Are You or Your Children Victimized by Stereotypes?

great rreply. made me cry actually cause i'm still discovering myself. i'm 21 and for me i was so different in school to everyone i just never had a true social identity, it was a mixture of people mis interpreting me and of me masking the "behaviours"; not a happy place to be. but hearing about positives does change the narrative on myself 

Stereotypes I hate:

1. Autistic people don't really want social interaction with others.
2. All autistic people are shy / introverted
3. Autism is just a sensory thing, give them headphones and they'll be fine
4. Autistic people aren't capable of complex verbal interaction, they can't be witty or erudite.
5. Autistic people are all asexual and do not want / need sex lives.
6. Autistic people don't have strong emotion, they're like Vulcans etc.
7. Autistic people do not care about others wellbeing.
8. Autistic people are all maths nerds ... I mean I am, but autistic peoples special interests can be almost anything.
9. Autistic people all have low / average intelligence but never high.

I apologise. I forgot that the full article was only available vis subscription. 

yes we make judgements in the flash of an eye. this iincludes body language.  When u collect these judgements and analyse them they dont make sense sometimes and can be quite terrifying. 

It has been shown that black children are marked lower by white teacher compared to their white colleagues.

but

It has been shown that black children are marked lower by black teachers compared to their white colleagues as well !

( sorry no reference it was a psychology journal )

way to read your article 

thanks

It depends on the context. Stereotyping is a fundamental part of human development. When we are born our brains are hardwired to instantly group together similar visual and auditory stimuli; the brain has a facial-recognition area which is programmed to judge others by how they look.

Our survival depended upon it, once upon a time, because the ability to instantly discern between wild animals with big teeth and people with small teeth (and then between people from our own tribe, species and outsiders) was imperative for our survival.

As adults, we jump to conclusions about a person’s character and status after seeing their face for just a tenth of a second. Are they friend or foe? Stereotyping is the shortcut that the brain uses to retrieve, compare and analyse stored data (experience) and minimise processing power. 

news/science-environment-19487021

newscientist.com/article (partial article)

The problems begin when we are unable or unwilling to run sub-programs which allow us to use our intelligence and experience to override the essential basic programming of the brain for a more appropriate and nuanced reaction. 

Some people, sadly, have some bad sub-programs uploaded which make the basic programming even stronger and resistant to intelligence/reason.

This is how national, political and religious doctrines have been so easily perpetuated for thousands of years, and why people programmed by a particular group have been capable of either committing atrocities against 'others'. 

These groups rely on building a fire-wall between intelligence and reason and the brain's basic programming, strengthening the latter, and thus being able to direct people in whatever way suits their agenda by reinforcing stereotypes - we are good and those others are bad.

more than anything I hate people who say oh you don't look autistic and therefore expect me to be  nuerotypical. to be fair once they get to know me they can tell tthough. regarding people becoming more introverted once they found out about the diagnosis I'm not sure if that's due to stereotypes. My feeling on it is is that un diagnosed autistic people are putting themselves under the hammer to act in a typical way once they have an explanation for the difference is the need and pressure drops resulting in them becoming more true to themselves. that's definitely whats been happening to me, and while I might appear more introverted im actually much happier and calmer. and when I try out stereotypical behaviours They are very soothing and natural in contrast to when I'm acting "normal" that are putting a huge emotional load on me. for that reason i believe autistic people should be around other autistic people socially as it reduces the pressure to camaflouge and naturally cultivates essential "problem" behaviours 

goodness me I hate people who say everyone's is a bit autistic. completely ignorant, autism is the label for the nuerodivergence and is a flipped gene

I wouldn't have thought my siblings give one crap about my autism and it wouldn't enter their head to talk  about it - except maybe my sister in law - she's a hypochondriac so she claims to be 'a bit' autistic too.  (clueless)

The only place I've been really abused is the work environment after declaring my autism.

I can say not all are affected by stereotypes, I'm talking about all the way to adulthood after the learning process as well as children.

Like I've listened to some say their siblings feel ashamed to tell people they're autistic because they fear people will make assumptions about them and call them retarded.

I imagine the people who actually go by stereotypes like lack of empathy are those who have no personal experience involving autism.

Thanks for sharing your views.

I'm not sure it's as simple as that - there's a time and measurement factor - kids start to notice they are different - they don't interface properly with the other kids and they can often be gauche in their attempts to make friends and become upset from the rejections.

There's also the learning phase - where kids seeing how others like them can be much more extreme in their behaviours - and get away with it - it removes their own boundaries of behaviour - the appear more autistic.

I don't think it's down to stereotypes, it's down to an individual environment and their experiences.