Hi,

Someone at work claimed today that there's a study published that suggests a majority of software engineers have aspergers syndrome.
I can't find this by Googling and I don't think it sounds plausible to begin with. I know there's a higher percentage among software engineers than other fields, but a majority sounds like exaguration to me.

Or does such a study really exist?

Thanks!

What's up with the sudden rise of interest in aspengers?

From one year to the next it starts to creep into every gaming and programming related forum I see. There are a few with actual clinical diagnosis but a bunch of "I haz aspengers!" dudes who try to find a scapegoat for their shortcomings.

Autism is no joke but some people think it's something simple and reduce it to absurdity. Aka "I can't talk to somebody and I think I'm really smart so obviously I haz teh autizm." No, social awkwardness doesn't proves anything. Most of the humans think they're smarter than their peers (common cognitive bias). And mental disorder diagnosis is an awfully complex topic.

It diminishes the work of psychologists and it diminishes the people that actually have some sort of autism.

No, I don't think that the majority of software engineers have aspengers syndrome.

It diminishes the work of psychologists and it diminishes the people that actually have some sort of autism.

Of course it does, but a study can't be based on self-diagnosed people - can it? That would make it kinda irrelevant.

I agree with TheChubu. This interest in asperger's is becoming the next "ADD". I think this is just a sign of the age we are in. Technology is more integral to our lives than ever before, and so lifestyles are changing because of it. Our brains change as a result of our lifestyle and the activities we choose or choose not to participate in.

As a loose example to explain what I'm trying to say, not too long ago we believed that there was a part of our brain that allowed us to recognize human faces. As it turns out, evidence today suggest that this is not the case, but that we are able to recognize human faces simply because we are always around other humans. Our brain adapts and allows us to recognize subtle facial details among different people. This explains how a person can have such an easy time differentiating between different people from their own race, and yet have such a difficult time telling people of another race apart. It also explains how a car enthusiast can easily differentiate between cars of different models/years, or the fact that we can see faces in cars. (Haha, I kind of went overboard with my example.)

Anyways, I'm not saying I'm correct in this issue. I'm just proposing a theory based on my experience.

Puh...leeeeze the entire issue of the majority of software engineers being affected by Asperger's won't be legitimised until it has become a murder defense in the American legal system!

Of course in saying that it probably has been ><

Well I will admit that while I don't have Aspergers, I do have an anxiety disorder, but claiming that "a majority" of software developers are autists is somewhat.. ah.. ludicrous.

Like all generalizations, really. If this study really happened, I doubt it was legit to begin with. Or they picked a sample size of five. Whichever.

Robot Ninja, on 02 Mar 2013 - 12:33, said:
I agree with TheChubu. This interest in asperger's is becoming the next "ADD".

Bingo. In the 90s it was ADD, now it's autism. I met about 5 trillion people in school who had ADD and my conclusion was that ADD means, "Fuck you, I'mma do what I want."

Then I met one kid that had actually been diagnosed with ADD and my conclusion was, "No, you other guys don't have ADD. You're just assholes."

Same exact phenomenon now with Asperger syndrome:

• People don't like me.
• It's because I'm an asshole.
• If I pretend to be handicapped then maybe they'll start liking me.
• This way I don't have to stop being an asshole.

The people I've met that actually do have Asperger syndrome have not been assholes. They're just socially awkward and actually in my experience they've been quite likable and pretty easy to get along with. This isn't scientific evidence, of course, but it's enough experiential evidence that I'm confident in my ability to distinguish between people with the syndrome and people that just don't want to be accountable for what they do.

Many people who really do have Asperger's are extremely withdrawn.

The people who write up clinical diagnosis include the details of being withdrawn to a clinically-significant life-impairing way. That is certainly part of the definition.

Some people will consider being introverted (which is a NORMAL THING) as being withdrawn.

Being withdrawn is also a normal thing, and in fact many studies have shown that those who are the most creative in artistic and scientific fields are much more withdrawn than other segments of society.

... However, there are many people (usually extroverts) who are rarely withdrawn that interpret withdrawal as abnormal or unhealthy behavior. In fact, several mid-century psychologists in the 1900's attempted to get introversion diagnosed as a disorder until a little work realized that a major portion of the society fit the description. Of course, we also had scientists in the 1400's who believed female reproductive organs were "degenerate" forms of male organs, which explained their world view that women were inferior to men. So as always, interpret scientific results with skepticism.


Back to Asperger's, in doing a self-diagnosis people make many major errors. First they begin with not understanding what is normal, what is abnormal but still healthy, what is atypical and not unhealthy, and what is unhealthy or life-impairing. Then they will make the extension that a non-life-impairing normal behavior or even atypical behavior is the same as the clinically-significant, life-impairing problem.

Honestly I believe many self-diagnosed aspergers are people going through a social-awkwardness phase. Problem is, many never get out of it.

To destroy my credibility further with more anecdotal examples, when I was a freshman at college I was the guy who avoided parties to instead sit in his room and either do homework (straigh-A over-achevier) or code his geeky game projects. I was awkward as heck and the notion of even talking to a girl was doomed to failure before its conception. In a nutshell, I was the perfect candidate for the an "aspie."

But luckily, I somehow made friends. Friends with whom I interacted. Friends who introduced me to alcohol (hello college). Friends who took me out to parties. Friends who gave me advice on girls. And my campus was small (400 students) with a focus on community and supporting each other which further made thigns easier.

By my senior year, I've been one of the few main guys regularly hosting hangouts and parties, started dating, and had no problem meeting new people and being sociable... while still keepign up my As and coding my geeky projects.

My point is, it took work and sometimes pushes from others to help me develop my social skills and become, well, a "normal and functinal member of the society" (whatever that even means). But I can see how many people, particularily at big (20-30k+ student) campuses can miss out on this supportive social group and instead remain in their little asocial shell, eventually giving up and excusing it as aspergers.

Of course, I am not denouncing aspergers - it's a real disorder and I know a few people who have it. Yes, copious social interaction have helped them adjust, but there's still some awkwardness and you can tell it's more of a learned "acting" than natural social intuition. Those people are constantly thinking of how to act, really struggling on the inside, and can never fully overcome the disorder; but it's different from those who merely think they have aspergers because they never tried, or didn't have the right support group, to overcome it.

As a person clinically diagnosed with AS, i really hate it when people classify themselves as AS just because they cannot accept they are assholes.

While people with AS can be assholes (i go out of my way to piss people off who pick on me regardless of social standing) i am not to the majority of the time, i try to be nice to most people.

If anything, i feel that AS is hardly an excuse for flaws, if anything it means you have an excuse for putting 10+ hours a day into getting a new version of your game out( this is an anecdote of course, as that is what i have been doing). If i am honest i think people with AS(at least myself) try harder than a lot of people not to be an asshole.

I also think this idea of having no friends is fallacy as well. While i may not go out to parties(i dont enjoy the atmosphere), i do often socialise with friends over things most would view as nerdy such as d&d. Although i can sense sometimes that what i have said is socially awkward, however sometimes it is the opposite.

Finally, i do not think that most software engineers have AS. To put this into perspective, roughly 1% of the general populaton have AS. While IT(and mathematics and science in general) probably have a higher proportion than other professions, i dont have evidence to support this.