My dad called last night to say that he was reading a biography of Thomas Aquinas and he was convinced that my theory was correct – Aquinas had Asperger's Syndrome.
A few years ago, when I preparing to teach political theory for the first time, I did a little reading about Aquinas. I was using his discussion on natural law in class, and I needed to provide some context for the students. Aquinas was nicknamed the Dumb Ox, because he was a slow lumbering man who was slow to talk. He had incredible powers of concentration and memory. He was socially awkward. He would go into trances of thought and completely forget that other people were in the room. He was so unusual that there are actually lots of accounts of his social deficits and his superior concentration and memory.
From time to time, I wonder what happened to autistic people in the past, before there was Silicon Valley to provide them with gainful employment. Truly exceptional autistic people like Aquinas probably always found work, like they do today, at universities or academies. They designed cathedrals and pyramids.
Severely affected autistics died. They starved to death or were consigned to bleak institutions where they died of consumption or something.
The mid-level autistic could have found shelter in monasteries where they would have the patience to carefully transcribe bibles and produce illuminated manuscripts. Who else but an autistic person would have the concentration for such a repetitive, boring task? Who else but a person with poor verbal and social skills would willingly take on vows of silence and abstinence?
In recent years, there's been a lot of discussions about the Catholic church as a haven for men repressing their homosexuality. Monastic life must have certain be a haven for autistics, as well.
Apt. 11d 
I suppose some where “holy fools” in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. But, I think you’re pretty wildly over-generalizing in most of these cases. I expect that, for serious believer, translating and copying the bible would have been much more interesting than, say, 10 hour days of document review is now for many people. As for Aquinas, my favorite story about him is that a special cut had to be made in the table so that he could get close enough to his food to eat. It wasn’t only his slowness that caused him to be compared to an ox!
LikeLike
My husband and I have been working through the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series from the 80s and 90s and I’ve been noting Holmes’ twitchiness, powers of concentration, attention to small details, and lack of interest in social niceties. I never liked Sherlock Holmes in the past, but the series has been quite addicting.
Interestingly, Jeremy Brett had some sort of bipolar breakdown while working on the series. In the Wikipedia article, Brett attributed it partly to the overpowering nature of the role of Sherlock Holmes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Brett
LikeLike
and lack of interest in social niceties.
Like the surprise “I’m not dead” thing he pulled on Watson. Poor guy.
LikeLike
Poor Watson, indeed. My husband was pointing out to me in the Granada TV series that Watson spends a fair amount of time on social damage control, cleaning up after Holmes’s faux pas.
LikeLike
I also think that there were other isolating options for people who did not do well with other people (for example, farming, with most of your time on the field).
I had a glance at googling “history of autism” ’cause that was the title of your post, and was surprised to realize that Asberger’s didn’t enter the common lexicon until the 1990’s. I’d realized that Asberger had defined the syndrome in the 40’s, but hadn’t realized that it had died the death of language/war barriers until it was re-discovered and brought back.
My guess is that as with ADD, that there are requirements of modern society that put more demands on people, making these atypicalities more salient, that there are generally fewer opportunities for people with significantly impaired “emotional quotients” in a more highly civilized, democratic, meritocratic society. You aren’t born into your role, so you have to prove yourself at it, so the “quirky” privileged person doesn’t just get ot order the servants to keep his house the way he needs it, but has to figure out a way to earn enough money to shape his world.
Is it true that Engel played the “Watson” role for Marx?
Though I don’t mind speculating on autistic/asberger’s traits in historical & fictional figures, I think that it’s dangerous to diagnose them with limited descriptions. One of the things that’s notable about many DSM-defined disorders/atypicalities is that specific traits are present in lots of individual who don’t have the syndrome. My children are neurotypical, but they have food sensitivities, sometimes obsessive interests, significant demands about clothing and fit, . . . . It’s the entire constellation and it’s interaction with your life that results in the diagnosis.
