Posted on 04/16/2014 8:29:47 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
The Israeli army has formed a specialized intelligence unit that includes soldiers diagnosed with autism, a neurological disorder involving impaired social interaction and communication problems.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman’s office said that the autistic soldiers have remarkable visual and analytic capabilities. “They can detect even the smallest details, undetectable to most people,” it said in a press release.
The commander of the unit, identified only as “Col. J,” said that the success of the program exceeded all expectations. “Their job is to take visual materials from satellite images and airborne sensors,” he said. “With the help of their officers and decoding tools, they analyze the images and find specific things they need in order to allow those who are planning a mission to get the best data.”
The idea of utilizing the special strengths of personnel on the autism spectrum for intelligence analysis came from a couple who had served in army intelligence. When they put their suggestion to IDF Unit 9900, which specializes in photo interpretation and mapping, a trial project was organized.
“There were many problems along the way,” Col. J said. “The process took about a year. We worked until we achieved success.”
Joining in the initiative was the Ono Academic College, near Tel Aviv, which set up a program dubbed RR (an acronym for the Hebrew words “looking far”). Autistic soldiers selected for the program are given a three-month course before joining the army. Academic personnel from the RR program continue to work with the graduates when they are in uniform and also advise their army commanders.
In the wake of the success with the first group of recruits, the college has begun working with the army in developing programs that would utilize other strengths of those with autism. One course is for software quality assurance and the other for information management.
Asked about the relations between the autistic soldiers and other troops in the unit, Col. J termed them excellent. “From time to time I see them outside the building where they work sitting with others in the unit having lunch. It’s very natural.”
Up to this year, we have had younger relatives competing in the Odyssey of the Mind events in California. They are still very smart but are interested in sports and other physical endeavors.
We were amazed at the projects the kids did and came up with.
I had fun trying to figure out if the non parents in the audience watching the kids were with Google, Microsoft, NSA or the CIA watching as talent scouts. Stanford often had their scouts there.
Some of the high performing kids would fall into this savant category.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey_of_the_Mind
“It wasn’t code-breaking. It was actually transmitting coded messages in their native tongue. Completely un-decipherable to the Japanese.”
NOT in their native tongue, but in a code the natives developed.
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The Navajo used the word turtle to describe tanks and the word whale to describe aircraft carriers.
Those are the two examples I remember however there are many other examples.
Actually a number of tribes were used. Basques were even tried. In WWI Cherokee and Choctow.
One of the spectrum disorders is Aspergers which is mostly seen as problems with interpreting language as being literal in social situations.
Many great thinkers like Newton, Divinci, are thought to have been Asperger.
Abraham Lincoln,1809-1865, US Politician
Alan Turing, 1912-1954, English mathematician, computer scientist and cryptographer
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955, German/American theoretical physicist
Alexander Graham Bell, 1847-1922, Scottish/Canadian/American inventor of the telephone
Benjamin Franklin,1706-1790, US polictician/writer
Bobby Fischer, 1943-2008, World Chess Champion
Carl Jung, 1875-1961, Swiss psychoanalyst
Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886, US poet
George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish playwright, writer of Pygmalion, critic and Socialist
George Washington, 1732-1799, US Politician
Henry Cavendish, 1731-1810, English/French scientist, discovered the composition of air and water
Henry Ford, 1863-1947, US industrialist
Henry Thoreau, 1817-1862, US writer
Isaac Newton, 1642-1727, English mathematician and physicist
Jane Austen, 1775-1817, English novelist, author of Pride and Prejudice
Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827, German/Viennese composer
Mark Twain, 1835-1910, US humorist
Michelangelo, 1475 1564 - Italian Renissance artist
Richard Strauss, 1864-1949, German composer
Thomas Edison, 1847-1931, US inventor
Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, US politician
Vincent Van Gogh, 1853-1890, Dutch painter
Virginia Woolf, 1882-1941, English Writer
Alfred Hitchcock, 1899-1980, English/American film director
Charles Schulz, 1922-2000, US cartoonist and creator of Peanuts and Charlie Brown
Glenn Gould, 1932-1982, Canadian pianist
Hans Asperger, 1906-1980, Austrian pediatric doctor after whom Asperger's Syndrome is named
Howard Hughes, 1905-1976, US billionaire
Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992, Russian/US writer on science and of science fiction, author of Bicentennial Man
Jim Henson, 1936-1990, creator of the Muppets, US puppeteer, writer, producer, director, composer
John Denver, 1943-1997, US musician
L S Lowry, 1887-1976, English painter of "matchstick men"
Bill Gates, 1955-, Entrepreneur and philanthropist. A key player in the personal computer revolution.
Bob Dylan, 1941-, US singer-songwriter
John Nash, 1928-, US mathematician (portrayed by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, USA 2001)
Oliver Sacks, 1933-, UK/US neurologist, author of "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" and "Awakenings"
Robin Williams, 1951-, US Actor
Seth Engstrom, 1987-, Magician and World Champion in Sleight of Hand. The best man with a deck of cards that the world has ever seen.
“There was also a movie as well, “Windtalkers”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windtalkers
It was an excellent movie.
The movie was very realistic and got panned by the lefty critics.
You see those comments on this sort of thread all the time. ‘Those kids just need a good spanking!’. etc.
Oh, my.
