General Autism Discussion

From that article, this quote in particular stood out for me:

“The old view of autism was that it’s a kind of tragedy for the family, that it’s devastating.” Now, he says, parents tend to think: “Yes, it is a disability, we need support, but we value our child being different. We don’t want him or her to be like everyone else. Autism is part of their identity, it’s part of the person and it is this interesting mix of strengths and difficulties.”

So true.

I mean, I guess valuing being different is one way to have Stockholm syndrome.

I don't understand. Could you elaborate?

It's one way to put a spin on things to not focus on how there's more problems than benefits?

I mean, making a cost/benefit analysis seems a bit pointless, given that we don't actually have a choice in the matter.

Nor an effective treatment. You play the cards you have, not the one's you wish you had.

Autistic children may have trouble predicting movements

A scientific explanation for why so many of us suck at sports, apparently.

Two decades ago, when the internet was still starting to catch on, I once read an autistic man's life story. One of the aspects that stuck out to me was that his emotionally abusive dad had a ritual where he would throw a baseball to the son, and the son would have to catch it ten times in a row, before he would be allowed to have dinner, unless it got dark. It was apparently an attempt to make the autistic son stop sucking at sports. It didn't work; he was never able to catch it ten times in a row, and dinner was always late.

... allistics can accurately predict the trajectory of things mid-flight?

This is true. I think that a lot of people tend to fall on one extreme or the other on this subject. I don't think treating it as some doom and gloom thing is good at all but otoh i think it also bears emphasizing just how crushing being on the spectrum is for a lot of people. Those unemployment figures are very sobering.

"... allistics can accurately predict the trajectory of things mid-flight?"

Naturally, or they couldn't play professional level baseball, football or tennis.

I guess that's why I keep bumping into people at work?

Now see, I remember when playing with balls for school PE I did mentally estimate where it was going to head and went towards it, catching it with my hands. I recall that I actually did an OK-ish job at it but I don't remember the exact sequences of motions.

I'm dyspraxic as well so I'm already pretty atrocious at all sports.

If you have to consciously think about it, you're not doing it right.

Regarding having to consciously thinking about it, one could argue the same is true about basic social interaction. I've seen many autistic people say that they have to consciously think about social interaction because if they don't, their chances of making a social mistake are much higher.

Catching a ball must be like socialization, in that if it comes to you naturally, you're probably doing it right, but if you have to consciously think about it, that indicates a problem.

Yeah, I would agree.

I wholeheartedly agree. I love people, and make a point to try and meet new ones.

But...at the same time, I tense up when I'm thrusted into a social interaction, praying that I don't do something weird, or say something strange. It's stressful

Multiple research papers indicate that there is a "double empathy problem" regarding autistic and allistic people. That is, each type of person understands their own type, but they don't instinctively understand each other.

A journal article on it. It cites numerous studies.

When I was a kid, I went to a, um, "institute" for autistic kids for a few years, before being mainstreamed into a public school. I went back to said institute during one summer, and numerous times during the school year for the next few years. I remember that there were a few instances where I'd see a kid get misunderstood by the people in charge, and I felt I had a pretty good idea of what the kid was thinking and why, but they'd get in trouble and be misinterpreted in the same way that I was. It pissed me off, but I was afraid to challenge authority - I was like 8-10 years old; I was afraid to correct adults!

Anyway, there are people who suggest that autistic people instinctively "get it" when it comes to understanding each other (which the article also brings up; that we can understand each others' mental states more easily than allistics can), and if it's true that allistics instinctively understand allistics, autistics instinctively understand autistics, but each side doesn't understand the other, well, there's a growing body of research pointing to that.

Edited by BonsaiForest on Feb 21st 2021 at 10:10:49 AM

Anecdotally, some of the people who I’ve seen have the hardest time with autistic/developmentally delayed people are other similar people. Then again that may not have been an understanding problem, it’s very frustrating deal with someone who you know is what you could have been with only a minor change.

Plus we were all teenagers back then.

Well, the blind leading the blind often results in more problems...

More formal evidence that overproduction of nerve cells plays a role in ASD origin

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Feb 22nd 2021 at 9:48:25 PM

"However, research has also indicated that so-called autism-specific social difficulties could instead be bidirectional in nature and that people of different neurotypes may be mutually misunderstanding one another."

Huh. A fascinating idea. Of course, in most places, there are far fewer autistic people than non-autistic ones, so the burden of misunderstanding falls on the minority.

I sometimes have a hard time with other AS people whose symptoms are more obvious than mine. That’s part of why I’m wary of AS social groups - my experience with them is mixed. I’ve come a long way with learning and practicing social skills, even if it doesn’t come naturally to me, so that just makes me feel more out of place with people who are really obviously AS.

I’m aware that this isn’t a good thing, and that there’s probably some internalized ableism there. What’s hard is that when I interact with them, I feel this mix of empathy and discomfort. I remember this one time with another passenger on a Lyft who kept trying to start conversations over and over again, in increasingly awkward ways, even though the driver and I weren’t interested. Part of me wanted to tell him that directly, but since I’d mentioned also having Asperger’s, I was worried I’d seem like the “good” Aspie giving unsolicited advice about how to please neurotypicals. I guess I could’ve just been honest about it and made it clear that that wasn’t my intent.

Bonus points for him saying I was really pretty and probably already had a boyfriend or was married, and later making a few self-deprecating jokes about how many times he’d been rejected. I just let him think that even though neither is true, because I didn’t want to open that can of worms in an already-awkward situation.

I think a lot of that discomfort comes from wondering if the way I react to certain people on the spectrum is how neurotypicals see me, or would see me if I didn’t “pass” on a surface level.

The other part of this is that the groups I’ve tried are mostly men who check a lot more stereotype boxes than I do. I usually feel less awkward around other AS women than I do around men, even if they’re also more obvious about it than I am. That complicates things because there are fewer of us and we’re less likely to be diagnosed. Not sure if the issue is gender, the amount of checked stereotype boxes, or the overlap between them.

Hope this wall of text makes sense. Just wanted to contribute with my experiences.

That's a fascinating insight, and thank you for sharing your experiences. Clearly, this is a very complex issue, what with different types of minority status interacting all together at one time: AS, female, someone who has acquired a certain level of social skills, etc. I'm sure that you already know that there are no clear answers here—the best anyone can do is to do the best that they can do, and chalk the rest up to experience. The bottom line though is that you have a right to be left alone, and while someone's mental disability may make their behavior understandable, and you clearly want to be as accommodating as you can, which I think is a good thing, still, at the end of the day that's really not your problem.

I think in that case it's less an autism issue and more "a guy doesn't respect a woman's boundaries" issue.

And that's something neurotypical men do all too often as well.

Edited by M84 on Feb 24th 2021 at 11:12:38 PM

Yes, but the difference being an average guy should know better already, while a guy out on the spectrum might need some additional instruction.