A historical figure who did not have to function in a modern school might never need a diagnosis, because their environment fit their abilities and atypicalities.
LikeLike
” I expect that, for serious believer, translating and copying the bible would have been much more interesting than, say, 10 hour days of document review is now for many people.”
Not to mention if your alternative is back-breaking labor in the fields, or at war.
LikeLike
“I think that it’s dangerous to diagnose them with limited descriptions. One of the things that’s notable about many DSM-defined disorders/atypicalities is that specific traits are present in lots of individual who don’t have the syndrome.”
Plus, there are numerous co-occurring thingies like Tourette’s, ADHD, etc. You don’t have to have to choose just one from the neurological prize basket!
LikeLike
I agree that farming has always been a good field for taciturn, stoic, patient, low-affect people with good spatial skills.
LikeLike
1 in 90 boys in New Jersey has autism. This isn’t a condition that is limited to the 20th century. I’m sure that lots of people throughout history had autism and I’m curious what happened to them.
I completely agree with Temple Grandin that the autistic cavemen drifted away from story telling around the campfire and figured out how to make a spear.
Yes, many people have have one or two characteristics of autism, yet wouldn’t be described as autistic. I do believe that if they mate with someone who has one or two different autistic characteristics that they are likely to have a child with autism.
Autism is like a bingo board. A person might have B9 (sensitivity to load noises) and G40 (preference for routine) and it doesn’t add up to autism. But get five in a row of something, then its autism. BINGO!
Ian’s in a class for kids who are highly functioning. They are boarderline cases that will probably all be mainstreamed at some point. Even though they are all borderline, they are all remarkably different from each other. There are many different ways to get BINGO.
Also, I completely disagree about the modern society is harder on people with autism. This is the golden age of autism. They are designing the mathematical formulas that make Wall STreet run and they’re designing software for your iPhone. There was a great Wired article about this. Also, Tyler Cowen’s book. Hmmm, I should talk about that book. He’s a self diagnosed Aspie who writes that the modern economy is autistic-friendly.
LikeLike
To obtain a place at a nunnery or monastery usually required a contribution to the institution, though. Education as such was reserved for the upper classes.
If a child was to become a serious scholar, his path usually lay in the monastic life, an option that was rarely open to or sought by the average townsman or peasant. Only those boys with the most notable acumen were chosen from these ranks; they were then raised by the monks, where their lives could be peaceful and fulfilling or frustrating and restrictive, depending on the situation and their temperaments. Children at monasteries were most often younger sons of noble families, who were known to “give their children to the church” in the early Middle Ages. This practice was outlawed by the Church as early as the seventh century (at the Council of Toledo), but was still known to take place on occasion in the centuries that followed. (http://historymedren.about.com/od/medievalchildren/a/child_learn.htm)
The vast majority of the populace, whatever their talents, were manual laborers, mostly in agriculture. Life was very hard, and usually short, for everyone, but particularly for peasants.
LikeLike
Even though they are all borderline, they are all remarkably different from each other. There are many different ways to get BINGO.
This is what makes me tend to think that “autism”, especially as a “spectrum” disorder, is more like “respiratory infection” than it is “Tuberculosis”, that is, I strongly suspect it’s a cluster of symptoms, each of which can be more or less strong, but without a single or even closely grouped etiology. (This is so of many mental disorders, of course, because they are grouped behaviorally, and there can be many different causes for the behavior.) But if this is right, then the “just add up the symptoms and you have the disease” (or whatever) idea is probably not right, and treatment is likely to be really hard, because without knowing the underlying etiology, it’s very hard to treat the problem in any way other than mere amelioration of symptoms.
As for Cownes, who knows, but I tend to think that self-diagnosis, even by smart people, should be taken with a grain of salt most of the time.
LikeLike
One of the current theories of autism is that “spontaneous germline mutation is likely to be a contributing factor in autism. Spontaneous germline mutations are mutations in a parent’s gametes that produce autism in their offspring. They’re a complicated thing to study in genetics, because they’re not inherited, in the first generation (non-inherited cancers can also be in this category).
