Why everything you know about autism is wrong!

In addition there were literally books outlining social rules and ettiquette.  I could do with one of those. 

The Prehistory of Autism : https://roundedglobe.com/html/391da86c-665f-49be-bfa0-9942b52ebc08/en/The%20Prehistory%20of%20Autism/

It’s an interesting explanation of how natural selection favoured autism for it’s strengths. I’m not too sure how they know early cave paintings were made by autistic people. Sounds rather speculative hypothesis to me.

I've mused on this a few times and wonder if, as well as inventions etc there was a benefit in ancient history in having people around who were less concerned with life in the camp and spent time watching the horizon outside the settlement, and who had heightened senses? I don't know how that would lead to the genes responsible being preserved though. Again - amateur theorising on my part!

I found the TED talk fascinating and a good introduction to the academic research paths in autism. Part way through, I did start thinking, 'I wonder if autism is the next evolutionary step for humanity?" I studied the physical sciences rather than the biological (which I now regret a little), but at some point in the distant past there must have been a long-necked giraffe that was ostracised by all the other giraffes until they realised he had his pick of the food. I exaggerate, but hopefully you understand my point.

Some of the greatest inventors and technologists have been/are autistic and have massively shaped the world in which we now live, making it possible to survive in isolation thanks to mobile phones, the internet, home deliveries etc. Doesn't solve the procreation problem (which clearly our long-necked friend figured out); however, I think we are finding ways to gradually modify our environment to make it less disabling to us, and the NTs seem to love our inventions too so perhaps we're not that different after all. Either way, I'm looking forward to the day when we auties colonise Mars...

There is a strong presence of autistic people on twitter. I have only recently discovered this.

I thought it would be too messy and inflammatory for my liking, but I haven’t found it so.

People often post links on there about their latest papers or articles, sometimes bypassing a paywall if you read within a week or so of the announcement.

You don’t have to open a twitter yourself to read the posts. (I think).

Most often used tags are #Autism #ActuallyAutistic #AllAutistics obviously there are others.

If you have a twitter account, mine is @twillierod (not schoolboy humour, but a reference to the old country craft I do)

Yeah - I think the tribalism and wanting to be with people similar to ourselves would trump any 'be excellent to each other' type of social rules.  

I've tried going along to various ASD groups but I don't fit in. 

That's an interesting thought - and I suspect that divisions like that would occur. The reason for that suspicion (and anyone reading please not that I'm way out of my zone of expertise here and just thinking out loud) is that I've noted that people with similar needs, values, outlooks etc tend to form bonds (which is good) but unfortunately this can easily tip into a type of tribalism that acts against the interests of people outside that group. Some of it is down to simple ignorance of the needs of the "others" and some of it is a quite nasty "we're better than you" as an extension of "we're good" (which would be OK on its own).

You see this kind of thing magnified with positive feedback on social media, and not only does this cause hurt to people in all "camps", it also ruins the quality of debate because people tend to react to what they surmise that someone's tribal membership is (from which they extrapolate all kinds of potentially unfounded beliefs) rather than what a person actually *says* and this can be a million miles from what the person *intends to say* because we all fail to communicate in one way or another, either failing to listen, failing to articulate our ideas accurately, or failing to process and form conclusions from the information that we have.

So I suspect that in a world with no "NT people" there would still be groups who felt ignored, misunderstood, and positively discriminated against. In fact, there would probably emerge a new definition of "NT" that got applied to whatever was the most common expression / presentation of the people you had left. 

I consider myself to be a perfectly good human being - a society of people like us would be interesting to see how it would work - but I wonder if my level of high-functioning would, in the long term, get on with others who are lower functioning and would we end up with the same situation as us vs. NTs.   Would the same divisions occur?

While I find Jac den Houting an inspirational speaker. In fact I now want to do further academic studies in Autism after listening to her speech! I am inclined to conclude that the truth is somewhere in the middle. We should not be regarded as broken and needing to be fixed by society as a whole BUT we do suffer from symptoms as a result of our our neurotype which would still afflict us even if society wholey accommodated our social/communication/obsessive/sensory differences! 

