Does anyone else hate it when people say "everyone's on the spectrum"?

Well every body sometimes does not bother about other people's feellings either intentionally or on purpose.

It is just that Autistic people do the things mentioned more often on the NAS leaflets.

The difference between people with Asperger Syndrome at the highest functioning end of the spectrum and so called normal people is only a matter of degree than a real difference.   Autistic people and so called normal people the difference is obviously greater. Normal people equals NT.

David.

...... its the assumptions that people make (NT's especially) that bugs me - thinking they know when they don't........

Hi there,

Thank you all for keeping this reasonably organised. 280JJ, I'd encourage you not to leave on the basis of this one incident - but please think of the context when you start posting to an existing thread. Other users - please don't be too hard on newcomers. Let's keep things civil, and where possible, friendly.

Thanks!

Alex R - mod

The thread is about people making light of autism such as by saying "we are all on the spectrum".

I may have been hasty, but my reactions were more to do with the content. The poster may not have realised there's a minimum age limit and there just wouldn't be a child on here making that statement. But I did find it hard, in the context of what is often said by professionals and public alike, seeing prases like:

"As you get older, vacuous things become - well, more vacuous". Probably not for people on the autistic spectrum for reasons explained.

"you will get your day when you get a bit older" - again reflects the general misunderstanding about autism/aspergers being something you grow out of.

I agree that using Neuro-typical to refer to attitudes of people who don't seem to understand autism properly is a bit strong at times. There are other posts putting stronger.

I understand the poster intended to be helpful and not patronising and condescending, and I apologise for any hurt caused.

Most of my response addressed the issues here. While children sometimes flourish in early teens, and all things willing go on to get better, many don't, either through a crisis, or encountering new setbacks.

There is a lot of misunderstanding of autism, and for the sake of young people growing up, as well as adults trying to survive, we need to do everything possible to get the right information out front.

The  patronising bit, even if unintentional, was the opening sentence, 'you know what my lovely'. It looks like you are talking down on her in a diminutive fashion, as though she were a little girl. If you had opened your post in a more tactful way, then what you write would not have appeared condescending. It was the wording and tone, more than the argument, that annoyed me.

Yes I am very new on here and I didn't see the rest of the thread.  I thought it was the first of a new post and yes, I did read it as a teenager feeling down and isolated, particularly from groups with interests s/he didn't share or get.  While I've now looked again and seen this thread is about something completely different and therefore how out of place my post is, 

After the above, reading around, I discovered another post by yourself, on telling children about their diagnosis.

So to correct my assumptions you are a mother of a 14 yearold with autism, but I was also accurate to criticise your perspective, which comes over, aside from being extraordinarily condescending and patronising (even if I had been a youngster making a cry for help as you assumed), as blinkered neurotypical failure to understand what this is about.

You don't grow out of it. Its not a temporary hiccup in social relations. The social interaction, and many other problems stay with you for life. Given the right stimuli and support to build self confidence many people grow stronger and you can lead a productive life if you get good coping strategies and no damaging negative aspects.

However because it tends towards crises, someone flourishing can hit an insurmountable obstacle and regress dramatically. As has been said on other threads, suicide is a common occurrence, consequential mental health problems, alcoholism, drug abuse, problems with the law.

The point about the thread we are on here is about people dismissing the difficulties of autism on the grounds everyone's on the spectrum, so people with a diagnosis are nothing special (and often implied when this is said, that we are immature, inadequate, not trying hard enough - OR I guess from your perspective WE FAILED TO GROW OUT OF IT!).

Please please, for your own child's sake, read up a bit more on the implications.

I was responding to Scorpion0x17's comments, 280JJ, not making a desperate appeal for help. Your profile is new, less than 9 hours as I write this, and I do not know if you are a person with autism, or a parent of a person with autism, or perhaps neither.

I'm 62, retired from education, with asperger's but also many years helping people with asperger's. Things get more vaccuus my lovely if your brain slows down making connections once you are in your twenties, which is why NTs tend to become more fixed in their ways, and their "edges knocked off". The FACT is that people with autism don't slow down on making connections, they have to work harder on social processes, and they continue to have great difficulties because they cannot adjust properly socially. Hence my first paragraph.

The point in my second and third paragraphs is that children and teens on the spectrum don't generally mix socially and therefore do not partake adequately in these developmental stages which has adverse effects for life.

We all hope these discussion threads help others. This is a discussion forum about people with autism and those who care for them.

Perhaps you could elaborate on your standpoint, given you have demonstrated a characteristically neurotypical perspective that shows no understanding of autism.

Could you be any more condescending, 280JJ?

You know what my lovely, as hard as it might seem to you to imagine, all these differences in you and your peers right now will diminish somewhat when you get older and when you have more life experience.  I get completely how must feel for you right now, but as you get older, vacuous things become - well more vacuous, and the intrinsic things about people (their humour, knowledge, general intelligence etc), their important and mature qualities come more into play. This is when you will come into your fore...

life is intrinsically more difficult for an ASD child/young adult but you will get your day when you get a bit older.  Those suoerficialities will become just that and when you're an adult, there will still be things you find harder but you will find a lot more people immediately available in practical terms who you will click with and find life easier with.

all my best to you xxx

Why do people on the autistic spectrum suffer so much in childhood and teens? Well I gather that's when most of these connections develop. As we gerow older we are supposed to acquire a satisfactory pattern for life. People on the autistic spectrum remain more active longer in making connections.

