Aha, thanks, I've never even used such an acronym.

It's hard to say with schizophrenics. Geniuses, though, can emerge from most any neurotype, and are thus not a neurotype unto themselves.

Also, neurotypes are more useful as a description than a classification.

I agree big time - I dislike the whole splitting people up/ categorizing - it can lead to some dehumanization - I have taken to mentioning I am a (supposed NT) as I seem to have had a vaguely "normal" school adn social experience - without any definable diffilculties, though I have never considered myself typical. though on this forum I sometimes feel the need to clarify from what perspective I am coming from - as not everyone may "know" me - or anything about me... hence the use of acronyms on here - more of a conveniece short-hand...

Leave it to outsidelookingin for the great link to wikipedia - great description....

I am admittedly cautious about saying I am "NT" on here.  I do it, but the backlash can occur, as I have already seen.  

I wish I did not have to think about it, honestly.  But I do.  

I think the anger of being treated badly comes through an awful lot.  I only wish that there could be more understanding in this world.  Understanding about AS people, NT people, etc.  All parts of the rainbow, if you will forgive the expression.  

Just because someone is an Aspie does not make them an ***!  Just because someone is an NT does not mean they have No Thoughtfulness (anyone who has a better set of words for NT feel free to throw them in here.)

IMHO - We are all just people, and if you are on here and adding productively to the forum, then we all have similar goals.

It's not an acronym, it's an initialism, unless you pronounce "nt" as a single syllable, like the end of "runt" or "hunt" or "hint".  But if you sound out the name of each letter, then it is not an acronym--it is an initialism.

Why are so many people so sadly ignorant of this difference?

It's as bad as people calling their grandchildren "ancestors"--which I come across all the time.

One thing that might be worth thinking about is that autism is often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia... Is it possible that they got the wrong dx for your father?

Yeah ...
in short: it depends on the 'onset': in childhood (Disorders of psychological development including the Spectrum (F80-F89)) - or as an adult (Disorders of adult personality and behaviour (F60-F69)). Look here.

I don't think they have the wrong DX now - my dad has the hearing voices, hallucinations, paranoia etc... he is pretty clearly schizophrenic. But, here's the weird thing, my dad functioned normally all through his teens/twenties/early thirties - he had girlfriends, a social life, held down a good job, was even in the process of emigrating to the US... everyone commented that my dad was certainly 'eccentric' and didn't follow normal social rules - in fact he used to like pushing them, and didn't bother if people thought he was a bit... gay. My dad was very vain and rumour had it that he did 'experiment' in his youth, but just shrugged it off. Basically, if you told my dad to step left, he'd step right. Anyway, he married my mum, and then they had me, and apparently he was totally preoccupied with me, took me everywhere with him... then when I was 2, he had a massive stroke. He'd had a smallish one the fortnight before, but then he had a massive one that left him paralysed down one side, unable to speak, basically trapped inside his own body etc.

He can walk and talk now, but he still doesn't communicate, or interact with people. He has extremely repetitive behaviour, and doesn't make eye contact with anyone. If he has to talk to you, he'll look at the wall, but not you. He has extremely structured routines and cannot cope if they are out of sync. No medication has managed to get him back to the way he used to be - where he was eccentric, and displayed outwardly Aspergian traits (if I really am that much of my father's daughter, as everyone claims, then I really find it hard to believe my dad isn't on the autistic spectrum). No-one knows what to do, so he's just basically been dumped by the NHS as a schizophrenic, thats it.

I'm positive my dad most likely had Aspergers before his stroke - what I wonder is, if the brain wiring dictates autistic behaviour, if the stroke has possibly caused some form of regression? I don't mean this in any way to court controversy, or offend anyone - but there are cases of individuals who were diagnosed as being at the lower end of the spectrum in childhood, who would now be classed as HFA/Aspergian. So if its possible to progress, then surely, after sustaining a serious brain injury (i.e. a stroke), it can also be possible to regress? Just food for thought.

Taking that a bit further one can doubt the validity of any and all neurotypes. They're all fictional conglomerations to which no individual person can validly to possess. What is the neurotype of a gay bipolar HFA male or an asexual schizotypal aspie woman?  I sure that all of these adjectives result in different neurological patterns when comparing statistically significant samples compared to the norm or the other gender.

Controversy? I don't think so. No scientist would speak in terms of "a neurotypical individual" as if there were a precise definition to apply.

Your statement is essentially correct. You seem, however, not to fully understand the term. It is not "fictional", it is a statistical construct. "Normal" is a range of quantified values commonly defined to be within two standard deviations of the mean, and usually encompases 95% of the statistical population (aka, whatever is being measured).

"Neurotypical" is a neutral variant of "neurologically normal". The phrase "neurotypical individual" is a linguistic convenience; a shortened form of saying, "an individual whose quantified data regarding neurological functioning falls within the normal range". In this sense, it should be obvious that there can be no single individual that is the neurotypical individual.



Supposedly, the "typical" American family has 2.3 children. This has spawned droll (and frequently morbid) jokes for decades regarding the disposition of the 0.3 child. (So, what does the 0.3 child look like? It can't be healthy.) Obviously, there is no single family that has 2.3 children, and it is equally obvious that not every family has the same number of children, and many have no children at all. It makes more sense to say that the mean number of children in the American family is 2.3.