When I was in elementary school, for 1st through 3rd grade, I excelled in spelling, and actually was at the top of the class. Then I discovered science, and could not get enough of it. Spelling got absolutely none of my attention, and for some reason my aptitude for spelling fell by the way side, and I have never been very good at it since then. I excelled in science, and did very good in math. I remember one time about a month or a little more into the school year, and the teacher was teaching science and asked the class a question. Then she called on me to answer. I was reading a section in the last chapter of the book and only vaguely heard her ask the question, I was many chapters ahead of where the class was, and the class was still on a chapter towards the front of the book. I randomly opened the book to a front section so the teacher might not ketch on that I was not staying with the class if she got close to my seat, and stood up and asked her to please repeat the question. She did, and I gave her he correct answer, sat down, and went back to the section I was reading.
English class was, and is, to this day my absolute weak spot. The thing about breaking sentences down to different sections, with lines, and lines under lines, and how different parts fit together nouns, verbs, and the rest fit together is something I just can not do. Never could. Something about it just does not click.
When I was in high-school every student had to take an aptitude test. I got a 99+ on the mechanical reasoning section, and a 3 on the English and spelling section. When I got the scores I was upset because I wanted to know what I had missed on the mechanical reasoning section. So I asked the teacher who had given the test "what did I miss on the mechanical reasoning section?" And he said, "You do not understand. The score is your ranking compared to all the students in the country that took the test. A 100 score would mean you are the top rated student in all the country. So they do not give anyone a 100. A 99+ means you did not miss anything, and are among the top group of all the country."
I can design 3D objects in my mind, in detail, including each part that has to be made to make an entire project. And I can think of how a mechanical device can be made, and of the various way it can be built. And keep working on it for many days in the back of my mind. Sometimes an improvement will come to me while I am sleeping and I will wake and take note of the better way of making something.
Electronics is something I find interesting. And the different ways and abilities of different types of electronic components, that can be used to do different functions of sections of a total design is something I like to figure out. Just like some people like to do cross-word-puzzles. I like do design electronic circuits. Some circuits I have designed from scratch have used some components in way that get much more function from them than most people would normally get form them. This sometimes enables me to design something using fewer components than some other electronic designers would have used to make a circuit that performs the same function. And I have redesigned or improved designs other electronic engineers have made, and caught mistakes some have designed into a circuit, or caught problems where a component was not up to what was required of it to make a circuit work, or when an arrangement of components working together was causing a problem.
When I was in college taking an engineering required course in mechanical structural stress analysis the instructor strongly suggested I change my major from EE to Mechanical Engineering, because of how well I did in his class.
Besides English and spelling, some of the other weak points I have are facial recognition, and social interactions. I can work with an associate in a business setting very well on the mechanical and or electrical parts of getting a project moving along. But also if someone I have worked with on a project happens to see me outside the business setting several days later, I might not have a clue who they are. I care about people a lot, and will go out of my way to help out total strangers. But there is something that does not click in facial recognition until I really get to know a person. Only then after I know the details of the character of a person will I usually remember there face. And even then sometimes in a totally different setting, a persons face might not register with me. And sarcasm can be something I can sometimes miss. I too often take the meaning of what a person said to be exactly what they have said, even in the few times when they were using sarcasm.
I guess over all I am a fairly high functioning person on the autism scale. For the first 40 years of my life no one ever suggested that I might have autism. Then one of my brothers had a son who was having some serious social skill problems, and had to consult a specialist. That lead to the diagnosis of that boy having autism. He is not on the extreme end of the spectrum, but has more social skill problems than I. My brother and his wife studied what autism was and with the help of the professional they consulted, were able to school there son on things he can do to improve his social skills. But along with there new knowledge, my brother recognized that my deceased father, and I probably place somewhere on that autism scale, and informed me about that. He said that it often does run in a family, He suggested I read the book " Running With Scissors" which I then borrowed from the library and read.
