This is an excerpt from the book "Aspergers - An Intentional Life" about the origins of the view of the pathology of behavior..
This book is a compilation of my thoughts, re-
flections and observations about Aspergers. I be-
gan to consider I had Aspergers when I was in
my 60s. In the 1990s there was a TV show where
a character was supposed to have Aspergers and
he scooted around the office holding his hands
on his thighs as he ran down hallways. It was
fairly easy to dismiss such a farcical presentation
as having little humor and no relevance. How-
ever, over time I began to encounter more realis-
tic although fragmentary descriptions such that I
began to consider the possibility.
Getting Information from systems with vested
interests;
When one first begins research, one encounters a
great volume of “expert" information. This infor-
mation is not always accurate or helpful. There
are two reasons for this. The first is distortions
that come from the hubris of academia. This in-
stitution has a long established practice of foist-
ing off labels, categories, descriptions, and defi-
nitions as if they were understanding. The sec-
ond reason is distortions that produce profits.
The medical system is first and foremost a busi-
ness. There is money to be made assigning labels
and peddling remedies while processing people
as components.
These two systems with their own agendas and
interests often end up muddying the waters for
those who seek to understand. One has to wade
through many assertions and declarations to try
to find a nugget or two of truth that can actually
be useful.
A third obfuscating institutional system is the
educational system. This system is less a source
of information, but more threatening in its opera-
tion. The government industrial educational
complex has managed to be able to claim credit
for student success while blaming students as
“disabled” for student failure. Protected by an
almost impenetrable blanket of self-
righteousness, and a teary-eyed claim of benefit-
ing children, they often act to cull from the herd
those children that would require effort on their
part to deal with. Bright children learn more and
dim ones learn less regardless of what a teacher
may do or not do.
Like another institutional system, prison, school
is a place where weakness is exposed and ex-
ploited. Failure to comply with teachers and fail-
ure to conform to students often results in being
subjected to ridicule, bullying, and a host of
anxiety producing situations that can cripple the
development of a child.
Chapter 2 — How behavior became pathology
There are some physiological conditions that re-
sult in behavior problems such as with some tu-
mors or brain injury or malformation such as
with severe autism. However, these are not very
common and are usually so profound as to dis-
tinctly herald a causative pathology. However,
recently the range of what is considered
“normal” has been narrowed. There was a time
prior to mandatory public education when a di-
versity of behavior was more widely accepted.
Being a character, unique, or different was not
the anathema it is today.
By way of background, we can examine what
came to be called ADHD. Henry Ford perhaps
best demonstrated the efficiency of mass produc-
tion. This was greatly expanded during world
war II. So many people had come to accept the
mass production of war material such as tanks
and planes and the mass processing of soldiers
and sailors that the continuing mass processing
of children in school was never questioned.
However after the war the intensification of the
mass processing began to reveal problems. Not
every child could pass through the system with-
out difficulty. However, no one seemed to ques-
tion the assumption that uniform conveyor-like
processing was suitable for all children.
Charitable organizations like the Easter Seal so-
ciety had grown during the early 20th century
into massive financial fund raising machines.
They funneled many of their donations into
medical research to find cures for various child-
hood diseases. The vaccine for polio was greatly
aided through their funding. In 1963 the Easter
seal society held a meeting with the National In-
stitute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness
Public Health Service that resulted in a paper
published in 1966, DHEW publication (NIH 76-
349). This document was written by Sam D. Cle-
mets an associate professor in the University of
Arkansas Medical School. The paper was titled
“Minimal Brain Dysfunction in Children”. This
was the result of “task force one“ which was sup-
posed to provide a definitional emphasis from a
medical perspective. This report acknowledges
that there is no physiological causative condition.
However, as can be seen from the paper title,
there was every expectation of medical technol-
ogy finding one eventually.
Essentially, the assumption was that difficulty in
being processed in the school machine was in-
dicative of some defect or pathology (as yet un-
known) in the child that required intervention
and correction.
