^ I wonder about that though. Autism is now seen as a spectrum condition, suggesting shades of grey in cognitive abilities, rather than damage. I've also met some incredibly perceptive and intelligent people that end up having kids that are autistic. It suggests a genetic component, rather than damage, though sometimes genetic mutations are not beneficial, but detrimental or handicaps.
But these people are aware of behavioral/emotional aspects that most others aren't and seem to put a lot of thought into understanding other people; perhaps it's due to a focused ability to think deeply about everything going on around them because it doesn't come intuitively, as the frontal lobe damage theory might suggest, but then at the same time these people have no problem multi-tasking (although one has a hard time with people interjecting dialogue - he tends to monologues and gets frustrated if people interrupt, though honestly I think he just likes to make sure people understand his 'point'). And they are also really well at dealing with obstacles in their lives. One of them, I roughly asked "Why, given a chance to make a mistake, do you assume everything will be fine?" and he waited a couple moments and responded "Because I'm confident in my ability to handle life". He had a good point, "Since the chance for failure was so low, why not be confident?" I had thought. I don't usually take advice from people because most of the time I already know what someone is going to suggest, but I don't forget things that reasonable people say.
But yeah, does this mean when people decide they have a cognitive problem, neuroscience is going to look for what is different about them and label it damage? Is that what autism has become to a neuroscientist?
