Anxiety

Hello Longman

Its the development of resilience rather than confidence that is the main focus of my post.

I'm not recommending any form of counselling - there was no reference to counselling anywhere in my post.  Neither did I attribute all autistic behaviours to one cause.  Autistic behaviour, just like non-autistic behaviour, can be attributable to any number of causes or triggers.

I dont really follow your argument about anxiety being caused by a need to analyse all possible outcomes......this wouldnt work as a generalisation - for example, people with autism who also have learning difficulties may well not be able to analyse all possible outcomes, so that wouldnt explain their anxiety. However, the occurance of unpredictability and uncertainty would explain some of their anxiety.  Sensory problems may also explain anxiety.

The need for constancy to me is a way of coping with the challenge of uncertainty - remove the uncertainty by developing static, rigid routines that are predictable.

Finally, I dont understand how artificial episodic memories of competence could be generated.  An episodic memory is laid down via a natural organic process - it cant be created synthetically, so what you are suggesting be generated (possible outcomes) may be some kind of reference point but it isnt an episodic memory (and therefore wouldnt contribute to the development of resilience - which is my key point).

The research shows that people with autism have impairments in episodic memory, so I'm not sure how you think people with autism would be able to create their own episodic memories.

Hope was writing about phobias.  I think phobia is in another league to the kind of anxiety I am talking about.  I do know something about anxiety but wouldnt claim to know anything about phobias - I think experts are needed to help with them.

Zoe

Hello Longman

Its the development of resilience rather than confidence that is the main focus of my post.

I'm not recommending any form of counselling - there was no reference to counselling anywhere in my post.  Neither did I attribute all autistic behaviours to one cause.  Autistic behaviour, just like non-autistic behaviour, can be attributable to any number of causes or triggers.

I dont really follow your argument about anxiety being caused by a need to analyse all possible outcomes......this wouldnt work as a generalisation - for example, people with autism who also have learning difficulties may well not be able to analyse all possible outcomes, so that wouldnt explain their anxiety. However, the occurance of unpredictability and uncertainty would explain some of their anxiety.  Sensory problems may also explain anxiety.

The need for constancy to me is a way of coping with the challenge of uncertainty - remove the uncertainty by developing static, rigid routines that are predictable.

Finally, I dont understand how artificial episodic memories of competence could be generated.  An episodic memory is laid down via a natural organic process - it cant be created synthetically, so what you are suggesting be generated (possible outcomes) may be some kind of reference point but it isnt an episodic memory (and therefore wouldnt contribute to the development of resilience - which is my key point).

The research shows that people with autism have impairments in episodic memory, so I'm not sure how you think people with autism would be able to create their own episodic memories.

Hope was writing about phobias.  I think phobia is in another league to the kind of anxiety I am talking about.  I do know something about anxiety but wouldnt claim to know anything about phobias - I think experts are needed to help with them.

Zoe