Some boys don't lie

Kids with Asperger's, like Willie, have a very very hard time lying. It appears to be almost impossible. We have never experienced Willie lying.

Mark Haddox in his book about high performance autism kids seems to indicate that for these kids the world is so confusing, so mentally hard to figure out, that it actually hurts (like sea sickness in your tummy). So lying is way-way-counter-productive = it makes one sick, makes the world even more confusing, and therefore is almost genetically impossible.

The school, of course, doesn't believe this. Schools believe every kid can lie, and suspect most (we teach teachers, we have evidence. It is painful to hear teacher talk so mistrustfully of the kids).

So last week the wife of a teacher accused Willie of smoking in the school parking lot. She has not even met Willie, has no evidence, but rumor is enough.

This week he found his lost jacket in the school's lost-and-found and retrieved it. The school called to say another student claimed the jacket, even though the other student had not even seen the jacket.  Since the other student is rich and would not wear the brand-name jacket Willie has, and Julie identified his glasses in his jacket pocket, the school eventually gave up its unsubstantiated accusation.....

What does this have to do with academics and graduating? We are asking the same question.

Comments

[Clive French]

Very interesting first chapter .looking forward to reading the whole book.
Im from England but currently live in Hamburg Germany, dont have a car here as there is no point = public transport is efficient and cost effective plus the place is as flat as a pancake and ideal for a bike. It reflects the new society that you describe, close and compact (only the shops are never open when you want them). From my experiences of living in the US I would agree to your theory of work/living locations, however i would suggest that it is very pronounced in the US compared with Europe and perhaps is so because of the relative poulation densities. Interesting developments in the UK is the massive shift between North/South where people are moving en mass to the South East chasing the new jobs. I guess there is little option for working at home yet and they havnt sorted out the train system either....in my experience employers do prefer to see their staff turn up for the day!!!!..

Question: The massive changes of the last century made two world wars possible, will the next changes yield a similar senario?, im not so sure i agree with you on the redistribution of wealth thats a large step for the human race to take..nice thought though, but if it were to happen will it make me richer or poorer.........................
All the best

[David R. Williams]

There is liitle me in the big city of London - which is actually a whole bunch of cities densely packed together - thinking I just about knew about what was happening techonolgy wise and you educated me to know that people don't want to spend valuable time driving they would prefer to go by train.

In London we price a journey on how much the fuel would cost, that is why they brought in congestion charging makes you think of using public transport. Catch a train to another city and your charged the full price, looks mighty expensive compared with car fuel costs ($7 a gallon!) but nobody takes the real cost of car ownership into account. A car costs say £18,000 new - just 36 months later is it ony worth £7,000.

What is happening in the UK is that on-line with home delivery is taking business away from the High Street and the High Street are blaming Asda (Walmart) - In my own opinion the State should control all public transport because then they can gather taxes from travellers and keep other taxes low but maybe they have read you book.