Wigler, at Cold Springs Harbor is credited with this discovery (studied by using large scale mathematical analysis of the genetics of autism). You can watch him talk about it at the Cold Springs Harbor site:
http://bigthink.com/michaelwigler
The theory is explained in layman’s terms in “A personal interest in autism.”
The theory of germline mutations doesn’t rule out the inheritance component. Adding multiple autistic traits together & adding in some genetic mutation could also produce the “BINGO” of autism. But, spontaneous new mutations seem to play a role. This, in turn, comports with Laura’s bingo-board theory of autism because it means that you might have multiple ways to get to “Autism.” (the genetic code is the bingo board). The multiple genetic origins is important because it impacts our understanding of the physiological/fundamental disorders underlying the symptoms, and because it’s important for any physiologically based treatment.
LikeLike
Regarding whether it’s harder to have autism now. Well, it’s almost certainly not harder to be anything now. Life is a million times easier than they used to be.
Is it harder to be developmentally disabled now? Almost certainly not, because we have more resources to support our disabled. But, was there a role to play for the mildly cognitively disabled child (say, an IQ of 80 or so) on a farm that’s easier than the role they have to play now, in school? probably.
LikeLike
I stopped seeing autism as a disability a long time ago. It is a disability if you have lower than average IQ, but pair autism with an average or an above average IQ and it’s provides the person with a great deal of advantages.
How interesting about the mutation theory. I’ll have to read more. But I am HUGELY skeptical. Every other study that I’ve seen talks about the high rate of autism in certain families, especially those with engineering and musical talents. That’s why there is such a huge rate of full blown autism in Silicone Valley. And you should see some of the parents of Ian’s classmates. It would take a lot of evidence to push me away from seeing this as a hereditary condition.
LikeLike
laura says,
“How interesting about the mutation theory. I’ll have to read more. But I am HUGELY skeptical. Every other study that I’ve seen talks about the high rate of autism in certain families, especially those with engineering and musical talents.”
bj says,
“The theory of germline mutations doesn’t rule out the inheritance component.”
Guys, you agree.
LikeLike
And you should see some of the parents of Ian’s classmates. It would take a lot of evidence to push me away from seeing this as a hereditary condition.
Yeah. A mother in my kids’ grade has an older child with (low IQ) autism and two subsequent non-vaccinated kids and a minivan full of “vaccines = autism” bumper stickers.
And you just want to yell, “Have you SEEN yourself? Your other kids? If you’re not all on the spectrum yourself, it’s only due to a rounding error! How can you possibly still be blaming the vaccines?”
And then I start to wonder whether all of the autism conspiracy theories stem from such a high percentage of people who care the most being on the autism spectrum themselves.
LikeLike
Laura:
You could watch the video descriptions at the web site, if you care about the science. Wigler does a good job describing his “unified theory of [the genetics of] autism” and the combination of spontaneous mutations & Mendelian inheritance in autism. I’m pretty certain that Wigler’s work is pretty well accepted, though difficult to follow, relying as it does on computational genetics (“Strong association of denova copy number mutations with autism, Sebat et al, 2007, Science). The paper is quite well written, I believe.
The age association (i.e older parents are more likely to have children with autism) is well explained by the de nova mutaton hypothesis, BTW.
LikeLike
Oh, and the “unified theory” is presented in it’s own paper: “A unified genetic theory for sporadic and inherited autism.” Zhao et al, PNAS: 104:31; 12831-12836 (available free).
LikeLike
Have you SEEN yourself?
For unrelated reasons, that is my bumper sticker.
LikeLike
“And then I start to wonder whether all of the autism conspiracy theories stem from such a high percentage of people who care the most being on the autism spectrum themselves.”
I really don’t think so. I think it stems from a generalized distrust of science and a desire to have something to blame.
Is Jenny McCarthy on the spectrum, for example? I don’t think so.