Task force two was supposed to recommend edu-
cational solutions but then also redefined the
definitions of the first task force such that by
1972 the following criteria was widely accepted;
(a) hyperactivity-constant, involuntary elevation
of general activity level;
(b) attention-concentration deficits-inability to
persist in an activity for long periods of time;
(c) impulsivity-inadequate inhibition or media-
tion of behavior by the higher thought processes;
(d) disobedience-difficulty reported by parents or
other authority figures in controlling the child's
conduct by routine disciplinary methods;
(e) reduced capacity for delaying gratification;
(f) academic achievement below the child's
measured intellectual ability;
(g) generalized unhappiness and lack of
selfesteem;
(h) presence of troublesome behavior patterns,
such as temper tantrums, destructiveness, and
school truancy;
(i) so-called "soft" neurological signs, includ-
ing clumsiness, poor balance, impaired fine mo-
tor coordination, and deficient visual-motor or-
ganization; perceptual and cognitive dysfunc-
tions, such as visual and auditory discrimination
problems and reduced capacity for abstract con-
cept formation.
It is not difficult to see that rather than a perva-
sive medical condition, like polio, seeking a so-
lution like a vaccine, what is represented is the
discontent of teachers (and by them of parents)
requesting aid in processing difficult components
through their educational machine. It is strange
that everyone assumed that children were
“defective” rather than the idea of uniform bulk
processing of children was not ideal.
The discovery of a “cure” lay in the availability
of amphetamines which were discovered just be-
fore WWII and used by both sides. After the war
many people used the drug both legally and ille-
gally to boost work performance.
The medical “treatment” of ADHA
To use an illustration: If an employer declared
that shoveling 3 tons of bulk material each day
was the minimum acceptable job performance
and everyone was required to meet this standard,
it might be expected that women, children, the
aged, and the infirm might fail to meet this stan-
dard. They might even be declared “shovel dis-
abled”. However, if a medical doctor gave them
a prescription for amphetamines, they might be
able to meet the standard. It would thus appear
that support for the validity of the diagnosis of
“shovel disability” had been found
This book is a compilation of my thoughts, re-
flections and observations about Aspergers. I be-
gan to consider I had Aspergers when I was in
my 60s. In the 1990s there was a TV show where
a character was supposed to have Aspergers and
he scooted around the office holding his hands
on his thighs as he ran down hallways. It was
fairly easy to dismiss such a farcical presentation
as having little humor and no relevance. How-
ever, over time I began to encounter more realis-
tic although fragmentary descriptions such that I
began to consider the possibility.
Getting Information from systems with vested
interests;
When one first begins research, one encounters a
great volume of “expert" information. This infor-
mation is not always accurate or helpful. There
are two reasons for this. The first is distortions
that come from the hubris of academia. This in-
stitution has a long established practice of foist-
ing off labels, categories, descriptions, and defi-
nitions as if they were understanding. The sec-
ond reason is distortions that produce profits.
The medical system is first and foremost a busi-
ness. There is money to be made assigning labels
and peddling remedies while processing people
as components.
These two systems with their own agendas and
interests often end up muddying the waters for
those who seek to understand. One has to wade
through many assertions and declarations to try
to find a nugget or two of truth that can actually
be useful.
A third obfuscating institutional system is the
educational system. This system is less a source
of information, but more threatening in its opera-
tion. The government industrial educational
complex has managed to be able to claim credit
for student success while blaming students as
“disabled” for student failure. Protected by an
almost impenetrable blanket of self-
righteousness, and a teary-eyed claim of benefit-
ing children, they often act to cull from the herd
those children that would require effort on their
part to deal with. Bright children learn more and
dim ones learn less regardless of what a teacher
may do or not do.
Like another institutional system, prison, school
is a place where weakness is exposed and ex-
ploited. Failure to comply with teachers and fail-
ure to conform to students often results in being
subjected to ridicule, bullying, and a host of
anxiety producing situations that can cripple the
development of a child.
