That last bit about reading research papers reminded me very much of a specific paragraph in a section of the Jargon File (which I guess is an example of the mechanism in question). I think it, together with the paper by Michelle et al, gives a partial explanation to why many autistic people make good programmers.

“Although high general intelligence is common among hackers, it is not the sine qua non one might expect. Another trait is probably even more important: the ability to mentally absorb, retain, and reference large amounts of ‘meaningless’ detail, trusting to later experience to give it context and meaning. A person of merely average analytical intelligence who has this trait can become an effective hacker, but a creative genius who lacks it will swiftly find himself outdistanced by people who routinely upload the contents of thick reference manuals into their brains.”

So at times I had to pick nearly at random and hope I got the right ones, and sometimes I picked something I knew sounded awkward rather than pick something that sounded smoother and risk getting it more “wrong” some other way, and sometimes I did it vice versa.

I love this translation. It sounds like a French mind did and apprehended the science of Dawson and Mottron.

It’s good to know the science in a bit more depth, and to know that the perceptual abilities of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders are recognised and valued and acknowledged.

tres bien. Merci.

It shows an interesting power of theory of mind to do this translation. You have to choose between equally valid words and phrases, sometimes, in order to try to approach the meaning of the words that came from a French speaking mind.

Of course, translators can just fit the words to their own world view and trample on the intentions of the original speaker, but Autism Diva’s guess is that you did a good job of approximating the intentions of the speakers.

Michelle seems to approve of this translation, so it looks like that even from a more informed view that you did a good job. Perhaps she will clarify her view here.

Anyway, thanks.