Dementia research is throwing up a lot of new knowledge that is relevant to autism. One of these research avenues is about hearing and dementia.
It seems that loss of hearing can greatly increase the chances of dementia, because of the isolation this causes.
However one aspect being studied is gradual decline in hearing from middle age and its effect on cognitive decline. One early impact is on peripheral hearing sensitivity, and is manifest as a difficulty in understanding speech when there is competing background.
That is very relevant to autism because people on the spectrum experience a lot of similar phenomena without related hearing loss. It is quite common for people on the spectrum to struggle to understand what people are saying to them if there is competing background, like other people talking, or music, or mechanical noise.
Just in more general terms, people on the spectrum lose out on social interface, because of the difficulty in making themselves understood and understanding others. In the same way as hearing loss has bearing on dementia, is lack of social connectivity accountable for introspective behaviour, self-isolation and depression amongst people with autism?
And is lack of social referencing likely to be a factor in old age for people on the spectrum in increasing the likelihood of dementia? Or does living with autism reduce the risk of this happening?
As far as I can gather researchers looking at hearing loss and cognitive decline are taking autism into account. But is the autistic community actively aware of this research; is NAS looking into it?
Dementia research is opening up new understandings that might help people with autism. We nbeed to be "in on this" all the way.