And, I do not like that Cowen fellow’s theory at all. He’s really defining his own version of autism and just picking and choosing his favorite attributes to come up with it. It would be kind of like defining depression as the ability to write poetry like Silvia Plath and ignoring all the other associations.
LikeLike
I’ve read a good chunk of the Summa Theologia, and my first thought was that Aquinas couldn’t possibly be socially inept, because he was able to be friends with both Aristotle and Augustine – and even make it possible for the two of them get along.
LikeLike
“I really don’t think so. I think it stems from a generalized distrust of science and a desire to have something to blame.”
It doesn’t have to be either/or. From reading Emily at daisymayfattypants.blogspot.com (ignore the goofy URL–she’s a biology PhD), I think I would have to agree with Ragtime. DMFP spends a lot of time on the darker, seedier side of the autism world (probably too much) and she’s had a number of posts on what she calls the “curebies,” people who are delusionally, monomaniacally convinced that they have cured their kids of autism.
I really recommend the DMFP archives, although my eyes glaze over when reading all the denunciations of people like Andrew Wakefield, Thoughtful House in Austin.
LikeLike
I should add that Emily uses “curebie” pretty broadly, not just to mean people who think they have actually cured their kids of autism or Asperger’s through gluten and casein-free diets or chelation or whatever.
LikeLike
“I completely disagree [that] modern society is harder on people with autism”
I think modern society is harder on CHILDREN with neorological disabilities, even though many of them will be able to find niches as adults. It simply isn’t possible for an obsessive, mathematical boy to stop going to school at age 12, spend his time hanging out by himself in the barn shaping wood and iron, and eventually become a wheelwright or a brilliant and wealthy inventor (or something in between). So the ages from 12 to 25 will be difficult for this child, although he may eventually make millions as a quant trader. Nor is it possible for a distractable but reasonably bright and highly sociable girl to quit school and work as a shopgirl until she gets married, though after struggling through college she may do fine as a saleswoman.
LikeLike
There’s something to what y81 says. Katharine Beals’ 2009 book “Raising a Left-Brain Child in a Right-Brain World: Strategies for Helping Bright, Quirky, Socially Awkward Children to Thrive at Home and at School” argues that a number of currently trendy teaching methods (group work and a focus on arts and crafts) form a sort of academic bottleneck that unfairly disadvantages bright children who are unsocial or have poor coordination. Beals argues that math-y, science-y kids should not have to traverse shoebox diorama hell before having a chance at doing the sort of work that they enjoy and are truly good at.
LikeLike
That sounds about right, y81.
I watched that video, bj. I’m going to watch it again later tonight, but I thought that he was primarily concerned with classic autism. Most of Ian’s classmates don’t exhibit any repetitive behavior. I don’t like how he says that a kid with autism is “profoundly wrong.” Ew. He’s right that there is a huge amount of variability. I think it’s even more variable than he does.
I think that the term autism will be phased out at some point. People will either be defined by their constellation of issues (ie, APD + ADD) or they’ll get better at making broad categories of people that are defined by their weaknesses, as well as by their strengths. I have to dismiss any definition of autism that doesn’t recognize the talents that go along with it.
re: why people latch onto Jenny McCarthy. Grief. Soul-crushing grief, a desperate hope that there is something that they can do to make things better and the need to blame someone or something for their child’s situation.
LikeLike
When Wigler refers to “repetitive” behavior, he doesn’t just mean motor behaviors, he means behaviors in general, as defined by I(C) of the DSM-IV manual. His 3 definitions repeat the DSM-IV (I) diagnostic criteria in short form (social interaction, language, and repetitive behaviors). Although possible, a diagnosis of autism (or Aspergers) is unlikely without some manifestation of “restricted repetitive patterns of behavior, interests or activities” (C), of which only one of the 4 instances is repetitive motor behaviors (actually, without C, the repetitive/restricted behaviors criterion, it wouldn’t fit the DSM IV criteria).
