Another good TV Series

[Methuselah]

Astrid
We’re watching another series from PBS with the title above. The star is a young woman who is on the Autism scale. Shot in Paris, in French with good English subtitles, she is a file clerk in a police station. Although it is beyond her job description, she reads all files that come in, and retains their content in her head. She is very skillful at detecting problems in the many reports she gets, such as several murders that may be due to one undetected serial killer. She lacks verbal communication skills as is typical with Autism. One of the detectives makes the effort to communicate with her, and solves several crimes due to the reviews she gives. We have a family member on the Autism scale, and it all looks plausible to us. I was surprised to find in a Google search that 1 in 44 Americans are on the scale. You also see scenes from Paris, including the interior of an excellent dinosaur museum where the last show we watched was filmed.

[BoSoxGal]

Do they all die at the end?

[Methuselah]

I can't talk about that. Were you able to access either one of the two programs I described here?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Do they all die at the end?

The dinosaurs do. That doesn't sound right.

Good review Meth. Seems like a show worth a look - thank you

[BoSoxGal]

I can't talk about that. Were you able to access either one of the two programs I described here?

Yes I added Frankie Drake to my Passport watchlist. Haven’t looked up this one yet.

I’m currently laughing my way through Ghosts, American version. Ghosts British version next in line. Desperate for some laughter these days!

[Long Run]

I agree, Astrid is a good show and the lead character does an excellent job portraying her condition.

[Burning Petard]

"on the Spectrum" is now the politically correct way to say Asperger's Syndrome. Aspies have difficulty with simultaneous information overload. If they learn to handle it, they can put together datapoints a, b, 4, 703 and j to see patterns and relationships that are meaningful but completely baffling to linear thinking 'neuro typicals"

snailgate

[Methuselah]

You have it backward, snailgate. Autism was detected before Asperger's. Asperger's is a minor form to describe a less severe case of Autism. If one had a choice you'd rather be identified as someone with Asperger's rather than Autism, which can incluide much more severe problems.

[Burning Petard]

No dispute Meth; its just as I see it, it was a ploy by authoritarian figures in insurance and psychotherapy to kill all the interest Asperger Syndrome was getting . Almost to the status of disability of the month. A PhD with Aspy who liked to wear weird sport coats was getting big bucks from McDs to certify 'humane' slaughter houses' for McDs 1/4 pounders was getting entirely too much camera time on tv. Public schools in their individual plans for special needs children are no longer permitted to use Aspie,they must use 'on the spectrum'. And therapists can't use it either, if they expect a check from an insurance company. Aspie Syndrome has officially disappeared.

Many of us who are actually at that place on the syndrome believe it is because there was a growing understanding that it is not a 'handicap'. It is a difference, much like being left-handed--same category, just more extreme. There has never been a left-handed catcher in MLB who lasted very long, but there is lots of lefties covering first base and batting just fine--to the extent that is is no big deal.

snailgate

[Methuselah]

Snailgate, you appear to be facing this issue as an administrator. My wife and I faced what to do with a non-verbal kid 55 years ago. We approached the problem as prospective customers. My wife spent years bouncing off the many services in the L. A. area on what was the cause of the problem, and what we should do about it. We tried many different things that they proposed, and nothing worked. We paid in cash, lots of it, and did not attempt to get health insurance to pay for it. The only thing we got was label, Aphasia. That’s a broad label, like Ear Ache. It doesn’t tell you the cause of the problem, or what to do about it.
Our great good fortune occurred when our son was allowed into Special Education Pre-School, a free service. The sainted teacher there taught him one syllable of sound a day. Within weeks he was saying words, and within months he was talking. He still is hard to understand, but we can communicate, with effort. Years later, the describing phrase was changed from Aphasia to Autism. He wasn’t eligible for the less threatening label of Asperger’s syndrome because his symptoms were more numerous, but thankfully not at the more threatening label of extreme Autism. At its extremes, the only cure is permanent placement in a protective facility. He lives with us now. Our present problem is how do we prepare for when we are gone.
I do think Asperger’s is a handicap. The person must find people who will communicate with him despite the difficulties the handicaps cause. Certainly parents will spend a lot of time in this role, without complaint. They do face the problem of preparing for their absence, or the kid will be isolated in society.

