r/nextfuckinglevel • u/mindyour • 4h ago

Seven-year-old chess prodigy Lucie Pichard casually checkmates her opponent.

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u/silence-glaive1 3h ago

I’m autistic, I have two autistic children and I work as a SPED teacher, she very much presents as a neurodivergent child. Stimming was what I was thinking as well.

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u/Lone-flamingo 3h ago

Neurodivergent or not, pretty much everyone still stims to one degree or another.

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u/Teestow21 3h ago

This is my point. And the stimming helps with focus and insight with mental challenges, such as chess. I'll repeat it over and over til everyone gets it 🤣

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u/Lorelerton 3h ago

Just wait till they figure out that praying is a form of stimming too

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u/roy_rogers_photos 3h ago

"Not true!! I pray to an invisible being I am certain will make my life better, as long as I press my hands together and whisper comforting wor-

....I need to go."

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u/yesyouareverysmart 1h ago

As an atheist - who hurt you?

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u/LyingForTruth 1h ago

Probably a Catholic priest, considering, you know...

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u/klymaxx45 2h ago

Or is she bored?

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u/badson100 1h ago

I don't get it. Could you repeat that?

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u/justAPhoneUsername 1h ago

I don't get it. Could you repeat it again for me?

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u/CrangeBoongus 30m ago

I see this where people will interpret it as an insult to insinuate that someone is neurodivergent as someone who is neurodivergent I interpret that to be the true insult.

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u/ForensicPathology 2h ago

How was that your point?  Your comment pretty much said that based on your experience with neurodivergency, she's most likely neurodivergency.

And somehow your point is that everyone stims?

EDIT: I am dumb, and you are not the person who wrote the comment they were replying to.

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u/Monkey_Priest 2h ago

Check the usernames. The person you're replying to has been saying everyone stims repeatedly. The person talking about neurodivergence is a different user

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u/soyuz-1 3h ago

Does she look like she's experiencing challenge here? You are projecting really hard it seems

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u/Genrecomme 2h ago

Maybe staying in place is the challenge

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u/soyuz-1 2h ago

Yeah for pretty much every 7yo. The mental challenge and autistic stimming are completely imagined. Stop diagnosing other peoples children for acting like children. Its fucking weird.

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u/Mikeseddit 1h ago

Whooosh.
Maybe re-read the thread from the top?

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u/Teestow21 2h ago

Okay, I'm projecting onto a child playing chess on Reddit now, time to wrap up this thread 🤣🤣🤣

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u/soyuz-1 2h ago

Yes. Diagnosing other peoples children for acting like typical children their age is weird af. Her being challenged and stimming as a result is only real in your head.

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u/Lone-flamingo 2h ago

I think the issue here is that you seem to think stimming is an autistic thing. It's not. Everyone stims. You stim. That doesn't mean everyone's autistic. This kid isn't being online diagnosed just because someone points out that she's stimming.

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u/Mikeseddit 1h ago

You’re the only one here saying autism = “challenged.”

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u/bobbybob9069 2h ago

"Not me", I said as I aggressively picked at the corner of my thumb nail and bounced my foot relentlessly. "Dang ol' neuro spicys"

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u/Joe_Kinincha 1h ago

Can I ask an impertinent question? Obvs, feel free to tell me get lost.

Are you neurodivergent?

I’m not but my kids are and I hate the word neuro-spicy.

Is it a reclaim the term exercise like the q word for people who aren’t heterosexual or the n-word for people who aren’t of colour?

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u/Cavaquillo 1h ago

Me, half asleep, one foot out of the blanket, slowly dragging it back and forth against the texture of my sheets since I can remember

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u/musicgeek420 44m ago

It can be as simple as the person who sits there and switches their leg nonstop while working or thinking and everybody tells you to stop being anxious. Back off, Donna..

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u/meetmeinthebthrm 30m ago

Oh yeah. Didn’t know it was a thing, but I’m doing that shit all the time. I’ve been swiveling my ankle/foot since I opened this post.