Wigler is a geneticist first, and you can see his newly acquired knowledge in talking about autism (as when he says “profoundly wrong.”). It’s par for the course for someone whose knowledge of the clinical manifestations is only peripheral.
It really is a “syndrome” diagnosis, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens with its definition in the future. The current trend (in DSM V) is to simplify rather than separate the spectrum. But, I guess the multiple diagnoses is part of simplifying. Presumably a child with receptive/expressive language issues (which is now not part of the ASD diagnosis, except with respect to social communication) would get a diagnosis of both 315.32 (Mixed receptive Expressive Language disorder) & ASD.
I’m not sure what APD is?
LikeLike
audio-processing disorder. It’s slightly different from receptive language issues. Receptive language issues usually means that a person hears the word correctly, but can’t understand it. Audio-processing issues are when a person mis-hears the word, but isn’t deaf. Rosie O’Donnell’s kid has it and she has brought a lot attention to this problem.
Restricted interests I see in a lot of Ian’s friends. (Ian, for example, is fascinated with gas stations right now, but he’ll be done with that in a week or so.) But I don’t always see the repetitive part of the diagnosis with the high functioning kids. I always thought there should be an “or” between repetitive and restrictive. Also, the one commonality between all of the kids in Ian’s class is sensory problems (some are worse than others). Shouldn’t that be part of the diagnosis?
LikeLike
” I always thought there should be an “or” between repetitive and restrictive. ”
I think there’s an implied or, actually:
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=94
(the new version, proposed for DSM V). Also seems to include sensory issues.
You’re supposed to have 2/3 of the following (that is, an or): a) stereotyped motor, verbal behavior, or unusual sensory behavior b) excessive adherence to routine/ritual c) restricted/fixed interests.
So, unusual sensory behavior will become part of the diagnosis (though I don’t know how far along they are in establishing these diagnoses).
I don’t know the diagnostic criterion for APD (it doesn’t seem to be a DSM diagnosis), but you’re suggesting something called “modality specificity:” that a person should be able to do the task if it’s presented in, say vision or touch, but not through the auditory system. Is that how APD is diagnosed? Otherwise, I’m at a loss to understand how one would tell whether someone “didn’t hear correctly” or “didn’t understand” a word, for example. What you’re describing in words is a “double-disassociation” (receptive language difficulty: hears, but doesn’t understand; apd: doesn’t hear, mishears, but could understand).
(PS: I’m interested in this topic, but peripherally, and I think it’s easy for people with peripheral interest in topics to accidentally say the wrong thing — Wigler, for example, so please free to tell me if you want the conversation to be done, either here or via email).
LikeLike
It’s amazing however, how many moms and dads with PhD’s seem to have a kid with some type of spectrum disorder. There’s a huge conversation over at the Chronicle of Higher Education website among parents whose kids have “issues.”
Our little Aspie is also a highly gifted musician and it’s become sort of a sport for my husband and I to pick out the aspie kids among the various youth orchestras and groups that he participates in. It makes you wonder if the gifted musician/Aspie combo is a particular variant of the disorder.
For those of you who subscribe to the “genetic cocktail” theory of how this syndrome comes about, have you given any thought to what you might advise your own kids — if you think that they might some day have the capability to get married? (It’s become a running joke in our house that our Harry Potter-obsessed son will meet his other half in about twenty years and they’ll have a Harry Potter-themed wedding at the new amusement park. We’re going there next month, and I joke that we’re checking out the wedding venue. But I worry that his own children might be more severely autistic, once he finds his other half and mates with her.
LikeLike
Sarah,
Yes, that is an issue. Probably more for parents of Aspie girls than of Aspie boys, since at least according to Tony Attwood, the girls are more likely to marry a fellow Aspie. On the one hand, I think a double-Aspie marriage is likely to be better than a single-Aspie marriage–there’s so much in common, so many shared experiences. I always feel sorry reading narratives (like Katrin Bentley’s “Alone Together”) about typical women who inadvertently marry Aspie men. On the other hand, as you point out, the eugenic issues are substantial.
