Saturday, March 11, 2006

The real reason behind AS' so called social impairments

If you ever examine the debate on the evolution on the dog from the wolf, you find some very interesting discussions that could be relevant to AS.
The relevants facts are dogs can mimic and respond to human emotions. We all see our dogs raise eyebrows and be facially expressive of their emotional states. We have all also seen how they can READ human faces and intuit the emotion behind them. This is something wolves cannot do. Wolves are dogs closest relative and really basically genetically indistinguishable. Wolves, tho do not show emotion on their faces nor do they have the ability to read human emotions via the face. They do however have the intellectual capacity to solve tasks that a dog will never be able to.
So dogs basically for survival gained critical social skills in managing the ever present interaction of humans , while shedding IQ points. The debate rages over in the short amount of time circa 15K years or so, was the effect so truly one sided. In fact it has been proposed that human beings are more territorial than other primates and that this is a direct effect from cohabitation with dogs. What if it is more than that? Like many aspies I have mild face blindness. I dont have a social obession and see the need for a social heirarchy. What if the so called impairments of AS are simply manifestations of a human being uninfluenced by dogs. Are NTs just human beings that "went to dogs" so to speak?

Of course , the fondness of most autistics for cats and the way they self identify with cats may be subject to the same analysis to a certain extent.

Just food for thought!

goodbye and meow