In the present day, "imagination" is one of several traits that society at least pays lip-service to valuing. I have a hypothesis: Blanket attributiion of "lack of imagination" to people on the spectrum is part of a general process of dehumanization, one that is routinely (and fairly blindly) applied to any group that has been defined as "the other".
The dehumanized can be legitimately eliminated from the species, after all. One dehumanizes before instituting eugenic measures.
I am not claiming conspiracy. My model is that the eugenics mindset is so pervasive in much of medical science that it predisposes members of the field to even phrase their questions in ways that look for an excuse to rationalize such practices as pre-birth extermination, and for those more "merciful" sorts of members of the field, de facto or social extermination. Frame the mind in question as being so innately inhuman that it doesn't matter what means are used to make it conform.
This might not be the conscious intent, but it does appear to be the effect.
I'd say that the Mismeasure of Man effect may be working, in part, on this situation.
I can't agree. The lack of imagination is applied to young children that do not do role play or pretend play, like pretend tea parties.
Autistic children do much less of these typical activities and so they use it in diagnostic criteria.
Is low incidence of role-play or pretend play necessarily indicative of true lack of imagination? Could it not, likewise, be attributable to different preferences in communication styles? Is unwillingess to jabber along like the bandar-log a sign of lack of a fully human mind? Was it not quite recently that autism spectrum included "inability to love" as one of its "symptoms"?
The choice of "lack of imagination" to describe no preference for certain types of play is an inherently dehumanizing choice of language. I'm not a full-blow Sapir-Worf sort of guy, but there is some value in looking at society with that particular model.
I have to disagree, actually. Pretend play is not a waste of time because it prepares young animals for adulthood -- through practice.
Almost every intelligent species engages in "pretend play" when they are young. Some fight, some chase balls of string, some have tea parties with no tea in the cups.
Pretend play for aspies may simply be different. And slightly more likely to be solitary.
Secondly, as a writer of fantasy I would like to say that it is such a falsehood that AS people lack imagination. You only have to read some of the flights of fancy that have been posted in some parts of this and other forums to see that this is not true.
*stares at titleless story I worked on*
Seems imabgative enough to me. As for roleplaying, text-based online - I do a lit of.
The way the truth is expressed to the world is not the truth itself.
Most great and successful ideas are inspired. Darth Vader's helmet was inspired by a samurai's helmet. Mark Twain's character Tom Sawyer is based a little bit on his own life as a boy, and movies such as the Pianist and The Downfall are based on the Nazis.
I think imagination and creativity is taking your own thoughts, ideas, favourite items, least favourite items, philosophy, science, other things you've seen and balloon-animal-twist them into something. This thing is your own creation.
Local Reality was inspired by what was merely a passing idea: Wojciech hiding from me underneath a big huge boulder in my neighbourhood. That idea grew and grew with stuff added to it. Local Reality was originally going to be a sort of R-Rated story somewhat like the Sopranos (even though I never saw it), but now it grew into a story of rebellion against a rising force.
Hell even the not pretending theory doesnt work, I've got a huge immagination to this day, I just kept it to myself just as I do to this day*...
*unless its in the interest of creation
See, I was the wierdo that loved pretending-- but everyone else grew out of it and I didn't. That's one thing my diagnosing doctor said about me, "You haven't lost any of your imagination, have you?".
I wasn't much on tea parties or sharing and such though. One of the reasons I hated sharing with other kids was that they were destructive and couldn't play quietly or had to be the center of attention. I remember attacking a girl in kindergarten because I'd straightened up the playhouse (put the food in the correct places, the pots and pans, adjusted the curtains, made the little bed etc) and she came in right behind me and screwed everything up (plastic meat in the clothes dresser, celery in the doll bed...). I asked her why and she laughed at me so I attacked her. Not my finest moment, but I was little and I felt justified.
If I was imagining, I wanted to be Indiana Jones or She-Ra or Jungle Girl or Soundwave (from Transformers-- but any robot would do. Heh, even then, the machine love. :p ) or something cool, and most playing with toys was silent because I did the voices in my head (sounded better that way). I could play out loud with toys with other quiet children, but normal kids annoyed me. I remember covering my next door neighbor's room with our combined He-Man collection and having wars. Since he demanded that it was his house, his rules, Skeletor always had to lose. I think the best and most humiliating thing I managed to do in that situation was steal a pair of his sister's barbie's panties and then "cast a spell" to make He-Man have to wear them on his head for the rest of the battle. Hee hee. I really did not feel like pretending to drink tea. If I wanted to do that I could go in the house and ask mom for tea and drink it with her.
I believe all this has helped me in the long run as I'm discalculic and not a math Aspie.
its not lack of anything, it's impairment, there is a difference. it's not being without, which lack of implies, but more that it is limited in some way.
I cannot believe that even this is true of us.
Pssssht, my imagination is fine. I write fiction and plan to direct films/theatre one day - so I'd guess that I probably have a healthier imagination than most.
When I was a kid, I engaged in pretend play - although, admittedly, most of it was either by myself or only with other children I was very close to, e.g. my sister or next door neighbour. I was sent to a shrink when I was 6 or 7 because my teacher that thought my fondness for solitude was strange... the doctor said I was perfectly healthy.
Yes, my imagination's pretty good too, thanks. In fact, my games were always much more involved and structured and realistic than anybody else's... I remember being a four year old and doing a pretty realistic appendectomy on a doll, anesthesia, stitches and all. When I write, the plot is logical and all the loose ends are tucked in and tied together; when I make up a character I always have to know why they act in certain ways. In fact, I absolutely love D&D, though I have trouble finding a group in real life... (For those of you who don't know: D&D is a geeky pastime in which people make up characters in a medieval/magical sort of world and use a lot of rules to interact with and battle other characters in the world.)
*yawns and looks bored staring at norad *
I would play imaginary games alone with blocks or dolls or even the ABC magnets on our fridge. When I wasn't playing imaginary games I would be writing and there would be bits of paper -- generally headed "Chapter One" -- all over the living room floor. If I wasn't doing that then I was reading.
The backyard trampoline was a brontosaurus. A handful of pine needles thrown into the river on a camping trip was a pod of dolphins. And for two years (From 3 to 5) I was everything but human -- usually some kind of marine or semi marine animal. Dolphins, penguins and seals were the favourite choice.
Our next door neighbour and I had a game called "Mister Pusher" with an imaginary / invisible character who would always push us over. There was even a little Mister Pusher theme song and everything.
If anything, my imagination was always better than average. I could never understand people who didn't / couldn't use theirs. I say people in the outside world really need to get over this "no imagination" stereotype!!
This is one of the things that make me so mad when I read NT descriptions of autistics. The cr*p that they seem to believe is both pathetic and dangerous. The other thing is the hypocrisy of saying that autistic kids play with toys in ways that were not intended, yet have the audacity (and imho idiocy) to say in the next breath that these children lack imagination. 1984 anyone? We must all be the same. Thanks, but I'll pass. Maybe my imagination is devoted to things they don't care about. Guess what, theirs is likewise. Not interested. Coexist.
I think the lack of imagination definition is STUPID! If that's true, how come so many of the greatest painters ever exhibited AS-like symptoms?