In this chapter, I propose how as professionals, we need to shift our skills from diagnostic activities to relational curiosity and so develop collaborative ways of conversing with people who have Asperger Syndrome and others in their...
moreIn this chapter, I propose how as professionals, we need to shift our skills from diagnostic activities to relational curiosity and so develop collaborative ways of conversing with people who have Asperger Syndrome and others in their networks. Through immersing ourselves in dialogue with people and their social and professional networks, we can bring forth evidence of people with Asperger Syndrome having unique and useful expertise which can play a part in resolving concerns and improving communication between those in their networks. Not only is it socially productive but it is also ethical for professionals to shift their focus from an exploration of ‘mind’ as commonly believed to exist solely within an individual person and to the relational contexts so influential on what we are constructing with each other through talk and how that shapes what is able to be recognised and developed.
By foregrounding dialogue over diagnosis, we see how experimenting with user friendly talk can provide opportunities for symptoms and features of High Functioning Autism / Asperger Syndrome (Wing 1981; Gillberg 1991) to be understood as meaningful communications in which the ‘disabled’ person is experienced as able and enabling. The individualised account of the person having been diagnosed as having Asperger’s Syndrome is exchanged for descriptions of an interactive social system. I will show how ‘mind’ is relocated from the cognitive brain to the social opportunistic space created between people.
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Simon, Gail (2016). Thinking Systems. 'Mind' as relational activity. opportunities for communicating within relationships. In Re-thinking Autism: critical approaches in a global context by Runswick-Cole, K., Mallett, R. & Timimi, S. (Eds.). London: Jessica Kingsley Publications.
