General Autism Discussion

Why only show autístic as chararter? Well....because its unconfortable, most story use chararter as props for the audiencia, it give a justified reason to tolerate the chararter instead of asking to deal with is autism which is something people dosent want.

Or in shot: people want pretty story, not disavantage one.

Honestly, my interest in art has paid off and at this point is the only thing I can think of that might give me sort of independence or future.

A lot of people want an uplifting story of an Inspirationally Disadvantaged Handicapped Badass overcoming everything, but don't want to deal with people with actual handicaps whenever possible.

A lot of people want an uplifting underdog story while refusing to help out the actual underdogs in society.

It's like you said. People want a pretty story. They want a feel-good story where they can project themselves into the role of a disadvantaged underdog overcoming obstacles thrown at them to win everything forever. It's All About Me basically.

That's an interesting way to put it, M84. In that case, I'd like to ask (and this is for everyone reading this), what do you think of Julia from Sesame Street being portrayed more explicitly as handicapped and different instead of Inspirationally Disadvantaged? What do you think of a character like that?

I got to a scene in the 2017 Power Rangers where Billy (who's now portrayed as autistic) accidentally knocks out a bully with his newfound strength. Right after, we see him surrounded by kids who now think he's cool, as he exaggerates what happened and portrays it as himself scratching "one douchebag" off. I thought that scene showed him as too socially aware, at least a little.

When I was in high school, this one considerably fat bully who always gave me (verbal) crap said something to me and I gave him some crap back - and he punched me. And it didn't hurt at all. Involuntarily, I just started laughing. (I then apologized for talking shit back to him and asked him to just stop it in the future - and he did)

After class, a girl went up to me and said something, I forget what, but something about it being funny that this kid punched me and I just laughed in his face. I didn't, however, exaggerate my "accomplishment" or talk it up or anything. I just felt weird getting that kind of attention.

Not saying that Billy has to be portrayed like I was, but for someone who earlier said he doesn't "get humor", it seems strange that he'd be socially aware of this situation. It may not be the same thing, but I find it an odd mismatch.

If the character is more realistic, then all the better. TBH, people moving away from the tired old Inspirationally Disadvantaged trope is a good thing.

It is a spectrum with regards to severity and simultaneously an umbrella heading for a lot of different symptoms. Performing beyond expectations in one area isn't a reason to write someone off lest you wander into No True Scotsman territory.

Part of the difficulty in potraying a character on the spectrum is that the spectrum itself is pretty wide and people are well, diverse in and of themselves.

So it's hard to get a balance and make a broadly relatable character, since different autistic people have particular struggles, quirks, and habits that are unique to them.

That's one potential issue with characters like Julia and Billy. While they are more realistic portrayals of autistic people, not everyone who is autistic behaves like them. Because it's a spectrum.

Clearly the solution is to make a show where the entire cast is autistic. Wasn't there something like that, actually?

I think the solution is to have multiple shows that have an autistic character (at least one) in them, but each one's character is different, and some dialog can make it very clear that the character has their own specific form of autism.

That will take a long way.

Anyway, I have read the whole series of the autism comic at The Guardian and I find it insightful. I recommend a read for everyone.

However, I think the gear shapes in their heads, while easy to understand for others, it paints a wrong picture to me in the sense that different gears can't fit together which brings implications that autistics and allistics can't understand each other.

I'd say that they can understand each other if they do something with it. It's like a plasticine and a mould: change the shape of mould and plasticine and eventually the two will fit into each other.

You'd need to balance it really carefully though. Otherwise it could turn into a "look at all the weirdos we have here" type of thing. Or it could be too clinical and just a glorified documentary about different forms of autism.

You run into that problem with an autistic protagonist as well. There's also a temptation to make the autistic person a "Sheldon".