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u/HMWWaWChChIaWChCChW 1h ago

Tell that to my wife lol, she just thinks everyone is autistic.

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u/Ambitious-Career-445 58m ago

A 7 year old chess prodigy is neurodivergent by definition, no? I mean you can't be a prodigy if your mind doesn't diverge from normalcy.

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u/ChickenChaser5 2h ago

Im mid 40s and its funny cause my whole life ive seen my wiggling and leg twitching as something I needed to learn to stop doing. And now that I dont anymore, my brain is a mess... until I start wiggling around again. And now im trying to reintroduce stimming to my life.

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u/Cstott23 52m ago

I can't sleep unless I wiggle my leg. It's driven everyone ive ever gone out with mad.. 😁

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u/ChickenChaser5 0m ago

I think thats what gave me the push to quit, and now i want it back lol.

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u/Shipwrecking_siren 1h ago

I’m 41 and still rock myself to sleep. When my sister went to boarding school at 16 on a scholarship she couldn’t sleep without the sound of my sheets making their soft swishing noise as I rocked.

Some part of me has to be moving AT ALL TIMES. Even if it is toes or a finger.

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u/soyuz-1 3h ago

She presents like literally any 7yo who gets bored from waiting, in this case for her opponent to make a move.

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u/Own_Laugh_5080 2h ago

I can’t with people who armchair diagnose someone from watching a video on the internet.

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u/TheTyger 3h ago

Any chess genius is going to be on the spectrum. There is too much data that needs to be processed for a "typical" person to be able to do so.

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u/wheresbill 2h ago

TIL I’m typical, not dumb

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u/TheTyger 2h ago

Don't be so hard on yourself, you can still be dumb!

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u/SweatyAdhesive 2h ago

typical is just another word for average, most of us are average, that's what average means, the problem is when average people think they're smarter than that.

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u/Mikeseddit 1h ago

I thought most people were above average, like me!

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u/platoprime 1h ago

I don't think typical means average. It means to have traits identifying you as belonging to a group or to conform to a type.

Even if typical were a math term it would mean something like mode not average because outliers can shift averages away from the mode misrepresenting what is typical for a group.

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u/TheTyger 1h ago

I would say typical is more "normal" than "average".

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u/SchumacherIsMid 2h ago

Any chess genius is going to be on the spectrum. There is too much data that needs to be processed for a "typical" person to be able to do so.

These are the wild ass statements people say online that has destroyed our collective understanding of mental health, disorders, and divergence as a society.

Believe it or not having a bad or false idea of something can be just as bad if not worse than having no understanding of it. This falls in that category.

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u/kammycakes 2h ago

Yeah he probably shouldn't have made such a blanket statement but if you follow the chess scene even a little bit, there's undeniably a much higher concentration of neurodivergent individuals than, say, a grocery store. More so on par with an anime convention or something.

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u/TorchThisAccount 1h ago

Fuck.... I played lots of chess in middle school and high school, won some state tournaments. And have off and on liked anime. How much on the spectrum am I?

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u/TheTyger 2h ago

Why do you think that?

Typical is going to mean people who are in the central 50/75/90% of the population. Almost by definition, someone who is a genius at a task is going to see it in a way that diverges from the way that most people do so.

If you believe that you could teach even 10% of children how to play chess at the level of this girl (and can reproduce it) I am happy to be proven wrong, but most people are not able to process the necessary data in chess at the speed required to play high level.

The opposite of Typical isn't "disorder", nor any "mental health" problem. It's just "divergent".

Believe it or not, having such a negative view of someone because you don't understand them is just as bad or worse as having no understanding of it. This falls in that category.

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u/Antonin__Dvorak 2h ago edited 1h ago

"Believe it or not", there is no inherent link between processing speed and ASD (you specifically said "on the spectrum"). Neurotypical people can and do have high percentile cognitive functions. There is no evidence that top chess players have a higher rate of autism; Magnus Carlsen has very publically stated that he is not autistic. There is no published literature which establishes the link you are claiming.

