I personally believe (?know) Albert Einstein was schizophrenic.
Wat? No one mentioned Einstein or schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is entirely another condition.
The Temple Grandin movie was very interesting. I had no idea she designed the slaughterhouse system.
Well she didn't design the first, but the more modern-day better efficient ones ranchers use today. She also designed better dip-vats.
Funny, I have never heard of "goofiness" as a diagnostic tool.
I found it more fun to say than "matching enough symptoms to a high enough degree".
Goofiness? Temple Grandin called hers a gift.
For the record, autism is not a binary condition, it's a spectrum disorder. Everyone exhibits some number of symptoms, and to some degree. That's how they can get away with labeling historical figures as "somewhat autistic", even though there was no one capable of actually diagnosing if that person hit the level of goofiness to be formally diagnosed as autistic.
I know. And having a rainbow spectrum is part of the problem. It's what lets shitty little emo kids say "I'm a little bit autistic because I like buttons and only drink Coke Zero"
That goes with ^ above: the so-called goofiness; it's more than what they like - it's a disorder. Temple for example, did not speak until she was four, and could not find a way to engage her brain to communicate with what society feels is communication, but she heard, processed, and understood things without others knowing it, but could not verbalize it, so others just thought she needed to be institutionalized. Some are sensitive to sound, others are sensitive to light; oversensitivity makes them nervous or have panic attacks. Some do not like to be touched, while others will tolerate a tactile prompt - prompting them to give a response by illiciting action, but without telling them the answer. That's partially because quite often they are so focused or zero-in on repetitive tasks, and you must prompt them, which breaks the cycle. Another reason can be not enough stimulation or not challenged, or engaged. Many are highly skilled at some things and more like specialists, but find it hard to do other tasks, sometimes simple ones.
Even those that speak do not engage in small-talk or chit chat, but prefer people with like interests, because being sociable is difficult for they don't understand people and can not express the full range of emotions. They do of course have feelings, but sometimes they act inappropriately, which others find them to be weird or "goofy".
For those that are mostly non-verbal, they get hung up on simple words like "quick" particularly if said without using an adverb or adjective. If one was to say go quick or quickly go, - it would be more understood by them, otherwise they may associate quick with "Nestle's Quick" - the chocolate powder used to flavor white milk. Their brain has a hard time making the proper word associations.
Yet they are brilliant - the old term idiot savants (idiot-savants), which is a bit of an oxymoron itself, since savant in french means wise.