However, I would like to end this discussion on a positive note. So, I have taken the advice of the speaker and turned to doctor google, looking for articles from the autistic perspective. Because while we do suffer from symptoms that can debilitate us to varying degrees, there are also positive aspects to being autistic!

https://autismawarenesscentre.com/the-positives-of-autism/

https://the-art-of-autism.com/positive-aspects-of-aspergers-autism/

It does really concern me, how much of the research funding goes into trying to wok our how to prevent or cure autism rather than how to help autistic individuals! 

Thank you again for another link! I must find time to read these later!

I can 'really' relate to us being disabled by our environment as opposed to us having a disability per se!

I 'like' the idea of Autistic people simply having a different neurotype, we're not broken, we can communicate perfectly well with other members of our own tribe, it's just the same as having two groups of people who speak different languages, right? Autistic not Weird :-)

:-) No worries!

I'm a massive fan of the concept of our social skills being different not wrong! 

I do have to wonder, given the social model of disability, whereby it is our environment that disables us, how much the modern environment of bright lights; busy places; multiple and loud noises, actually disables the autistic person more than the environment of years ago would have done? I mean just because Autism hadn't been discovered a few hundred years ago, doesn't mean that it didn't exist. I wonder whether the peaceful, uncrowded countryside and natural light and places free of excessive noise pollution, would have caused less disability to those with the autistic neurotype?

Thank you for the link!

I agree with her. Our way of thinking is not 'a problem' neither for that matter is the non-autistic way of think a problem. Quite simply, the two ways of thinking are incompatible. That's not to say that we can't have 'cross-neurotype friendships', it just means that it is harder and more socially exhausting!

This subject really interests me.

With biologists working at the molecular level, geneticists profiling single cell RNA  expression and neuroscientists studying the cytoarchitecture of specific areas of the brain or their circuitry, it is no wonder that this reductionist approach has produced a fragmentary account of autism.

This is slowly changing and some scientists are realising that human experience can only be properly described at an autopoietic or holistic level.

The neuro-geneticist Kevin Mitchell writes about this here: http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2019/09/beyond-reductionism-systems-biology.html

She explains the social vs medical models of disability very well. I can certainly relate,  as Plastic said, to the fact that most of the problems I've ever faced are caused by interacting with more typical people, and I certainly communicate much less anxiously and with lower stress (even enjoyment) with autistic people than others.

However, I wonder how far the "paradigm shift" can be regarded as absolute? For instance, I have some difficulties that probably trace to my autism, and which don't involve other people or society generally. The examples are quite trivial (e.g. I hate touching emery paper or dry wooden spoons, I believe I have aphantasia and I definitely have alexithymia) but I can't say that these would disappear if people would accommodate me better.

On balance though, I very much agree that I feel simply different rather than faulty, and wish that I had not had five decades of thinking I was out of step, weird, depressed, misanthropic, unsociable, unlikable, and underachieving in things that others seem to do with ease (I went all the way academically, but I found this easy so I tend not to count it as success).

So on balance, I support the Neurodiversity paradigm, but I'm wary of associating too much with the Neurodiversity movement *only* because there are those who attack it and I don't wish to be attacked. [Edit - actually, on reflection, it's more than this. See my reply to Flint below]

I’ve copied this in from a reply to another to another thread, as it’s relevant to this thread - and I’m a lazy git.

Viewed from an ethnographic perspective, autism is too often described as a constellation of medicalised differences and deficits. This erodes and degrades the public perception of autism. Consequently, a positive interpretation that would allow an autistic contribution to human diversity and creativity, is buried beneath an ever increasing mountain of research that separates and divides autism from the general population.

Prevailing biological and psychological descriptions of autism as ‘other’, fail to appreciate the reality of autistic experience, its authenticity, and ignore social context.

The biomedical representation of autism employs similar discourse to that used in the study of cancer and neurodegenerative disease. Social distinctions are mistakenly described as biological. This prevents the emergence of an autistic culture and sociality that could enrich society through its unique perspective and enable autism to play a fulfilling and positive role.

Anyone interested in a study examining transnational and cultural contexts regarding autism, will find an essay here.  http://oro.open.ac.uk/46508/

I think I'd agree with her - all the problems I've ever had are when dealing with NTs - and I think I've accidentally filtered the people I like to socialise with as (undiagnosed) aspies - they are all like me - nerdy mis-fits.    The NT world suits them - but as they are the vast majority, they demand that the world is built in their image - and even though they bleat about empathy, they don't really show it.