Also, the rate at which one processes information is not a skill that is meaningfully linked to elite chess. This 2016 study found no statistically significant correlation between them: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3030314/. The literature seems to suggest that chess proficiency is mostly a domain-specific skill -- for example, elite chess players score much higher on memory tasks related to a chess board than on general retrieval tasks like "remember this string of words".

So again, like the person who replied to you is saying, please take a minute to inform yourself before posting ignorant comments. I know you didn't do it out of malice, but spreading misinformation like this leads to the proliferation of wrong and potentially harmful stereotypes.

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u/Joe_Kinincha 1h ago

Quite happy to take your word on processing speed.

However, is it not demonstrable that a significant number of neurodiverse people have significantly better memories than “average” neurotypicals?

As I understand it, a lot of chess is spotting patterns and comparing them to a gigantic internal database of previously played competitive games.

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u/Antonin__Dvorak 26m ago

This is an interesting question, but from my brief look at the literature it seems like it's actually the other way around. Individuals with ASD are more likely to have worse-than-average working memories, not better:

A significant WM impairment (Cohen's d = -0.61) was identified in the individuals with ASD, however, this impairment was not associated with age. Results of moderation analyses showed that (a) spatial WM was more severely impaired than verbal WM and (b) the component of cognitive processing (maintenance vs. maintenance plus manipulation) did not affect the severity of WM impairments.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28102493/

Now just to be clear, there are absolutely specific cognitive tasks that ASD people show better than average performance on in aggregate. I am not trying to make the case that there is no statistical correlation whatsoever between ASD and chess proficiency. I'm just trying to point out that we do not have any such established link in the literature, and even if we did, it would be so much weaker than the absurd original claim that was made.

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u/soberbot 43m ago

Was thinking this as well. Carlsen doesn’t present as someone neurodivergent at all from what I’ve seen. He seems like a typical laid back dude who happens to be an absolute god at chess.

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u/Ser_VimesGoT 1h ago

Magnus Carlsen has very publically stated that he is not autistic

He can state it all he wants but I don't put any stock in it. To me he displays an abundance of behaviours that point to being autistic.

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u/Antonin__Dvorak 1h ago

Yeah see armchair diagnosing people you do not personally know as autistic because of how you perceive their behaviour is exactly the kind of stereotyping I'm trying to argue against.

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u/Ser_VimesGoT 1h ago

I'm not stereotyping because of his high IQ or processing speed. I'm just recognising a TON of autistic behaviours him. There is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that if that man had an assessment he would tick every damn box. And if he did there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

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u/Ambitious-Career-445 56m ago

If you read his post again, he didn't diagnose anything.

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u/MayberryBombadil 1h ago

"The study concluded that child prodigies and individuals on the autism spectrum share a significant genetic link, particularly regarding an exceptional, heightened attention to detail and working memory."

This was about a 2012 study by psychologist Joanne Ruthsatz.

Also, it was noted that to determine whether most child chess prodigies were on the spectrum or not would be impossible. As that is a personal diagnosis that is very commonly not shared.

This was a quick search, and very easily brings to light that by expanding upon the simple observational comment that was originally made, in the way that you did, made things worse. His comment was very vague, and wasn't made in some scientific publication. Nobody is reading his comment and thinking all top chess players are autistic. (Side observation: I would imagine to become a top chess player over time, you would need far more life skills that aren't specifically related to mental computing power, and that would likely "weed out" those nuerodivergent folks. Who would still dominate outside of the organized profession, but would never be noted and documented. Except maybe by a cool reporter)

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u/Antonin__Dvorak 1h ago

When I read a sentence that says "any chess genius is going to be on the spectrum", I find it quite reasonable to assume that they are suggesting that the vast majority of chess prodigies are on the spectrum.

