Article: Are Aspergians Really Rude and Inconsiderate? Aspergers, empathy, and relationships...
While this may explain the aspergian point of view towards this boy, you need to understand that your speculation lacks empathy towards the entire Trump family. Why stigmatize him, to what goal? Realize, that if you were a psychiatrist, these type of comments of cyber psychoanalysis could easily be considered litigious. They are banned, by the APA, thanks to Republican Barry Goldwater!
All of the Trumps have become public figures, including the 9 kids to a lesser extent. Adult relatives and especially these minor children should not be subjected to unsolicited unprofessional intellectually dishonest diagnoses from afar. It would be unfortunate if this forum becomes the original source of this nonsense, so hopefully it has ended.
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Psychiatrists are not allowed to offer their opinion on Trump or Clinton. (Likewise, psychoanalyzing their family members for public consumption is prohibited.)
It’s election season, which means everyone is looking for ways to tie their own interests and expertise to the candidates and their policies. Everyone except the American Psychiatric Association, that is. The professional group, which represents more than 35,000 practicing psychiatrists has a policy that bans members from commenting on the mental status of people they haven’t personally diagnosed....
“The unique atmosphere of this year’s election cycle may lead some to want to psychoanalyze the candidates, but to do so would not only be unethical, it would be irresponsible,” her statement reads.
“We live in an age where information on a given individual is easier to access and more abundant than ever before, particularly if that person happens to be a public figure. With that in mind, I can understand the desire to get inside the mind of a Presidential candidate. I can also understand how a patient might feel if they saw their doctor offering an uninformed medical opinion on someone they have never examined. A patient who sees that might lose confidence in their doctor, and would likely feel stigmatized by language painting a candidate with a mental disorder (real or perceived) as ‘unfit’ or ‘unworthy’ to assume the Presidency.”
It’s also “intellectually dishonest for a mental health professional — or any physician — to give a diagnosis without examining the patient,” as the psychiatrist Richard A. Friedman argued in The NYT. And such armchair diagnoses could be used as “a political weapon to denigrate an opponent,” he added.
In other words, diagnosing public figures from afar is both unscientific and potentially stigmatizing. But the policy isn’t just about being fair to patients (and the profession as a whole). It’s actually the result of a messy situation — lawsuits and all — that took place during an election more than a half century ago.
In 1964, a magazine asked 12,000 psychiatrists what they thought of then-candidate Barry Goldwater and turned it into a story headlined “FACT: 1,189 Psychiatrists Say Goldwater is Psychologically Unfit to Be President.” (Nevermind the FACT that the vast majority of surveyed psychiatrists did not respond.) Goldwater later successfully sued, and the American Psychiatric Association in 1973 created a rule to try to prevent a similar situation reoccurring.
The rule reads: “On occasion psychiatrists are asked for an opinion about an individual who is in the light of public attention or who has disclosed information about himself/herself through public media. In such circumstances, a psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/does-trump-have-a-psychiatric-diagnosis-mental-illness-2016-8
“It would be unfortunate if this forum becomes the original source of this nonsense”
You seem not to understand that this is already all over the Internet and has especially been discussed numerous times by people familiar with autism on Twitter each time the boy has appeared on TV. There was even a discussion page started on the subject on an autism spectrum board *before* Trump ran for president.
A much bigger problem than this is that there are far more posts online and in social media insulting the boy or claiming that he is miserable and hates his father, etc. by people who do not get what’s going on. One thing that being open about his condition would do is to stop these attacks on him and his family by those who are misinterpreting his reactions in the worst ways possible. Just in another thread here on FR a well-meaning poster was commenting more than once on Barron not smiling in the majority of his photos in public, as if he were a miserable kid or something. Even worse, regardless of his parents talking about him being smart, some people on social media have suggested that he’s mentally slow. Needless to say, many (lefties) online thought Barron jerking away from his father’s touch at the convention was a sign that he can’t stand his father. If they understood concepts like sensory overload and how those on the spectrum often respond to it, that alone could clear up a lot of the really negative responses to the boy.
Beyond that, it would be beneficial for educating the masses about Asperger’s/high-functioning autism. Too many people out there still think of autism as classic autism—low IQ, spending all day rocking back and forth, non-verbal, and unable to function in regular society. That is not representative those on the upper end of the spectrum. People with Asperger’s do not have limited mental capacities (as you suggested in an earlier post). Significant intellectual impairments are contraindicated with Asperger’s. If more people understood the basics of the autism spectrum, then there would be fewer uninformed misinterpretations about how people on the spectrum act (as there have already been about Barron).
You appear to be going out of your way to aggressively dismiss the obvious (or at least what is pretty obvious to those personally familiar with the traits of those on the spectrum, but what is often difficult for a “regular” person to recognize). I personally do not agree that it is horrifying, stigmatizing, slanderous, “EVIL” when anyone politely notes how “Aspie” he seems to be. From your reaction, you’d think people were accusing Barron of being a criminal. I would encourage you to examine what sort of negative stereotypes and feelings you may harbor about those on the spectrum and try to correct some of your misconceptions. And no, the speculation of many dozens of regular people online familiar with autism (none of which is mean-spirited or even negative that I’ve seen) is not legitimately actionable libel, nor is it the same as professional psychiatrists publishing and legitimizing their speculation as facts in respected journals or formal interviews.
Lastly, I’ve got to say, you should go back and see how badly you attacked time4good with uncalled for language on this thread. You could have just said that you don’t think that sort of talk is helpful to Barron or his parents, but you went much farther than that. I wasn’t even planning on commenting on this thread until I saw how unfair, insulting, and over-the-top you were acting. It’s obviously not just Aspies who can appear rude.