LikeLike
One of Wigler’s tossed off points (that’s creeping into the general literature) is that women may have “protection” against the penetrance of the autism genes (penetrance means how likely a genotype is to be expressed in the phenotype, i.e. actually cause symptoms). They’re not suggesting the genes are sex-linked (i.e. hemophilia, color blindness), but that something about women’s physiology protects them from the more significant symptoms of the autism phenotype. These women can then be “carriers” of the genotype into the next generation.
I haven’t seen any good evidence offered for that idea, though, just a guess for why the ratio is so skewed between boys & girls.
LikeLike
Wigler says that if we know the genetic map of autism and the varying kinds of autism, then we can treat it with drugs. That’s pretty stupid for a lot of reasons. I don’t need a genetist to tell me that Ian has an expressive language disorder. A smart six year old could tell you that. And, drugs don’t help an expressive language disorder. ADD meds help slightly, but really it’s just massive therapy and time that makes a difference. To tell you the truth, his research gives me the creeps. I can’t see how it would go beyond the academic to the practical.
yeah, lots of kids of PhDs have autism. Selective mating is partially responsible for the rise in autism rates. I hope that Jonah marries a highly social girl with very poor math skills. Ian will hopefully meet a nice girl at Microsoft and will hopefully adopt.
LikeLike
“I can’t see how it would go beyond the academic to the practical.”
That’s easy–prenatal testing, plus elective abortion.
LikeLike
“Yes, many people have have one or two characteristics of autism, yet wouldn’t be described as autistic. I do believe that if they mate with someone who has one or two different autistic characteristics that they are likely to have a child with autism.”
Oh, so you’ve met me and my husband. I’m obsessive and social; he’s obsessive and anti-social. His dad probably had AS. My poor MIL suffered and it’s not fair he outlived her.
Traveling with an Aspie is fun. Sort of. We have a series of recurring jokes based on E’s obsessive statements/questions. “Did you say smack machine?” “When is that cow going to erupt?”
LikeLike
y81: “It simply isn’t possible for an obsessive, mathematical boy to stop going to school at age 12, spend his time hanging out by himself in the barn shaping wood and iron, and eventually become a wheelwright or a brilliant and wealthy inventor (or something in between). ”
And not too long ago, that was a rare thing indeed – that 12 year old boy would be working the fields, or working as an apprentice. He certainly wouldn’t have just hung out by himself that much.
LikeLike
“that 12 year old boy would be working the fields”
Agricultural work doesn’t have the same tempo year-round. There are busy times, medium busy times, and slow times. It’s not all hands on deck at all times.
LikeLike
Hi Laura I haven’t stopped by to comment for a long time.
First, a bit of self-promotion: I’m one of the co-editors of The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism (Emily Willingham is our science editor)
http://thinkingautismguide.blogspot.com/
There’s a new book out, called (d’oh) A History of Autism
There’s an interview with the author at IMFAR
You might be interested in the rest of the videos (interviews with researchers) as well.
From time to time, I wonder what happened to autistic people in the past, before there was Silicon Valley to provide them with gainful employment.
I imagine the outcomes would depend upon the society’s attitudes toward people with impairments. Matt mentioned the “holy fools”, who were fed and cared for. But other societies were rejecting of those who were different.
I also suspect that the mortality rate for children with severe autism would have been quite high — children who have feeding difficulties, sensory issues, and who are minimally verbal.
For more moderately affected children with noticeable social issues — I’m just not sure.
LikeLike
What appears as autism is likely only one possible manifestation of a particular condition. I’d guess the underlying factors have made a huge difference in human development.
LikeLike
Given Aquinas’ handwriting, he’s the last person I’d have assigned to prepare and illuminate the final draft of any manuscript (including his own). There’s a REASON that his churchly superiors assigned him a few secretaries …
LikeLike