Chapter 2 — How behavior became pathology
There are some physiological conditions that re-
sult in behavior problems such as with some tu-
mors or brain injury or malformation such as
with severe autism. However, these are not very
common and are usually so profound as to dis-
tinctly herald a causative pathology. However,
recently the range of what is considered
“normal” has been narrowed. There was a time
prior to mandatory public education when a di-
versity of behavior was more widely accepted.
Being a character, unique, or different was not
the anathema it is today.
By way of background, we can examine what
came to be called ADHD. Henry Ford perhaps
best demonstrated the efficiency of mass produc-
tion. This was greatly expanded during world
war II. So many people had come to accept the
mass production of war material such as tanks
and planes and the mass processing of soldiers
and sailors that the continuing mass processing
of children in school was never questioned.
However after the war the intensification of the
mass processing began to reveal problems. Not
every child could pass through the system with-
out difficulty. However, no one seemed to ques-
tion the assumption that uniform conveyor-like
processing was suitable for all children.
Charitable organizations like the Easter Seal so-
ciety had grown during the early 20th century
into massive financial fund raising machines.
They funneled many of their donations into
medical research to find cures for various child-
hood diseases. The vaccine for polio was greatly
aided through their funding. In 1963 the Easter
seal society held a meeting with the National In-
stitute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness
Public Health Service that resulted in a paper
published in 1966, DHEW publication (NIH 76-
349). This document was written by Sam D. Cle-
mets an associate professor in the University of
Arkansas Medical School. The paper was titled
“Minimal Brain Dysfunction in Children”. This
was the result of “task force one“ which was sup-
posed to provide a definitional emphasis from a
medical perspective. This report acknowledges
that there is no physiological causative condition.
However, as can be seen from the paper title,
there was every expectation of medical technol-
ogy finding one eventually.
Essentially, the assumption was that difficulty in
being processed in the school machine was in-
dicative of some defect or pathology (as yet un-
known) in the child that required intervention
and correction.
Task force two was supposed to recommend edu-
cational solutions but then also redefined the
definitions of the first task force such that by
1972 the following criteria was widely accepted;
(a) hyperactivity-constant, involuntary elevation
of general activity level;
(b) attention-concentration deficits-inability to
persist in an activity for long periods of time;
(c) impulsivity-inadequate inhibition or media-
tion of behavior by the higher thought processes;
(d) disobedience-difficulty reported by parents or
other authority figures in controlling the child's
conduct by routine disciplinary methods;
(e) reduced capacity for delaying gratification;
(f) academic achievement below the child's
measured intellectual ability;
(g) generalized unhappiness and lack of
selfesteem;
(h) presence of troublesome behavior patterns,
such as temper tantrums, destructiveness, and
school truancy;
(i) so-called "soft" neurological signs, includ-
ing clumsiness, poor balance, impaired fine mo-
tor coordination, and deficient visual-motor or-
ganization; perceptual and cognitive dysfunc-
tions, such as visual and auditory discrimination
problems and reduced capacity for abstract con-
cept formation.
It is not difficult to see that rather than a perva-
sive medical condition, like polio, seeking a so-
lution like a vaccine, what is represented is the
discontent of teachers (and by them of parents)
requesting aid in processing difficult components
through their educational machine. It is strange
that everyone assumed that children were
“defective” rather than the idea of uniform bulk
processing of children was not ideal.
The discovery of a “cure” lay in the availability
of amphetamines which were discovered just be-
fore WWII and used by both sides. After the war
many people used the drug both legally and ille-
gally to boost work performance.
The medical “treatment” of ADHA
To use an illustration: If an employer declared
that shoveling 3 tons of bulk material each day
was the minimum acceptable job performance
and everyone was required to meet this standard,
it might be expected that women, children, the
aged, and the infirm might fail to meet this stan-
dard. They might even be declared “shovel dis-
abled”. However, if a medical doctor gave them
a prescription for amphetamines, they might be
able to meet the standard. It would thus appear
that support for the validity of the diagnosis of
“shovel disability” had been found
