In this post, I intended to draw out the fact that many imaginary creatures, such as elves, may have come from a primitive misunderstanding of a real biological condition. The same disservice may have occurred in people with Dwarfism; the link to fantasy even remains in the name. I don’t think your son, or anyone else with William’s Syndrome, is an “elf”. I just think a limited understanding of science and medicine created the concept of an “elf” out of a real syndrome.

You have my most serious apologies for any insult my writing has caused.

But the social flair of William’s people actually comes from their disability. Brain scans show that people with the syndrome cannot register any kind of social fear- nothing intimidates them in a social setting, and they can’t really pick up on negative social cues. That makes them so friendly! You can frown and roll your eyes or look menacingly at a person with William’s, and typically they’ll respond with their standard friendliness.

Thanks for sharing your experience and input!

My son has infantile autism, meaning that his development was normal until around the age of two, when he started to regress. This is the form of autism that is on the rise.

His expressive communication skills are almost non-existent, but he is very outgoing. (an unusual trait for autistic individuals) Most children refuse to play with him, however, Mona accepts him unconditionally she looks out for him while he looks out for her.

It is odd that you would mention IQ. There is a problem with IQ as a measure of mental ability. The problem is that all foms of testing must assume certain subjective responses as normal. When used to evaluate an individual with cognitive disfunctions, such tests are less than meaningful. The cognitive disfunctions actually shift the priorities away from communications and toward other skills. Since IQ tests rely on the subjects ability to communicate some response, or to respond to communication from the test-giver,

When seeing the term “elf” coupled with a medical condition, I recalled my surprise, back in an undergrad psychology course, when I learned that terms like “imbecile,” “moron” and “idiot” were once used as serious professional attempts to describe mental conditions.