I know. And you hear these commercials all day long for prescriptions for all sorts of “disorders” like depression and hyperactivity. Yet so many other forms of demented behaviors we are told are normal and to be celebrated!
“I bet a large part of the Navy code breakers who deciphered the Imperial Japanese Naval code, leading to victory at Midway, would be diagnosed as autistic. That unit was infamous for its lax discipline but give credit to the higher ups who left them alone to do their job.”
There may have been some autistic savants in that group.
However, their Naval Group, NavSecGrp, was very informal. During the Nam years no one in the reserves wore their uniforms to and from the meeting and even at the meeting. Part of that may have been due the hostile actions of the teachers/mentors of Obozo towards our military in uniform.
One group went to a two week exercise at Ft Meade without their uniforms. The same group a year later, relieved most of a state side regular unit at a base and never took their uniforms. On active duty on a ship, NavSecGrp sailors wore Navy uniforms.
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You are lucky compared to children today. Many “gifted” children have been misdiagnosed as having ADHD, Autism, Aspergers etc.
Unless the people doing the evaluation have had lots of experience working with highly intelligent children with IQs of around 130 or above, they are at risk of being misdiagnosed.
That can have a huge negative impact on their development, social, educational, self image etc. Children tend to live up or down to the expectations of those around them, including teachers, families and peers.
Most autistic children (or adults) do not belong on the list that you provided. How the parents would love it if they did. As the grandparent of a severely autistic child, I shudder to think of him in the intelligence division of an army. It reminds me of Al Qaeda thugs who put suicide vests on retarded children and goad them into exploding them (true cases).
Indeed, although I’ve heard of a few of the individuals one your list as possiblly having autism, most of them were considered perfectly normal members of society in their lifetimes.
What is the source of your list? George Washington, for instance, was highly social and the favorite guest of all of the Virginia hostesses — hardly the “stuff” of Asperger’s. Ben Franklin was the Bon Vivant of Paris and London. Did somebody just make up a list of successful people and slap the “dignosis” of Asperger’s on them? I cry foul on your list.
Have known about 100 autistic people. As children they are often unruly and unreceptive. As adolescents and adults they frequently show remarkable intellectual and artistic skills.
Thanks for that, Marcella. Humans seem to have the need to label and classify. There’s always more to a person than the label.
I am a bit distressed that gifted children are often misdiagnosed with “disorders” such as Autism, Aspergers, and ADHD.
I would just advise anyone who is going to have their child evaluated, to get that evaluation from a professional of your choosing, and someone who has lots and lots of experience with highly intellingent children. That may or may not be the person the school utilizes.
If a person can not home school, just make sure that their school is doing what is necessary for your child to succeed, regardless of the label they might assign.
And then "most people" wonder why the autistics have trouble relating to and interacting with them! How would "most people" feel if they were expected have professional and personal i.e. mature adult relationships with small children? And then get singled out for being aloof and weird for being disinterested and disengaged from the children? That's not saying "most people" are children (oh wait... there are those election results..), but those who have "remarkable visual and analytic capabilities", might not care for the company of most people.
Sure, there are people whose in-house wiring is truly non-functional and debilitating, even to the point where they can't live independently. But for the people the IDF is training, the wiring issues are being worked around in some fashion or other.
What of naturally talented artists who intuitively know how to render the 3D world onto 2D canvas? Or photographers who have instincts for light and color and composition such that they can draw out deep emotions or thoughts from the viewers of the photos? These talented people see things differently than "most people" but the world doesn't try to pigeonhole them into some special category. Probably because artists aren't generally an intellectual threat and as long as they tend to vote Demoncrat, all's well, even if they are manic, depressed, and/or on a chemically-induced high.
The autistics' analytical abilities though... can't let that kind of talent flourish, especially since these people can't be manipulated by what they don't recognize - the normal social cues and unspoken threats and intimidation. Those folks could pull down the beast system, especially with their laser-focused drive and work ethic. Analytical brains created the technology for evil people to make this place a totalitarian surveillance nation, and they can bring it down, too.
No surprise that it's the Israelis who are tapping into this rich resource of intellect as a force for good.
It was the camp "outcasts" in the Addams Family Values movie who burned the village to the ground. I love that scene!
Lack of consistency is one of the biggest things I see that hurts a person's attempts at avoiding chaos.
Also, kids will often behave and repeat whatever behavior receives attention. That attention may be positive or negative.
An example: A kindergarten I am familiar with, had a long standing practice of having a “baby” chair where children who misbehaved had to sit because they were not acting like “grown up” kindergartners.
A new teacher arrived. She simply could not “shame” children for their behavior, so she put to use the principle of noticing the behaviors she wanted, and rewarding progress.
Sometimes, however you need to get a child to stop what they are doing and it can not be ignored. For example, maybe they are talking and being rowdy instead of doing their work.
The teacher would look at the child sitting next the rowdy, and complement that child on being quiet and their wonderful work. When the rowdy became quiet and started working he got a complement too, as did the whole room which was also working diligently.
Problem solved and all the kids were in a good mood and with a positive attitude toward work. At the end of the year, the children receiving praise for their good behaviors had far better behavior than the ones who were punished and shamed for being babies.
Also there is a difference between punishment and discipline. Punishment is just that - it's done and over with.
Discipline involves discussion and a consequence and a way to demonstrate better behavior with respect to whatever the issue may be. A way to earn back a privilege for example.JMHO
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