General Autism Discussion

Sometimes in customer service one has to deal with a customer who is not perceiving reality correctly. I'd generally push those people off at the nearest manager; they get paid to deal with that.

And by what they are paid compared to what they get, I would say they are often not paid enough.

Problem with people like that is that they are not really shopping for things, they are shopping for a power trip. They just want a victim they can abuse because they are in a de facto position of power. Any person with ASD might actually be their bane since no matter how infuriating they act, the person with ASD might simply not detect their rage and just befuddle and confuse the heck out of that poor imbecile.

In either case, a person with ASD is not really a good match for positions that involve customer service. Not in the sense of "They will not work with the customer well" but in the sense that it does not work for anyone. The customer needs attention, not someone who has problems identifying other people's reactions and the person you hired is just going to feel like shit for not being able to do their job properly. It is not fair for anyone.

I can do customer service just fine, I'm just sick of food service. There's a million different tasks that are all slightly different, everyone has their own finicky preferences for their coffee or food that get outright bizarre at times and so many people take it as a personal insult if we don't have it.

I know other customer service jobs have lunatic customers as well, but from what I've seen, the jobs are less likely to be a constantly mutating mess of tasks and instructions that never stay consistent for more than a week.

It doesn't help that customer service jobs are gradually eating the rest of the job market.

edited 16th Dec '14 6:50:42 AM by Zendervai

Which is why repetitive motions and interests is a diagnostic criteria for ASD.

Normally, people don't like doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. They get bored. That companies actually institute measures to switch places off (rotation) is actually a measure to try and increase productivity in those mechanical-motion-like jobs.

As not all ASD people are the same, I feel that I have to point out that many would be able to detect the rage and anger just fine, and instead could be very affected by it. For some, the issue is more being intimidated by the situation, not being unaware what the person is feeling.

Which is why I emphasized the "some".

Or both. Especially when a customer is trying to be deliberately intimidating. And work bores me.

edited 16th Dec '14 7:00:13 AM by Greenmantle

I'm pointing out that there's two very different reasons why an ASD person might be bad for customer service - the one you mentioned, and the one I mentioned. Which are the result of two different forms of ASD.

I thought of another possible topic of discussion. How autism affected us individually.

Like, life experiences we had. How we found out we had it or our parents found out. Things like that. Not all autistics are the same, and they have many different degrees of functioning in different metrics, and grow in different ways, so I imagine some very different stories will show up.

I'll start off. I was three. I didn't speak at all, ignored people who tried to get my attention, and pushed people away. I would do things like spin the wheels of a toy car (and I have memory of doing that and similar things when I was old enough to have memories of such). I curled up into the fetal position a lot (which earned me a childhood nickname that I shed a few years later). My parents wondered what was wrong with their son.

So I was taken to a specialized school, a place dedicated entirely to children with autism. As my parents were both working professionals with money to spend, and they knew how to work the system and demand insurance pay for me, they were able to pay the high costs of getting me what I needed.

There, I was worked with strictly. "Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Good, you get a candy." Until I had 100% response to commands (regular kids don't even do that!). Long story short, I became "higher-functioning" at a far faster rate than most other kids there; I saw teenagers there who were lower-functioning than I was in third grade. (I returned to that special school/institution in third grade because of behavior problems at school, and that was around when I started to become consciously aware that I was somehow different from my peers)

But I don't want to dump my whole story all at once. How about your experiences? Who here, who is on the spectrum, officially diagnosed (or if you're not diagnosed and suspect you're on the spectrum, how come?), and what were your experiences like?

edited 17th Dec '14 1:01:47 PM by BonsaiForest

For me everything came only within the last few years. I've always been "odd" and "weird" and interacted with people differently, but because of the school I went to I was often around other non-conventional people and was able to work out how to interact with people socially and explain to people who best to interact with me.

The idea of me being on the spectrum came up when I was 18, the idea actually came from multiple perspectives all at once. My sister works with special needs kids and had realised that I (and my dad) share a lot of similarities with the autistic kids she works with, she made this point to my mother. Alongside this a friend I had when I was very little got diagnosed and her parents suggested to mine that I might be on the spectrum. Finally during a conversation with my ex-girlfriend she made the point that she thinks that her and I are both on the spectrum.

Following this nothing was really done, the possibility of getting a diagnosis was discussed but I felt I already understood how my social interaction works and how to improve it so there was no need for a label to be attached.

I turned 19 just as I started uni, my first year of uni was a mess for a variety of reasons and part of that was realised to be me having undiagnosed ADD (which we think went undiagnosed due to my dad likely also having ADD and both my mother and brother being diagnosed with ADHD). The summer after my first year of uni (which I failed and spent the next year repeating) I got my ADD diagnosis. While I got that I spoke with the physiologist who did my diagnosis about if I might also be on the autistic spectrum, it was agreed that I was but due to funding rules they would need a referral from my GP to do an official diagnosis.

