While Iāve never been diagnosed, Iām convinced Iām dislexic and maybe mild attention deficit. My son is both and I see him struggle with the same things I did when younger. I figure I made it this far in life without have a lable no need to have a doctor confirm my suspicions.
For accuracy, not clinically autistic, but yeah much higher than your prototypical engineer on the autism spectrum. What you might think of as a high functioning Aspergers. Sheldon Cooper on the Big Bang Theory is an extreme characterization (without the narcissism). I put the smiley face here just to show Iām cool with it.
I have a grandson with Aspergers, so I am very familiar with the characteristics. He is doing well now, but certainly went through his share of struggles as a young child. His dad (my son-in-law), a mechanical engineer who designs tower cranes, also has Aspergers.
Right, Iāve never been told that I am dyslexic, back in the day you didnāt tell kids that, just āyou have a learning disabilityā. Iāve figured it out in the 45 years since. Needless to say that I love computers and spelling and grammar programs.
Never worried about it or tried to cope. Was actually quite beneficial to my chosen field. Without getting into all the engineering disciplines, the one that probably best describes my career is as a Test and Evaluation (T&E) engineer. The desire to figure out what works and what doesnāt is much stronger than my desire to create. Life is a puzzle waiting to be solved. On the other hand would never succeed as a supervisor or a marketing person. You have to be able to read people.
And that is why I chose ānon-neurotypicalā as my word choice, not trying to be PC just see several of these as evolutionary tradeoffs. My dyslexia has locked me out of anything that resembles a writer, but I think very visually which is a big help in most things technical.
Back in my day left handedness was seen as a problem to be corrected.
I flunked the first grade because I refused to comply.
I got it back when I skipped the 9th.
Reading about a study of creative people, the most accurate description I have read of my affliction was; "instead of an individual, they are a plethora." - but thatās OK. They know me here.
āSquirrel!ā - best laugh of the day @ian, thanks for that.