The Coburn Blog

On a side note, since I’ve been having learning issues at school lately. Reading / understanding my textbooks, and understanding what I listen to on tape, I decided to take the colleges advice, and have myself tested at the Bowen Center, to see what my problem with learning, and memorizing material for tests, is about, because anyone who knows me, knows I have never passed a test in my entire life; grade school, blind school, college, anywhere, homework I have always done ok at, with parents or someone elses help, so I had to find out what the heck that was about.

After they ran a series of memory tests on me, they discovered I have a condition, probably born with it my therapist thinks, called Autism Spectrum, or a more specific name for it is Asperger’s Syndrome. I know you hear the word “Autism” and think of someone who is retarded, screams alot, or mentally disabled, but that is not true. The Spectrum part is important. Since my therapist told me about that, I have been reading up on the subject, and ASD patients generally have problems with

1. an inability to relate to people
2. Impairment of social and interpersonal communication
3. referring to self in 3rd person, Impairment of imagination
4. Narrow interests (the computer, and technology in general thats it)
5. Non-verbal communication problems (which could be vision related too)
6. Makes factual comments, often irrelevant to the social situation
7. Literal interpretation
8. inability to fully understand ones condition (definitely true)
9. difficulty in generalizing concepts (I think this is one of the issues I have with reading & listening, along with a lack of imagination)
10. Inability to be Tactful (which I know I have)

I also notice, problems with short term memory, but my therapist was saying, my lack of imagination and generalizing concepts, is the main reason why I am not able to comprehend what I read and hear alot of times. Reading takes imagination, especially when your reading a a short story or novel. I guess I hadn’t thought about it that way before. The interpersonal communication thing didn’t surprise me at all. Its like my brother inlaw says “The computer is my outlet” which is exactally it. I feel more comfortable talking to people in writing, then I do face to face. When I do write, its all “thesis like”; logical, more lengthy then it has to be, no ability to generalize what I write in a brief and “to the point” manner, inability to be tactful towards other people, which is probably what makes me so unpopular on message boards.

He says a lack of verbal communication the number one symptom of AS, and he noticed it almost immediately in me, especially when I would repeat the same sentence over and over in different wordings. Like I told him, I’m not aware myself that I repeat myself when I write like this. How I wasn’t able to, even verbally, summarize a short story, into a brief manner, like when you go up in front of a class and give a book report for example, telling what the “plot” of the story is, I can’t do that even with movies. He explains, Its not so much a phoba, as it is, I just don’t know how to communicate with people verbally. I even prefer email and writing notes, over telephone communication, and I repeat myself alot when you do get me to say something, and I go on and on about that topic. I also do that “excited thing” that my sisters have always picked on and laughed at me about since I was a kid? Thats an AS symptom also, so I finally figured out what that silly thing I do is all about. I knew I couldn’t control it, I just never knew why it happened, and I still do that excited thing to this day, by the way. Its hard to explain, its like my fingers twitch really fast or something, hard to explain without showing a motion video of it. I’m just better at hiding it then I used to be. hehe.

Even though all this is mentally related, I am still an intelligent person, just a logical thinker is all, which again didn’t surprise me at all. I am not stupid, or crazy, which is a very good thing. hehe. I’m just happy to know what it finally is after all these years of wondering, so the school can teach me how to learn better, and I can finally start getting better grades in school hopefully.

After all this time, I finally understand, why I write 10 page thesis blog posts, write these real technical lengthy emails, technical and lengthy forum posts that everyone I come into contact with seems to get offended over, yet I can’t read 2 sentences out of a book and understand a word of it, read or listen to a book and not be able to form a picture in my head of whats going on in the story, or listen to a 20 minute lecture, on tape or in person, and not understand any of it. after all this time, its as simple as AS. You don’t know how much of a relief that is to me to finally know what is going on in my head. I “knew” it wasn’t vision related. HA!!