I'd have a character who's autistic and into something really niche like, every movie filmed using a specific type of camera. The rest of the cast at first would be like "that's really weird and nerdy", but over time, they discover that the collection has a ton of super interesting movies in it and they're able to connect that way. Instead of a "they all meet at the coffeehouse" friends style thing, the group's connection would be movie days facilitated by the autistic cast member.

edited 22nd Jun '17 6:38:29 AM by Zendervai

Actually, different gears can mesh, and indeed the fact that they do is how gears are useful at all, by being able to transform the rotational speed or direction of an input.

That is if the gears can be fitted together. The gears drawn in the comic (part 4) doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps I'm looking too deep into it....

edited 22nd Jun '17 7:06:28 AM by murazrai

Scientists begin to understand that autistics find eye contact distressing. Now we need the public to get it.

Nawwwww. But at least they're realizing it.

Let's look up earlier in the article. Autistics themselves inspired this search for answers.

Awesome. We really are being listened to by the scientific community!

Part of the problem for me when I was younger is that looking at people's eyes for too long felt way too intimate.

Gee, you don't say? How can scientists be so slow?

The scientific process is deliberately designed to err on the side of caution. They would rather be slow to acknowledge something that is true than endorse something that is false.

Mental health services are failing young autistic people.

Of particular note to me, is this:

This is exactly what I want more people to notice. Have any of you felt a lot of pressure from this yourselves? That you feel like you have to constantly "fake it" around others, for fear they'll otherwise treat you as a "creep" or a "freak"?

See that's exactly what people need to realize. Too often people see the whole litany of anxiety problems and depression that autistic people face and blame that on autism itself, like depression is just a symptom of autism. And that needs to stop, because it lets bullies and abusers and discriminatory societies off the hook. It's like the argument I've heard from homophobes that the reason the suicide rate is so high among LGBT people is because "they were mentally unstable to start with," conveniently letting themselves and their hate off the hook.

TBH, I think this is a problem for everyone, not just people on the spectrum (though it's undoubtedly worse for them). Every society has a lot of rules and customs, unspoken or otherwise, and a certain "mold" that most people don't actually fit that well. We're all faking it to some degree.

X3 I'm lucky, I was taught to embrace it, to almost revel in being the strange kid, when I didn't make friend at school my mum set up a school chess club, when that wasn't enough she took me to tournaments, when I was still lonely i ended up going to boarding school.

The solution to social exclusion and linlyness wasn't to run, bro was it to change, it was to keep digging though the haystack of the human population until I found the needles of friendship.

By age 12 I'd learnt to love it, it was who I was, the best introduction I ever did was me embracing me. Hanging from a wooden railing surrounding the top of a straicase I went "Hi I'm Silas, I'm the weird one".

It became self sustaining on some level I think. Once I found friends I learnt more about having friends and how to do friendships. I've made plenty of mistakes, I've cost myself friends and even romantic relationships over the years, but I always knew how to find people and make connections, even if only a few ever turned into anything.

I had basically no friends my own age at primary school, at boarding school I was friends with the girls mainly and a few other social outcasts when it came to my own age group, come college and later uni everyone got along with me except a few, in the workplace I'd say that everyone likes me or at least gets along with me.

I was never taught to fake it, put my best foot forward yes, learn from mistakes certainly. If there's a problem with me I don't paper over it, I either address it (if it's a real problem) or simply move away from those who have issue with it (if it's not an issue and the problem is them not being accepting).

Yep, fixed it now.

edited 26th Jun '17 7:10:58 PM by Silasw

I assume you mean "revel"? Because "revile" has a very different meaning.

edited 26th Jun '17 6:59:31 PM by M84

Adults with autism make more consistent choices says a study.

Basically, autistic and allistic adults were shown a group of three items to choose from, where item A is better than item B in one way but inferior in another, and vice versa. With a third item, the "decoy", being similar to A or B but clearly worse in a certain measure.

Allistic adults were much more likely to be influenced by the "decoy" and guess it as being the superior item, whereas autistics were overwhelmingly more likely to make a logical choice for either item A or B based on whichever characteristics they considered better.

Less susceptible, but not totally immune, from my experience. But I'm glad to see researchers actually say that not all of autism is disabling and bad.