem for my daughter constantly. As far as they are concerned, she is not diploma bound and should be happy to learn how to put paper clips on a paper and since she cant talk at all, she must not know anything. And this is an LA area school district, not something out in the hinterlands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSchools follow what states dictate to them for tests and we all know politicians are about as incompetent as it gets for a person. These tests they give autistic children are not designed to find out what they can do and their lesson plans do not attempt to enhance or expand from these successes. They are designed to point out failure and the plans when you are designated not diploma bound ensure there is no possibility of a diploma.
Good article, very good!Only why don't we ask whether we're giving a very narrow, limited intelligence test to a whole population who might have strengths outside the range of a DISABLED testing system?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi, I am the author's mother, and the mother of the two autistic siblings that she writes about. Her experiences are sound. Her father, a PhD in Developmental Biology, is also HFA (High Functioning Autistic). He has done very well for himself, but not without a lot of work. Same goes for his sons. His (our) daughter seems to have worked through this process and weathered the ordeal of being a sibling of autism, without too many scars. Because it is hard, make no bones about it. But we hope that we have come through the experience with a open mind. I hope you can read her words and come out the same. Jennifer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisForgot to mention that when my autistic son, Howard, was eventually admitted to a school he kept getting up in the middle of a class and move into a different class. He kept doing this and the staff did everything to try to stop him without success. In the end they gave up and he was the only one allowed to do that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"To those who pointed out the Raven test doesn't line up exactly, you're right! Clearly I'm not very good at pattern recognition. Here's a better example: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18730825/RPM%20example.jpg"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for the link!
I was really surprised by the clarity of the "question".
I am an Adult with Aspergers syndrome , I was in a special needs class up to leaving school with a reading level of about a year 1 child. In University tests , it was discovered that I could only interpret facial expression and tone of voice correctly only 47 percent of the time. I also have a visual processing problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am 49 years old. I taught myself to read and write and could read well before I was twenty years old. I did an apprentiship as a home appliance repairman and past with the highest marks of the group which sat. I was an officer in the Fire service and was known as a talented strategist and problem solver especially in very differcult and challenging situations. I've run a trust for Aspergers students for twelve years also teacher aiding them up to sixth form level.Yet puzzles like rubix cubes and other sorts of puzzles which are supposed to measure problem solving capabilities I often score below average and I even score low on intelligent tests. In 1988 I was given charge of a rescue which was thought impossible. Thinking outside the square I was able to pull it off and rescue was successful.This involved four young children who were trapped in side a blazing building. A real problem I have found is that many academic people will not accept , that there are people who could reach their level with out studying the same as them or may even be smarter in a different way.
Many Academic people have to get over themselves and address the real questions. Our attitudes and beliefs dictate the real questions we ask and why we ask them.
the answer is not d. the answer is not a. it is all wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthere is a problem with the figure displayed in the web version of the SA paper and it should be changed. The figure currently presented erroneously suggests that the Raven is a perceptual, jiggsaw-type task, whereas it is a non verbal logical problem solving task. For actual examples of the Raven task, see for example Soulières et al, Human Brain Mapping, 2009
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLaurent Mottron
A Danish father with an autistic son founded an information technology company, where most of the employees are somewhere on the autism-scale. The company has been quite succesful, and has recently opened in the US. Specialist people is the name of the company. Just for the record, I am in no way involved in the company, but it shows, that in the right environment/conditions, many autistic people can gainfully use their special abilities in jobs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI knew something was quite right about it, but it was a friend of mine who pointed out the problem.
Right. And therefore, once again the test might be prejudiced against the autistic child (or anyone with very detailed perceptual ability) who might immediately notice the discrepancy, versus the "average" person, who would simply see the similarity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut it does say that these are not exact replicas of the test, so maybe the real test does not have this fault.