I spoke with my GP about it and she felt that I didn't need to get an official diagnosis because I already understand my brain and would not benefit from a bit of paper. I actually agree with my GP and as such I have only a semi diagnosis (the letter from the psychologist to my GP asking for a referral so that I could be officially diagnosed).

Since then things have simply continued on as normal. Me being on the spectrum has only really come up once, this summer during my parents move I finally cracked with all the stress of everything, I ended up locking myself in the bathroom, hiding under a towel and rocking back and fourth while trying to get my brain to stop telling me that this wouldn't actually solve anything. I eventually came out after my mum called my best friend/surrogate little sister and got her to phone me and talk to me.

After that my mother kinda understood for once, she spent the next few weeks getting books on autism and reading about it, often calling me to point out that she had actually managed to do things that helped me (supporting my interest in chess and taking me to lots of tournaments being one). Though she has now slipped back into her old habits, which is no surprise to anyone.

The only other autism related thing is the fact that one of the people buying our house happens to be an educational psychologist, when my mother mentioned to her about me she commented that she's suspected that both my dad and I are on the spectrum.

So in your case, it's so subtle that not only is it easy to miss the condition's existence during much of your life, but it also seems to have not affected you too severely.

My case was, as I said in my story, pretty damn obvious. It was treated as a big deal when I was mainstreamed into a normal kindergarten, but I quickly became the weird kid who all the other kids pick on, or trick into doing dumb things so they can laugh at him. I remember in 7th grade I was eating an eraser, and a kid said to me, "The only reason I don't make fun of you, is because I used to be like you." I found that very interesting.

There was both overt and covert bullying. Covert in the form of comments like "Do your parents say you're special?" (as in, "special needs"), and many cases of the kids pretending to be my friend while secretly mocking me. My neighbor across the street, who was a grade below me, noticed this and told my parents, who in turn told me "_____ says he's concerned that you think these kids are your friends, but they're really making fun of you." I was in 6th grade. I took extreme offense to this idea, and insisted that I was in fact getting along with the other kids just fine.

Looking back, I must have seemed similar to that kid in the news who was abused by girls he thought were friends but were in fact treating him like dirt the whole time. When the girls got arrested, the boy leapt to their defense, insisting that they were just joking and it's no big deal. The kid's dad said that his son "may be more disabled than I convinced myself that he was and maybe more lost than I realized."

Although, I was younger and wasn't involved in as extreme a situation.

When, in third grade, I returned to the institution/school/whatever you call it, I felt very self-conscious. I realize there is debate around the use of terms such as "higher/lower functioning", but there isn't much else to describe the difference between me and most of the other autistics there. High-functioning autism wasn't well-known in the 80s/90s, and they probably didn't know what to do with this kid who seemed sharp as a tack in some ways but dumb as a rock in others, and had big behavior problems and social problems at school. And I could tell the other kids and teens in this place were somehow "different". I wondered what was "wrong" with them, while failing to recognize there was anything "wrong" with me, being convinced that I was normal but somehow getting into trouble for things I felt I had little control over.

edited 18th Dec '14 1:23:48 PM by BonsaiForest

Keep in mind that I left the conventional education/social system age 10. At primary school I was the weird kid who didn't really have any friends outside of one guy in a year above me and one guy in a year bellow me, plus another couple of guys I knew though chess. That was it for other kids I could count as any kind of friend, and even then it was pretty limited, I didn't stay in contact with any of them after I left my primary school.

I was still the weird kid at my boarding school, but due to my school's nature I wasn't the only one, my school might not have been a school for special needs kids but due to its highly unconventional nature it tended to draw a lot of kids who didn't fit in the conventional system, be that academically or socially.

If I'd stayed in the conventional system I'd have been chemically brilliant but socially stunted, I'd have had no friends, been bullied mercilessly, had no idea how to interact with other people. I'm not like that because I spent several of the formative years of my life living in a community of equality, where bullying was almost non-existent, everyone was being taught how to be a functioning member of society and get along with others, and nobody was looked down upon for being different, and even there I was the weird one.

Wow. That sounds amazing.

I had heard that special needs students actually thrive in specialized environments instead of being mainstreamed into regular ones. I'd heard pros and cons for it - if you segregate them, how do you teach others to accept them? But at the same time, putting them together creates a more welcoming environment like Silas pointed out.

It was. I've talked about my school a few times in the education threads, I'm always happy to go into more detail if people are interested.

