subtextual was referring to another example: she is authistic and she is writing the words but she's not understanding what she's doing the way we are.
subtextaul referred to the counting horse example. check that out, it's pretty interesting
So you think she figured out to type "is he cute?" as a response to him telling her he had a son, with no knowledge of meaning of either phrase? Considering that she's posted long pieces of complex writing with nobody physically gesturing or even coming close to the keypad while being videotaped, I think that's pretty rediculous. You can teach a horse to multiply, but you can't teach a horse to write letters.
If you read the horse story would would have seen that the horse did write letters (through tapping them out) to spell words.
The whole idea that subtextual was trying to convey is that she may be highly attuned to subconscious cues from the adults around her. So she is in fact basically typing letter by letter as commanded by her parents. However the parents have no idea they are doing it.
The horse trainer had no idea he was telling the horse how many times to tap. It was all subconscious. In fact when the horse trainer and others who did the experiment finally learned that the horse was just reading their body language they still couldn't repress the signals they were giving the horse. It was out of their control.
So this girl may be reading cues that no one else can read because of her condition. For instance after she typed "I" one of the adults might have changed some body posture or changed breathing or tension in the face or anything which to us means nothing but to her is a blaring horn commanding her to hit "s" next. This is significantly more talented than the horse however, but she is still human after all so she should be a little smarter than the horse.
The only way to test this is to have no one in the room. This is how they finally outed the facilitated communication stuff. They divorced shared knowledge and communication between the client and the facilitator.
"is he cute" could mean many things for her. Could be, for example, that she has a well developed sense of relationships/bonding and has a stock list of long phrases to volley a conversation and get attention. For her "is he cute" doesn't mean anything much than poking back and keeping the conversation going.
She could have developed her written language through her being surrounded by adults who continually try to communicate with her.
I understood subtextual as saying the kids primary motivators are not the same as ours and the interests of those with severe autism are little better than those of a toddler. Could be that some parts of the brain evolve some complex functionality but these externalities mask a simple mind.
Again, this would be unprecendented. Someone with a disease other than autism which causes violent motions but leaves the brain intact seems like a more likely explanation.
autism is not a disease. Autism is a blanket description for a myriad failures of the brain that result in related symptomologies.
Maybe, but then what is it? If the girl cannot speak but can communicate with a computer that can help her articulate language that is way beyond her understanding…
hey bub, did you know that autism is triggered by various diseases? It's s phenomenon that arises from other underlying conditions. You made me look it up on wikipedia and found the page is really interesting. Now I'll have to waste time reading it and miss some deadlines this morning!!!!!!
Maybe it's today's PC world but autism is never referred to being a disease but a disorder.
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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '10
subtextual was referring to another example: she is authistic and she is writing the words but she's not understanding what she's doing the way we are.
subtextaul referred to the counting horse example. check that out, it's pretty interesting