On The Ontological Status Of Autism And Double Empathy


The double empathy/cross-neurological hypotheses of Milton and Beardon can be summarised as follows:
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(1) non-autistic people appear to have as much difficulty in understanding autistic minds as vice versa;
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(2) autistic people often develop a greater understanding of society than non-autistic people develop of autism; and
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(3) autistic people have a similar ability to empathise with other autistic people as non-autistic people have with their peers.
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Milton does not suggest that non-autistic people are less capable of developing an understanding of autism than vice versa; as he points out, it is simply that autistic people have no choice but to try to develop an understanding of society if they are to ‘survive and potentially thrive’ whereas no such imperative applies in the opposite direction (Milton 2012).
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Parents
  • Good morning, Deepthought.

    I haven't read the article yet, but I have to say I'm in broad agreement with the points as you've cited them above.  It's interesting that many people over the years - and particularly so since my diagnosis and my openness with everyone about it - have spoken to me about my seemingly deep understanding and insights, both about my own condition and place in the world and about that of others, including NTs.  I know that opinion is divided on the 'empathy' issue.  Recombinantsocks once said that an autistic person discussing empathy is like a blind art critic.  I think I can see his point.  It's like a heterosexual discussing how it must be to be homosexual.  I don't think, though, it necessarily means that we can't show empathy.  People say to me that I can't be autistic because I work in care.  That's nonsense!  I usually point out that there's a world of difference between caring for someone and caring about them.  Having said that, I do sincerely believe that life as a neurodiverse individual has exposed me to more traumas and difficulties than would be the case for an NT, so I've therefore developed a response to them that might seem 'cold' and 'detached' to anyone else.  Much as I loved my mother, and much as I miss her, I've never really shed any tears at her passing, and I stood up at her funeral and delivered a eulogy as easily as if I'd been doing an ordinary bit of public speaking.  I've written a book about our time together and have just read it back for the first time, and feel detached in a way that for many people might seem, again, cold.  Yet I feel very deeply about it - and about many other things.  I can feel crushed at seeing a dead rat at the side of the road, or a flower thoughtlessly trampled underfoot by someone in passing.

    I think, too, it's this 'understanding', if you like, that's made me a writer.  I've spent my entire life on the outside looking in - like someone out in a dark street looking through a window at a crowded bar.  I see things, perhaps, that others take for granted - and thus don't notice.  At work, I sometimes pick up on things - a sound, a pattern, a trait - that others miss.  Maybe it's about a heightened sensitivity of perception.  Maybe it's simply how I'm programmed.  I may not understand huge amounts about human behaviour.  I can't, for instance, ever pick out a character's motives in fiction or film, and I'm always a target for confidence tricksters and leg-pullers.  But I have a certain understanding, I think... Wink

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  • Good morning, Deepthought.

    I haven't read the article yet, but I have to say I'm in broad agreement with the points as you've cited them above.  It's interesting that many people over the years - and particularly so since my diagnosis and my openness with everyone about it - have spoken to me about my seemingly deep understanding and insights, both about my own condition and place in the world and about that of others, including NTs.  I know that opinion is divided on the 'empathy' issue.  Recombinantsocks once said that an autistic person discussing empathy is like a blind art critic.  I think I can see his point.  It's like a heterosexual discussing how it must be to be homosexual.  I don't think, though, it necessarily means that we can't show empathy.  People say to me that I can't be autistic because I work in care.  That's nonsense!  I usually point out that there's a world of difference between caring for someone and caring about them.  Having said that, I do sincerely believe that life as a neurodiverse individual has exposed me to more traumas and difficulties than would be the case for an NT, so I've therefore developed a response to them that might seem 'cold' and 'detached' to anyone else.  Much as I loved my mother, and much as I miss her, I've never really shed any tears at her passing, and I stood up at her funeral and delivered a eulogy as easily as if I'd been doing an ordinary bit of public speaking.  I've written a book about our time together and have just read it back for the first time, and feel detached in a way that for many people might seem, again, cold.  Yet I feel very deeply about it - and about many other things.  I can feel crushed at seeing a dead rat at the side of the road, or a flower thoughtlessly trampled underfoot by someone in passing.

    I think, too, it's this 'understanding', if you like, that's made me a writer.  I've spent my entire life on the outside looking in - like someone out in a dark street looking through a window at a crowded bar.  I see things, perhaps, that others take for granted - and thus don't notice.  At work, I sometimes pick up on things - a sound, a pattern, a trait - that others miss.  Maybe it's about a heightened sensitivity of perception.  Maybe it's simply how I'm programmed.  I may not understand huge amounts about human behaviour.  I can't, for instance, ever pick out a character's motives in fiction or film, and I'm always a target for confidence tricksters and leg-pullers.  But I have a certain understanding, I think... Wink

Children

  • Martian Tom wrote:

    It's interesting that many people over the years - and particularly so since my diagnosis and my openness with everyone about it - have spoken to me about my seemingly deep understanding and insights, both about my own condition and place in the world and about that of others, including NTs.