See now that's where I think my school managed it perfectly, it wasn't a special needs school, not technically, it just happened to have a fair number of kids who didn't work in the regular system. So we still had some social bullshit, but because the system was a understanding one it could never get out of hand. Also a boarding school with under 100 kids is perfect for learning social interaction and being part of a society, because there's no running away from it, you're seeing these people every day at breakfast, learning to get along is paramount. Plus the staff and older kids could take time to help you if you had problems, because the community was of a small enough size that people noticed.

Also being an international school helped, when two thirds of your kids are from other countries you can't exactly maintain a certain social system, especially when the system that exists within the school is such a relaxed one built upon personal freedom and choice, there was never any social pressure from the system to conform to a particular ideal because the system didn't give a shit. Sure you'd get pressure from other kids but there was always a line, if someone was actually bullying you seriously they did not get away with it.

Your school sounds like paradise, as far as schools go. Like the sort of thing that's almost too good to be true.

One of the kids featured in the documentary Bully was a kid diagnosed with Aspergers, who was pulled out of his school and taken to one that has a supportive atmosphere and a strict policy towards bullying that's actually enforced. His life improved and he had friends there. Good schools exist, so I'd like to know what their ideas are that could be copied.

But this is drifting off-topic. So, anyone else want to chip in with their own experiences with autism/Aspergers? How they got diagnosed, what their childhood was like, later years, how it affected them in the past, etc.?

More and more self-advocate autistics and advocates for autistics are raising the same topic: that while researching the origins of autism, how to detect it early, etc. is nice, there are many people with autism right now who are being ignored.

We're Doing Autism Research All Wrong

In a system focused on helping autistic children, an East Hanover Township family's struggle finding services for their adult son illustrates growing problem

More Research Isn't the Key to Helping Autistic People Today

This editorial appears to be describing the whole spectrum, mentioning the issues of the lower-functioning and those of the higher-functioning. It's in response to the MSSNG project between Autism Speaks (who has the habit of pissing off autistics every time they open their mouth) and Google, a project to look at lots of genetic information to determine what causes autism, which genes are found in it.

I see no reason why research and help can't occur at the same time, provided they're from different organizations. But I agree with the sentiment behind this.

ASD is such a wide spectrum, I'd like to know what kinds of ASD individuals they're talking about. But again, while from a different angle, this article points out the problems with adult autism and the lack of help adult autistics get.

From the first article you linked to: "The simple answer is, we’re studying the wrong things. We’re sinking millions into the search for a “cure,” even though we now know that autism is not a disease but rather a neurological difference, one that cripples some of us while bringing a few others extraordinary gifts. Most of us live with a mix of exceptionality and disability. I know I do.

Research into the genetic and biological foundations of autism is surely worthwhile, but it’s a long-term game (see “Solving the Autism Puzzle”). The time from discovery to deployment of an approved therapy is measured in decades, while the autism community needs help right away.

If we accept that autistic people are neurologically different rather than sick, the research goal changes from finding a cure to helping us achieve our best quality of life."

Pretty much sums it up. It's pretty clear by now that there isnt going to be a single "cure", although they may discover the genetic markers in the next decade or so, which would make it theoretically preventable. I agree that finding ways to make the condition more manageable and improve the lives of the people who have it is the number one priority.

"Preventable" in the "abort them" kinda way, really.

This Minecraft community is saving the lives of children with autism

It's about a server called "autcraft", designed specifically for individuals on the spectrum, and heavily policed to keep out trolls and bullies.

So it sounds like the kids were treated badly online due to their lack of social skills. It's not like they announced to the world they had autism; their behavior alone likely made them targets online.

Therapy seems like it wouldn't replace the help of a supportive, nurturing community.

It sounds like this is a very unique form of therapy, and a damn good one. Hopefully others will be inspired by this and this could inspire similar groups/organizations.

You know, I have similar perceptions of the TV Tropes forums.

I don't think its a benefit special to any one particular site, it's just that the civilised internet is a much nicer place than the uncivilised Internet. For people in a bad mental place the uncivilised Internet can do a lot of damage.

The more we grow the civilised Internet the better it will be for everyone.

You are probably right, Silas, to a degree. The article quotes parents saying their kid thrived on the server and advanced more, learning more social skills, not just being treated better in a safe place. So there do seem to be autism-specific benefits.

edited 19th Dec '14 8:19:45 PM by BonsaiForest

Actually it seems to be more than a safe space, by the sound of it it's an interactive play and counselling environment, so that probably is part of why it's so good.

Which... isn't just autism specific. Safe social spaces are important for anybody who finds themselves on the fringe of society's norms. For whatever reason.