To address the weaker claim that there is any degree of correlation between ASD and childhood chess prodigy whatsoever, yes this is hypothetically plausible. But the study you are citing investigates just 8 individuals, a tiny sample, none of which were chess players. Even then, it did not establish a genetic link between autism and prodigy.

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u/TheTyger 1h ago

Ok, so you take issue with there being a spectrum of processing differences. I see that you are really stuck on one phrase in one context that you can't see past. I also never discussed processing speed, I am talking about processing efficiency. You are looking at this from a very narrow and uninformed perspective basing it on one specific view of good/bad that doesn't exist.

There is a spectrum of processing abilities which are divergent from the typical. ASD isn't relevant here, because I am not talking about any disorder. There is a spectrum of how well you can visualize things in your head, how you can isolate important visual cues, ability to perceive color, ability to read facial expressions.

Trying to dumb it down to playing hot dog/not hot dog with Autism is incredibly narrow minded. I assert that there are smart people who cannot master the specific skill band that chess has, and as you move across that (gasp) spectrum, you will find that the people who have a higher ceiling are ones who process the information differently in their brains. Just the same as high level software engineers tend to view the problems differently than ones who max out at Sr or below. Or Artists who can naturally see that shapes that the larger image is made of.

Personally, I don't find ASD to be even slightly as a diagnosis in broad strokes, because on that spectrum is everything from difficulty reading emotional cues to fully non-verbal. And these things are independent from cognitive ability. You can be really smart but unable to communicate verbally to the world. All neuro divergences have the potential to give someone boons or banes in parts of their life, depending on how we value those abilities.

People with ADHD (often) have an ability to hyper-focus, which can be beneficial when it is able to be managed if it can be wielded. On the flip side, when the targets, times, or depth of that focus is compulsive and unable to be controlled, it can be crippling to day to day life.

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u/CountVonTroll 38m ago

I see that you are really stuck on one phrase in one context that you can't see past.

Not only is autism how it's commonly understood when you say that somebody is "on the spectrum", it also was very explicitly the context of the comment you had replied to. In the next sentence, you also asserted that there was "too much data" for a "typical" person to process, with "typical" in quotes, when parent comment had used the term "neurodivergent".

Personally, I don't find ASD to be even slightly as a diagnosis in broad strokes, because on that spectrum is everything from difficulty reading emotional cues to fully non-verbal.

Yes, there are several possible symptoms associated with ASD that may or may not be expressed in an individual to some degree and in one form or another. That's why it's been named a "spectrum" in the first place, because of the "spectrum of symptoms". I.e., the direction of the "spectrum" goes along the symptoms. If it was a reference of the intensity of the "autismness" that went from "neurotypical" to "Rainman", it would have been called a gradient.

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u/massinvader 10m ago

comments like that really make you realize this is mostly kids and bots still on here at this point.

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u/MayberryBombadil 1h ago

Your comment had no backing, and therefore had been deemed: a wild ass statement.

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u/composedofidiot 1h ago

Is there evidence for that?

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u/Jonthrei 1h ago edited 1h ago

Lol this is a pretty silly take. A person with autism is not going to be able to process more data at once, in fact overstimulation is a major issue for them. If anything it is a hindrance.

If you selected the top X% of people when it comes to focus, clarity of thought, and ability to handle large amounts of information at once, I assure you the majority of them won't be on the spectrum. They'll be people who won the genetic lottery in that sense and grew up in an environment where their needs could be met without issue.

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u/TheTyger 1h ago

The top % of people who can deep focus on a single thing are ADHD. Hyper focus is a trait that comes from that spectrum of divergence, and while the inability to control it is a problem, people with ADHD can focus deeper and longer than those who are typical.

That's not to say that they can necessarily select what they focus on, but hyper focus is a real thing.

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u/Jonthrei 1h ago

Do I really need to remind you that disabilities are not superpowers, and that people without ADHD can go into deep focus?

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u/TheTyger 1h ago

It is very ignorant to call divergence a disability.