Yes, I also noticed that (d) did not correctly match the second problem. I actually printed it out and cut out the piece just to be sure. If I were being tested in that context as a kid, I would probably have said that none of them matched. As an adult, my answer would be "you'd like it to be (d), but if you actually try it yourself, you'll see that none of them perfectly match."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have wondered if this current post-literate generation--the first since the invention of writing to be able to gain large amounts of information through multimedia--will take a new evolutionary path because selection for intelligence can be less linked to processing strings of alphabetic symbols. Being dyslexic, for example, seems much less significant than it was 40 years ago. Perhaps being autistic, for at least some autistic persons, will similarly become less significant--or perhaps even advantageous in some situations, as Temple Grandin seems to show us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNormal children need to learn to perform in the WISC test or the Raven test. But autistic children have high score on the Raven test without undurstanding their teacher. So is there a set of Raven like tests that can teach autistic children ? that can substitute for a talking teacher ? Is it proven that they learn rapidly in their abstract reality ? I think there exist DVDs to teach social relation to Asperger children designed by Simon Baron Cohen. For low fonctionning autists there should be DVDs to learn something too even if it is always about their view of reality. As we dont understand what they think it is a good program to explore what they can learn.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd yes, our civilization needs explorers. Even autistic children have the right to explore the world as they see it. (unlike the teacher prime directive we do need a first contact with their unique learning abilities)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh ! and tell them we love them and their resistance is futile.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this. . . "white box in the pattern should be shifted to the right a little" It is issues like this which can throw someone off. I know someone with autism who wouldn't choose the "correct" answer and not validate the rest of the test because of it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the educational authorities took the time to put into place a school-wide plan to incorporate and ensure daily lessons using Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory it would look so different. No more bubbling in multiple times a year senselessly! Testing, rather, "assessments taken", would occur naturally as the year went on. Our environment is rich with tools in which to learn.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour essay brought tears to my eyes. What you have written about is at the
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this> heart of what I have been trying to do by establishing Alex's Art Loft. My
> son, Alex, has always been considered low functioning and did not do well on
> standardized tests. He is nonverbal and has many limitations, but crafts is
> not one of them. It took me years to figure out that he liked to work with
> tiny beads and tools. While people got frustrated with him because he
> wouldn't follow the rules in certain games (why hit a ball with a golf club
> or pool cue when you can just drop it into the hole?), I saw his way of
> thinking as an ingenious way to save time. I saw his stubbornness and
> devotion to order admirable in a society which often disregards the rules. I
> took his prompt dependence to mean a deep respect for others' authority and
> a need for assurance and acceptance. Don't we all want to make sure we do a
> good job by being certain of what is asked of us? Sometimes I wish he would
> initiate more, but I'd rather have a son who is shy rather than
> self-entitled. It's tough to change your way of thinking about what it means
> to be successful, appropriate, and yes, human. But like learning a new
> skill, it can also be enlightening. When a parent of another autistic child
> approaches me and says, "My child could never do what your son does, he
> doesn't have the..." I say, "then your child can hold the string, pass the
> beads, push the button, clap, smile...to help my son." When is society going
> to realize that it doesn't make a difference how we do what we do? As long
> as the ball goes in the hole, there's always going to be a winner. Diana, Mom of Alex (www.alexartloft.org)
. . . "white box in the pattern should be shifted to the right a little" It is issues like this which can throw someone off. I know someone with autism who wouldn't choose the "correct" answer and not validate the rest of the test because of it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe answer d on the second TONI test is wrong. The arrow in the little heart points in the wrong direction. Is that autistic or what?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe right answer was actually " A" I am certain not " D" as is stated there needs to be a correction
