• Replies 46 replies
  • Subscribers 96 subscribers
  • Views 19285 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Do You Think Everyone Is Autistic?

Daniel

I often find myself come across people claiming "I'm a bit autistic" saying everyone is a bit autistic.

I point out to them so many things they refer to as "autism traits" are not autism traits at all but is just general human behaviours by all people, but when an autistic person does it it gets described negatively.  

Stimming as an example, I see nearly everyone stim, so many people tapping their foot on the floor, some picking their nails, some just twirling hair etc. because they do something an autistic person does they assume they're a bit autistic. 

When I tell them doing something labelled "autism trait" doesn't make them a bit autistic, that people are either autistic or not, I back it up asking "I sometimes say a metaphor, does that mean I'm a bit neurotypical?" I point out to them autism is a neurodevelopmental condition. 

I say "people with bipolar have mood swings, I hear most people have mood swings, so does everyone have a bit of bipolar disorder?" 

They still go claiming everyone's a bit autistic. Do you agree with the people who say everyone's a bit autistic?

Parents

  • Can you have a little bit of a different brain structure ,or have a little bit of a different gene ? . I think there are varying types of autism but the boring majority are NT's

  • in reply to mael

    you can have frontal lobe brain damage which probably would seem like asd due to the frontal lobe being the social interaction part of the brain or whatever

  • in reply to Caelus

    yeh but other parts of my brain are enhanced/different  , which i think just does show how you are autistic or not , there is a physically / structural difference . So no everyone is not a little bit autistic . 

  • in reply to Daniel

    I would take issue with your use of 'supposed' and 'should', it sounds like a form of external planning, when mutation is in essence random. If two or more people came to exist with exactly the same genetics as each other, no natural law would have been broken.

    Identical twins are so heavily used in genetic research precisely because their genetics are essentially the same, as they are the products of the same egg and spermatozoon fertilisation event. Identical twins are naturally occurring clones. The difference at the level of DNA sequence between identical twins is very, very small and any differences will be mostly in non-coding regions. The differences between identical twins are very largely, though not exclusively, the result of epigenetic factors, such as differential DNA methylation, leading to differences in gene expression. Variation in gene expression can have noticeable effects on phenotype. Phenotypic differences could include one twin being slightly taller than the other, or one being autistic while the other is not. 

    Autism is definitely multifactorial, at the level of gene allele variation, differential gene expression and environmental factors. The latter two often being causally linked.

Reply
  • in reply to Daniel

    I would take issue with your use of 'supposed' and 'should', it sounds like a form of external planning, when mutation is in essence random. If two or more people came to exist with exactly the same genetics as each other, no natural law would have been broken.

    Identical twins are so heavily used in genetic research precisely because their genetics are essentially the same, as they are the products of the same egg and spermatozoon fertilisation event. Identical twins are naturally occurring clones. The difference at the level of DNA sequence between identical twins is very, very small and any differences will be mostly in non-coding regions. The differences between identical twins are very largely, though not exclusively, the result of epigenetic factors, such as differential DNA methylation, leading to differences in gene expression. Variation in gene expression can have noticeable effects on phenotype. Phenotypic differences could include one twin being slightly taller than the other, or one being autistic while the other is not. 

    Autism is definitely multifactorial, at the level of gene allele variation, differential gene expression and environmental factors. The latter two often being causally linked.

Children