Gilroy Was Here

I recently stumbled across a video of Clifford Stoll giving a talk at TED about … well pretty much about whatever was on his mind at the time. Most people who watch this video will most assuredly ask, “What’s wrong with this guy?”

My take is a little different than most of the comments I’ve seen floating around the web. I’m wondering if Cliff has signs or symptoms of what a community of psychologists would call a disorder on the “Autism Spectrum”.

If you haven’t done much research on Autism you might want to if you have kids. In my humble opinion, Autism is quickly overtaking ADD/ADHD as the “diagnoses of choice” for many children and adults that don’t quite fit in.

If you know me or have read my “Random Stuff” page, you know that I was diagnosed with ADD as an adult after going to see a psychologist with complaints about not being able to focus on my work. My son Chase has recently been evaluated by our local county “Intervention Unit” and it has been suggested that we get him tested for being on the “Autism Spectrum”.

This “Spectrum” can apparently be anything from full blown Autism (yes like Rain Man, ticks and all) to high-functioning but anti-social behavior, to something called Asperger’s Syndrome. Basically my son has so much energy that he has trouble staying in his own skin when he’s not doing something he wants to do. I’m feeling the same way lately.

Anyway, long story short, I’ve been doing quite a bit of research into this topic along with buying a pretty good book called “Autism Spectrum Disorders, The Complete Guide to Understanding Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, Pervasive Development Disorder, and other ASDs”. The book is pretty good. I especially liked what it had to say about the usefulness of using these labels to begin with for the gain of your child.

Ok so I didn’t really make the long story short, but back to the main point. After reading this book I happened to watch the afore-mentioned video of Cliff giving a pretty darn scatter-brained speech and thought, he acts very much like Chase does at 5 years old.

Will that be how Chase acts when he’s older, or will he learn to adjust? I looked for more information on Cliff and whether or not he had been diagnosed but found none. Anyone know if Clifford Stoll is Autistic?