Did anybody else see the episode - repeat was on last night - of Cold Case where an autistic boy's parents were murdered and the case was unsolved?
I only saw a bit of it because we were in the middle of watching something else and I thought it would be rude to insist we put our DVD on hold so I could watch a TV show.
Anyway, I thought the overall portrayal wasn't too bad, but there was one off handed series of comments by a full of himself detective about to question the kid that was annoying - as was the resolution of the comment.
He said it's impossible for autistics to lie, and that they don't get jokes either. while it is true that autistics tend to be authentic and literal, it is not impossible for an autistic to lie or to think something is funny.
The assumption that autistics can't lie led them to believing everything he said - which meant he was placing someone at the scene of the crime. The resolution for that was that autistics have no sense of time. I haven't heard of this at all. They went on to say that autistics can talk about something that happened yesterday or a year ago as if it was the same, and their sequence of time is messed up.
Okay, maybe some do, but is that really typical?
I've never even
heard that no-sense-of-time theory before! Not that I am anywhere near being an expert of course, but to me those statements sound like drastic oversimplifications. Maybe they are true of some autistics, but surely not all. Unfortunately, people watching shows like this come away from them thinking they now know universal truths. (The no-sense-of-humor theory is obviously off base...there are many funny people here who disprove it.
)
It is very hard to lie. I see only one history, not several as contrived to several people. It is hard to lie to the beggars near the liquor store near Giant across the street from the office.
Yes, I shrug a gesture that suggests that I don't have any, can't help you, no money
It's a lie. I carry some in the wallet at all times (urban myth that if you are robbed and something is in your wallet they won't kill you) and some in the car key case.
But I don't think they'd like the truth, which would be
You can't make it in life depending on others. You need to first, earn your own money, second, save some for a rainy day. Of course, lay off whatever you're addicted to, even if it is only a Twinkie addiction (or a Snickers addiction, those are tough). If you try to depend on payday lenders or pawn shops or credit cards, you'll never see the end of it. You aren't the only one sinking, plenty of people with credit cards, adjustible rate mortgages, debts here and there, but you need to cut your expenses and pay your bills to be responsible.
Now if everyone did that, automatic recession, I think. I think the American economy depends on dummies to do dumb things or the whole house of cards could crash, maybe the world economy?
It is very hard to lie. I see only one history, not several as contrived to several people. It is hard to lie to the beggars near the liquor store near Giant across the street from the office.
Yes, I shrug a gesture that suggests that I don't have any, can't help you, no money
It's a lie. I carry some in the wallet at all times (urban myth that if you are robbed and something is in your wallet they won't kill you) and some in the car key case.
But I don't think they'd like the truth, which would be
You can't make it in life depending on others. You need to first, earn your own money, second, save some for a rainy day. Of course, lay off whatever you're addicted to, even if it is only a Twinkie addiction (or a Snickers addiction, those are tough). If you try to depend on payday lenders or pawn shops or credit cards, you'll never see the end of it. You aren't the only one sinking, plenty of people with credit cards, adjustible rate mortgages, debts here and there, but you need to cut your expenses and pay your bills to be responsible.
Now if everyone did that, automatic recession, I think. I think the American economy depends on dummies to do dumb things or the whole house of cards could crash, maybe the world economy?
Please don't take this as mean- I am not attacking you or your beliefs, but I do question what you are saying here (and I preface this that way because I do have a tendency to come across as hostile when I do not mean to be).
Certainly some homeless people are on the street because of bad choices, addictions, ect. But certainly not even close to all of them are there because of those things.
There is something called the "working poor". These are people working in jobs that offer no way up, not enough money, ect. These people often can't get a better job because they haven't got the credentials, ect. or because there simply are no jobs in their area (and they certainly don't have the means to move).
As for people who are in debt, the answer to that is not to "stop it", it isn't so simple! First and foremost they need money to pay off that debt. Once they have done so, it is then their responsibility to not go into debt again, and no longer being in debt will make that much, much easier on them.
And of course there is also the issue of disability. What about the many autistics who are homeless because no one will hire them? What about people who have mental illnesses and cannot get proper treament (or, worse, have been given "treatments" that make them worse?). Certainly these are a relatively small portion of the homeless and working poor, but they exist.
Your post makes generalizations that can lead to views that are damaging to people in a position of need, such as the idea that poor people are to fault for their own poorness and need to "stop being lazy" (even though many of them work two or three jobs!).
Again, please, please do not respond to this as an attack. I am worried, and I am telling you so, and that's all.
The messed-up-sequence-of-time sounds a little like what I experience...although I'd certainly be able to tell the difference between something that happened yesterday and something that happened a year ago, it isn't that bad.
I can lie. I'm very bad at it, and my automatic response to a question is to tell the truth, but it's not like it's a physical or psychological impossibility or something.
And I definitely have a sense of humor. From what I've read, a lot of people with autism do. Idiosyncratic humor, maybe, but still...I have no idea why that's such a common misconception.