In some ways my autistic mechanical and electronic reasoning skills are a blessing. I can think about something for a long time in great detail, and can design, and redesign over and over again making improvements each time before building something. Sometimes I reach a point where I finally have to build something before I can then continue to think about it and continue to improve its design. As the TV character Monk said " It's a Gift and a Curse. "
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So, is, are there anyone else out there in the BITOG community that places somewhere on the autism spectrum?
And if so, where do you place, such as what are your + and - skills?
English class was, and is, to this day my absolute weak spot. The thing about breaking sentences down to different sections, with lines, and lines under lines, and how different parts fit together nouns, verbs, and the rest fit together is something I just can not do. Never could. Something about it just does not click.
When I was in high-school every student had to take an aptitude test. I got a 99+ on the mechanical reasoning section, and a 3 on the English and spelling section. When I got the scores I was upset because I wanted to know what I had missed on the mechanical reasoning section. So I asked the teacher who had given the test "what did I miss on the mechanical reasoning section?" And he said, "You do not understand. The score is your ranking compared to all the students in the country that took the test. A 100 score would mean you are the top rated student in all the country. So they do not give anyone a 100. A 99+ means you did not miss anything, and are among the top group of all the country."
I can design 3D objects in my mind, in detail, including each part that has to be made to make an entire project. And I can think of how a mechanical device can be made, and of the various way it can be built. And keep working on it for many days in the back of my mind. Sometimes an improvement will come to me while I am sleeping and I will wake and take note of the better way of making something.
Electronics is something I find interesting. And the different ways and abilities of different types of electronic components, that can be used to do different functions of sections of a total design is something I like to figure out. Just like some people like to do cross-word-puzzles. I like do design electronic circuits. Some circuits I have designed from scratch have used some components in way that get much more function from them than most people would normally get form them. This sometimes enables me to design something using fewer components than some other electronic designers would have used to make a circuit that performs the same function. And I have redesigned or improved designs other electronic engineers have made, and caught mistakes some have designed into a circuit, or caught problems where a component was not up to what was required of it to make a circuit work, or when an arrangement of components working together was causing a problem.
When I was in college taking an engineering required course in mechanical structural stress analysis the instructor strongly suggested I change my major from EE to Mechanical Engineering, because of how well I did in his class.
Besides English and spelling, some of the other weak points I have are facial recognition, and social interactions. I can work with an associate in a business setting very well on the mechanical and or electrical parts of getting a project moving along. But also if someone I have worked with on a project happens to see me outside the business setting several days later, I might not have a clue who they are. I care about people a lot, and will go out of my way to help out total strangers. But there is something that does not click in facial recognition until I really get to know a person. Only then after I know the details of the character of a person will I usually remember there face. And even then sometimes in a totally different setting, a persons face might not register with me. And sarcasm can be something I can sometimes miss. I too often take the meaning of what a person said to be exactly what they have said, even in the few times when they were using sarcasm.
I guess over all I am a fairly high functioning person on the autism scale. For the first 40 years of my life no one ever suggested that I might have autism. Then one of my brothers had a son who was having some serious social skill problems, and had to consult a specialist. That lead to the diagnosis of that boy having autism. He is not on the extreme end of the spectrum, but has more social skill problems than I. My brother and his wife studied what autism was and with the help of the professional they consulted, were able to school there son on things he can do to improve his social skills. But along with there new knowledge, my brother recognized that my deceased father, and I probably place somewhere on that autism scale, and informed me about that. He said that it often does run in a family, He suggested I read the book " Running With Scissors" which I then borrowed from the library and read.
In some ways my autistic mechanical and electronic reasoning skills are a blessing. I can think about something for a long time in great detail, and can design, and redesign over and over again making improvements each time before building something. Sometimes I reach a point where I finally have to build something before I can then continue to think about it and continue to improve its design. As the TV character Monk said " It's a Gift and a Curse. "
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So, is, are there anyone else out there in the BITOG community that places somewhere on the autism spectrum?
And if so, where do you place, such as what are your + and - skills?
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