    Very much the same with me here too.


    Martian Tom wrote:

    I know that opinion is divided on the 'empathy' issue.  Recombinantsocks once said that an autistic person discussing empathy is like a blind art critic.  I think I can see his point.  It's like a heterosexual discussing how it must be to be homosexual.  I don't think, though, it necessarily means that we can't show empathy.


    I think it is one of those, "Once you have met one person with autism; you have a met one person with autism" scenarios. Aside also from severe trauma, I think it is more a case of emotional compatibility or incompatibility ~ who (or what in the case of animals) for instance can you tune in with or not. In some cases not having had the opportunity or means to develop the ability is another factor ~ 'use it or lose' it and all that in the temporary sense perhaps.. 


    Martian Tom wrote:

    People say to me that I can't be autistic because I work in care.  That's nonsense!  I usually point out that there's a world of difference between caring for someone and caring about them. 


    Alot of people only imagine caring about those they actually do care about, so mistaking caring for or about others is all too easy for them. A certain proportion of care-workers do have to get out of the trade for this very reason, and other such complications involving romantic and passionate involvements too.


    Martian Tom wrote:

    Having said that, I do sincerely believe that life as a neurodiverse individual has exposed me to more traumas and difficulties than would be the case for an NT, so I've therefore developed a response to them that might seem 'cold' and 'detached' to anyone else. 


    Normalised NT adulteration abuse (during childhood) and authoritarian power role transfers (from childhood, through education and on through employment etc) does rather make us as NDs the last and therefore the easiest in the line for the accumulation dump thing.


    Martian Tom wrote:

    Much as I loved my mother, and much as I miss her, I've never really shed any tears at her passing, and I stood up at her funeral and delivered a eulogy as easily as if I'd been doing an ordinary bit of public speaking.  I've written a book about our time together and have just read it back for the first time, and feel detached in a way that for many people might seem, again, cold.  Yet I feel very deeply about it - and about many other things.  I can feel crushed at seeing a dead rat at the side of the road, or a flower thoughtlessly trampled underfoot by someone in passing.


    It seems to me that you are quite empathic as its goes, and that your empathy is tuned in just as it is in the way that it is.

    When my Grandfather passed on, and in fact when anybody really close to me has passed on, I feel very excited for them in the same way as some people celebrate others leaving university with a degree, masters or doctorate.

    Someone I knew once was extremely into hugely powerful motorbikes, and when I heard he had died on his motorbike in a crash, my passionate excitement for him doing to the very last second of his life what he loved quite literally the very very most ~ gave me a really bad reputation.


    Martian Tom wrote

    I think, too, it's this 'understanding', if you like, that's made me a writer. 


    I think and know as much also too, and although writing is not my favourite thing ~ wording very much so is, but it does takes me while to write anything . . . and once something is written, I feel so so utterly relieved in that so so glad it's over way. I often on account of which call my written works 'mind babies', what with the difficulties of the gestation period, the labour, and then eventually the satisfaction of it being all big and delivered. Hugging


    Martian Tom wrote:

    I've spent my entire life on the outside looking in - like someone out in a dark street looking through a window at a crowded bar.  I see things, perhaps, that others take for granted - and thus don't notice.  At work, I sometimes pick up on things - a sound, a pattern, a trait - that others miss.  Maybe it's about a heightened sensitivity of perception.  Maybe it's simply how I'm programmed.


    Being able to notice things others usually miss due to heightened sensitivity is more of a definitely than a maybe ~ what with having been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, and all though your intellectual programming in part will be involved ~ it so wholly your biological conditioning that your programming is involved with. 


    Martian Tom wrote:

    I may not understand huge amounts about human behaviour.  I can't, for instance, ever pick out a character's motives in fiction or film, and I'm always a target for confidence tricksters and leg-pullers.  But I have a certain understanding, I think...  Wink


    I understand huge divergent extents about about the patterns of human behaviour. I can go into the motivations of each character's motivations in fiction or films ~ being that there are five themes to stories:

    1.) Power and Corruption

    2.) Crime, Punishment and Conscience

    3.) Love and Loss

    4.) Honour and Integrity

    5.) Scientific and Technological Development

    But I find it considerably challenging or even impossible to recognise or gauge that there is a 'social' mishap, train-wreck or plain cash occurring . . . until after it has actually gone or is going remarkably wrong. This is particularly true for social 'first-contacts', and relatively common otherwise. I am though getting better at minimising them, which perhaps surprisingly, or maybe even shockingly, does not involve just outright avoiding them . . . although it is my preferred option. Grin


  • I think of it a little, too, like someone being suddenly being dumped in a country whose language, culture and ethos is entirely alien to them.  What choice do they have but to find a way to survive in it, using whatever knowledge and other tools at their disposal to reach some kind of commonality.  Whereas the natives of that country... why should they bother to understand this one stranger in their midst?  It's like the argument put forward by some that people shouldn't come to our country unless they can speak the language first (although if we go to their country for a holiday, we expect them to understand English and English customs!)