Published on 12, July, 2020
I watched a Horizon programme about Autism.
What I liked about the programme was it made clear that most people do the things that Autistic people do. It is just that Autistic people do those things more than so called NT people. I do not know what NT means.
There are plenty of people with Social problems who are not Autistic.
There are Mentally Ill people.
If one is blind or deaf it must be more difficult to have Social Skills.
It also said that one gets diagnosed if the clinic you goes to agrees that you are Autistic. It is a question of chance. I got my diagnoses as when I was nineteen a Consultant Psychiatrist visited us and said that I was Mildly Autistic. That was in 1976 and that was the equivalent to Asperger Syndrome.
David
There has been a discussion on this under "Uta Frith on Radio 3", after the moderator used it to publicise the Horizon programme, but this is probably a good opportunity to move it across to a heading everyone interested can find.
I had two big issues with the programme. One was this issue that Cohen raised about whether you need to know your diagnosis. He was putting it over as a decision not to tell if the individual was managing OK.
That's entirely the opposite to what I was told when diagnosed a decade ago. It was explained to me that some people cannot handle the diagnosis, and it may cause suicidal reactions if they feel their life is predetermined by a condition rather than theirs to determine. Therefore I was told because I already had coping strategies and could probably handle it, they considered it OK to give me the diagnosis.
The idea that you cannot be told your diagnosis in certain circumstances appalled me, because surely in many cases having a better understanding of what is happening helps you to manage. There are plenty of testimonies on here as to the value of knowing.
But everywhere else I've come across this, its for reasons of safety, if someone couldn't handle the knowledge, which makes sense. Along comes Simon Baron Cohen with - you don't need to know if you're managing. What's all that about then?!
The other issue I had is the whole point of the marble in the basket and the ship in the box. OK it helps NTs understand the phenomenon of autism, apparently, but can't we move forward to explanations more relevant to everyday life experiences? It relates to perception in young children. When else do people on the spectrum need to bother about where the marble is or how to copy processes when opening a box?
In real terms these analogies aren't helping people with autism, and in the context of the programme, increasing awareness of autism in adults as well as children, why were they given so much time in the programme?
The marble or ball in the basket tests whether children have picked up on "theory of mind", but beyond that "theory of Mind" just crops up willy-nilly without proper elucidation. All it means is that because people with autism don't develop social interfaces they don't learn to anticipate how others might be thinking. But most of us go on to develop an awareness we need to think about that even if we do it badly. Its surely not that we cannot engage in "theory of miind" full stop?
The ship in the box conveys a similar message. NTs copy each other's social formalities, to convey they understand. People on the spectrum don't have the experience of this and don't see the need. Also they are often embarrassed at replicating these social processes, possibly out of fear of getting it wrong. People on the spectrum therefore tend to deal in "black and white" distinctions, without softening the boundaries in the way human socialisation requires. But that has far greater significance especially in adulthood, then doing the right thing before getting a ship out of a box.
The scientists seem to be stuck in this fixation with often flippant and pointless analogies with childhood thinking. Without elucidation into the real world it isn't relevant or helpful to the lives of most people on the spectrum. So why harp on about it?