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnrolled in CSU Bakersfield school of education Special Education Programs doing both classroom observation and field work with low to moderate, moderate to severe, to most severe at the grade school, middle school, and high school level; I was amazed to discover to few times in the classrooms, with children truly needing an education - all too often all I encountered was systematic and system wide baby-sitting and absolutely no education other then restricted socialization at the classroom level being taught. The demands of the students, the time-consuming absolute deadline paperwork involved; I found all to often teachers exhausted and unable to function as a teacher in the classroom. There were the so-called teachers also that ran their classrooms as a babysitting service letting their TAs and other classroom personnel do the baby sitting and again no education being provided to the students. As an example, in one classroom at BH School a class room for the most servere, in three separate occassions with three students, as in this article, found students much more advanced than their babysitters/TAs knew and in each situation the TAs had known the students for over three years. One girl most severe with deformaties, unable to walk [she could get out of the wheel chair and crawl, down on all fours, from location to location and this the teacher and TAs did not know, and confined to a wheelchair, vision and hearing problems, could spell out with great difficulty simple words and no teacher or TA knew she was that far advanced. She could not hold a pencil or pen in her hands as her hands were all but simplistic movement, it was assumed she could not read or write. When released from the confines of paper and pen and the small scale - using her table top with hand/arms movements making wide letters across her table she prove she could spell out words. This skill to the amazement of the TAs involved, one of the TAs told me earlier this particular students they had abandoned all teaching as the student was 'very low level' menatlity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother problem observed where a certain ethnic that were trouble makers in the normal classroom and were dumped into the special education classes. These disruptive students prey and bully the other students and they damn sure make it so no other classroom student is going to learn anything in the classroom. Hoodlums that should be removed and incarerated as they are in a mad rush to hate society and end up in prison; they are already criminals and the school systems will not deal with them.
You hit the nail on the head, diagnosis is the easy part, developing a workable plan of action for each individual is quite another thing entirely. There are individuals with ASD who will graduate from high school because they can master algebra (and beyond) and learn to analyze literature and write well enough to pass. The challenge is for the group of students with ASD who will master neither abstract language nor abstract mathematics, the ones whom everyone marvels at their "splinter" skills, like the ability to remember anyone's birthday, but who are unable to answer abstract questions or extract information from word problems. Learning beyond third grade depends on the individual's ability to move beyond concrete to the abstract (the abililty to extract meaning from text)and the ability to learn in a group (the ability to manage sensory input, and make effective connections with others in order to learn). In mainstream school, it is not just that the instruction is verbal; it's that comprehension beyond a third grade level has similar roots in social cognitive understanding, and it is elusive for many individuals with these needs. The social cognitive ability to function interpersonally may take a lifetime to develop, even with specific targeted instruction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2 year olds (both typically developing and those with ASD) can effectively operate an iPad. Will "school" change as the ways individuals learn changes? Maybe. At the same time, the path to education beyond k-12 schooling involves competence in comprehension of the meaning behind what one reads, written expression as well as algebra. Will that change? Should it? What's the path of a 5th grader who can do mathematical calculations at the level of his same age peers, but can't answer Where and When questions about what he reads? Or write more than a sentence, with help?
My colleagues and I have established specialized classes with low staff-to-student ratios and visual and other specialized teaching methods, within a public school district, that focus on the early development of the social cognitive skills needed to succeed in a larger classroom environment. Even with a significant investment in resources, the challenge of sustaining such programming is fraught with many obstacles. Among the most significant challenges : we are charting new territory, working with an increasing number of individuals who are idiosyncratic; that we are often not assured of good results, and along the way we struggle together with sustaining the collaboration required.
Too right - it's what we CAN do, not what we can't ! I discovered my own HFA years after retiring from medical practice; if it had been recognised in my student days, I would have followed an entirely different and more productive path in my profession, instead of struggling to get qualified at the lowest level. I am now 86 and still learning HARD !!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust a side note: You should always refer to individuals with challenges as individuals with challenges not challenged individuals. If you call them individuals/kids with challenges/autism, you are referring to the human first and the challenge second, whereas if you say autistic individuals/kids, you are making the person sound less humane and more in firmed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are right, the pattern is offset. It's like the question I supposedly missed on the GRE logic section -- all of the allowable answers were wrong. That makes me mad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this