[BoSoxGal]

I wonder if any of you with an autistic child have ever tried THC as a therapy? Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN did a special on this last week or the week before, I’m sure it’s available online. There have been truly remarkable results from treating children with autism with cannabis. From calming disruptive/self harming behaviors to facilitating better communication. Neuroscientists aren’t exactly sure why it works, just like scientists don’t know why many kinds of medicines work, just that they do.

I watched the special and cried through most of it, it was amazing to see the massive difference for the better the families experienced by giving their children cannabis. If I had an autistic child and lived where cannabis was legal and thus obtainable from safe, regulated providers growing high quality flower, I wouldn’t hesitate to try providing my child with vaporized flower or edibles to see if that might improve their experience of the the world around them and their ability to connect with others in their orbit.

Here is a clip about the program which is available on demand if you have a streaming service with CNN included. I encourage reading the comments to this YouTube clip, as some are from autistic people including Aspergers who discuss the impact cannabis use has had on their ability to function more ‘normally’ in their lives.

Someday we will all look back with shame at the war on cannabis and the millions of lives destroyed in the criminal justice system and by denial of access to this healing medicine. Of this I have zero doubt, it is one of the surest things I know in this world.

[Methuselah]

BSG, see your PMs.

[Methuselah]

Astrid is not a 50th per centile Asperger subject, she is more like a 99th percentile subject. She is very bright, has an enormous vocabulary including arcane medical and legal terms, a large long-term memory, and great deductive ability. She keeps trying to give the detectives there (mostly male) clues from what she has read from the reports she’s filed, they discount them because she is a low-level file clerk, and difficult to talk with. One of the detectives (who happens to be a woman) looks into one of Astrid’s more implausible hypothesis and finds that Astrid has indeed pointed to the culprit. The other detectives laugh at the woman detective for being so naïve, so she has a standing bet with them when one of Astrid’s theories turns out to be true they have to hand over what looks like the French equivalent of a $5 bill. They hand over a many bills as the series goes on. The woman detective must work around with Astrid’s inability to change a scheduled event, to do something new without scheduling it first, inability to tolerate noise, and for going on and on with details on the case she is describing. Astrid winds up going with the detective to crimes scenes, where she picks up many valuable clues. Astrid shows the dilemma of Aspies. They have difficulty in dealing with others, and they benefit from having a friend or co-worker who will serve as their interpreter with the non-Aspy world. All of the other Aspies share the same troubles with Astrid, whether or not they are brilliant.

[Methuselah]

Correction to prior post. I misinterpreted what percentile means in this context. Astrid is not in the 99th percentile, which include almost everyone. She is in the 1 percentile which means very few are as bright as her. I’m afraid to edit anymore.
Edit test.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I've often told people I am in the top 99% at whatever it is we are talking about. I have never heard - hey wait a minute!

[Methuselah]

I'm obviously not using the "percentile" concept correcly. Maybe even not spelling it correctly. I'll find another phrase to replace it.

[Methuselah]

We finished Season 1, enjoying all of the sessions in it. (“Session” is defined here to be one of the programs included in the Season.) We did all kinds of searches for the category listed above, Season 2. We got close but not quite there. I’ll save the details for a future rant. To get this category we finally found it on my computer under You Tube (NOT You Tube Movies) so that we could watch it on a computer. I then found my cable that connects the computer to a TV so that we can watch it on the full screen. You’ll spend some time searching through You Tube’s indexes for this group but keep trying. I’m reluctant to say to how to find things because I spent a lot of time searching and experimenting. There must be a better way than I used. The problem with this method of finding something is you can’t remember how to do it next time, leading to another series of experiments.