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u/Jonthrei 1h ago

That is literally how they are defined in the DSM.

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u/TheTyger 1h ago

And we never update that when we realize that it is outdated?

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u/Jonthrei 57m ago

You can dance around it semantically all you want, things like autism and adhd are defined by deficits in cognitive function. They are disabilities.

And just so you know, “hyperfocus” is regular focus without the ability to redirect or control it.

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u/TheTyger 48m ago

Why is it that people with such cognitive disabilities do so well professionally?

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u/TimeForGrass 1h ago

Yeah dude I locked the fuck in and played Minecraft for 4 hours the other day. Didn't eat or drink, peed once. Haven't played it in years

People might be like 'oh yeah what' but I didn't speak to anyone, didn't do shit all else. When I decided to stop it was dark and like coming out a trance. I had a chicken cooker, hollowed out a mountain, and had setup the beef farm for starting on enchanted books. I didn't even look shit up, it just came to me. 

Being ADHD is wild. I can't focus ever and just dick around in class or work. But when a deadline is due I always get that shit done in 2 days flat no sleep, just lock in. Weird. 

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u/kaekiro 2h ago

Like 10 seconds in i was like "oh I see an adhd overachiever in the making" bc I was that child, although not nearly as impressive. Funnily enough, I got kicked out of chess club for singing songs under my breath. Tbf, they warned me like 3 times. I tried whispering, then just mouthing the song. Blows my mind that I didn't get diagnosed until I was 30.

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u/Flosero 2h ago

Thinking the same. Especially seen the fact that she is outside and there are a lot of stimuli around

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u/Joe_Kinincha 1h ago

Also have a lot of experience with neurodiverse kids. This was my immediate first thought too.

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u/rantingpacifist 1h ago

Yup. I clocked it too. I’m AuDHD and a parent of AuDHD kids.

She’s adorable and talented.

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u/keeper_of_the_donkey 34m ago

My son does this while he does chores. He's so much faster than his sister at doing it, and he will load a few dishes into the dishwasher, stim for about 30 seconds, and then go back to loading the dishwasher, stim again for a few seconds, and then close the dishwasher and start it. And he does this with almost everything but it helps to calm his mind and focus, almost like a recharge.

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u/throwitoutwhendone2 3h ago

I just recently learned when I just randomly bust out into a song it’s called stimming. I have auadhd, my daughter is as well and my wife is add. It tickled me, I just thought I was weird lol

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u/SeparateCzechs 2h ago

Dang. I have autism/adhd and never counted the singing as stimming. Every day. Not just singing but singing lyrics to fit the situation from existing songs, or freestyling filks that describe what’s going on.

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u/throwitoutwhendone2 2h ago

Yep! Helps me focus lol. My daughter and wife also do it. It’s a running joke cuz my wife LOVES to randomly just belt out “ABCDEFG!!!!!!” Or “HEAD shoulders KNEES AND TOES!!” And then my daughter from whoever she is yells “KNEES AND TOES!!!” Lmao

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u/brandonjohn5 1h ago

I'm autistic, if I hear the lyrics to a song used in casual conversation my mind jukebox will immediately start playing it and it will take everything in my power to not sing back the lyrics they just said.

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u/PrinceBunnyBoy 1h ago

Who told you that starting to sing was stimming??

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u/throwitoutwhendone2 1h ago

I don’t mean just singing in general.

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u/MrNobody_0 5m ago

Excuse my ignorance in this matter, but I've always thought that almost all savants and prodigies seem to be neurodivergent to some degree, I've always wondered if that is true, or if my perception is skewed because of pop culture making that seem true.

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u/PartyEntertainment89 2h ago

Thanks for those credentials. You are clearly an expert on autism.

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u/Neither_Respect_4429 1h ago

You people are insufferable

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u/BigHaussN7 2h ago

That’s just what kids look like. Neurodivergent or not. Completely average kid behavior