What else happens in childhood and teenage years - we have peer groups, with collective behaviours and rituals and commonalities, especially in teens. It is in these peer groups that much of the learning for new connections take place.

Where are children and teenagers when these collective connections are being made?

Stonechat said:

Doesn't that degree of disability/inability/disadvantage manifest itself in each of us at different levels?

Exactly.

And is it therefore really so far fetched that the varience in disability, inability, and disadvantage extends beyond the "Autistic Spectrum" to lesser and lesser degrees well into, and in fact completely across, the full gamut of neuro-diversity that encompases both the Autistic and NT brains?

Or, in other words, is it not a little far fetched that it does not?

Stonechat said:

As I understand it our brains are made differently - with many more connections than an NT brain.

So there is a fundamental difference there, which does make our brains operate in a different way to an NT brain.

Two points about this:

1. It is not the simply the case that our brains have "many more connections than an NT brain". There is evidence that some people on the spectrum have hyper-connectivity in some areas of the brain. There is also evidence that some people on the spectrum have hypo-connectivity in some areas of the brain. It is not as simple as "all people on the autistic spectrum have hyper-connectivity and all NTs don't" - I've not seen any information on it, but I suspect that many NTs have both hyper- and hypo-connectivity as well.

2. Saying that hyper- and/or hypo-connectivity is a "fundamental difference" is just plain wrong. All humans start life with a massively hyper-connected brain, and a combination of experience and genetics pairs these connections away as we develop to differing degress in each and every individual. The resultant degree of connectivity between the different areas of the adult brain, thereby varies greatly between individuals both Autsitic and not.

This is like saying that straight-2 engine is fundamentally different to a V-8 - it is not, one has 2 cylinders aligned in the same direction, the other has 8 cylinders arranged in two banks of 4 that are aligned in a V formation. They are both internal combustion engines, and both use the same fundemental physical and chemical processes to work. The only difference is the positioning and number of the engine's cylinders. Such a difference is difference of degree not of type or nature.

Yes, our brains are wired differently to NTs, but that is not the same as saying our brains are fundamentally different to an NTs brains. We don't have any extra circuits, and neither do NTs. We do have differing degrees of connectivity between those circuits, but we each, within the Autistic spectrum, have differing degress of connectivity between those circuits also!

In other words, we are as alike and different to each other, as we are to everyone else (i.e. NTs) and the same can be said about them!

Don't make the mistake of assuming that your perception of your difference to others in any way reflects the true nature of that difference, because, quite frankly, it almost certainly does not.

(And, yes, that last sentence applies equally to me - because I do also feel fundamentally different, but a study of the facts has shown me that I am not)

Doesn't that degree of disability/inability/disadvantage manifest itself in each of us at different levels?

My own experience is that I am not disabled and do not feel disabled. In fact I am very able and feel I have advantages over neurotypical people in many ways. 

I am however, disadvantaged in certain ways - in sensory and communication matters and in having dyspraxia. But none of these have prevented me from gaining a Degree and working. Despite the difficulties I have had whilst doing these things, there is no way I would want to be transformed into being neuro-typical. 

I appreciate that some people with AS are not able to do as much as I have, because of their difficulties - my own sibling for one. It is a different experience for all of us. Perhaps this is why the professionals have such a problem in spotting that we have an AS and in treating us.

I agree.  We are neurologically different from neurotypicals. We experience a profound disconnection from their world, due to our 'self state' (the literal translation of  'aut-ism'). Our brains are different, and this is the basis behind our disability.

Throughout these differing viewpoints I see an agreement that within AS we all experience different degrees of difficulty, though in pretty much the same areas.

The degree of difficulty does depend a lot on what is happening in our lives, what stressors we are exposed to and the severity of those stressors - but underlying all of the 'reactions' we display, are the same types of sensitivity and social difficulties. As I understand it our brains are made differently - with many more connections than an NT brain.

So there is a fundamental difference there, which does make our brains operate in a different way to an NT brain. Whilst the outward appearence is that we are operating by different degrees to them - ie in our reactions to outside stimuli - the inside truth is that we are made differently, so surely cannot 'revert' to an NT way of thinking.

The NT assertion that "everyone feels like that sometimes" is them making the assumption that they are constructed and operate in the same way as us. So I guess more education is needed for people with NT brains to understand this is not so.

When I first raised my concerns that I thought I had AS with my family members and my (then) boyfriend I was met on all sides by "everyone feels like that sometimes".  I think the difference for us with AS or HFA is we feel this way all the time rather than just "sometimes" (e.g. social anxieties and aloneness to name two).

It was very frustrating at the time, but I found getting a formal diagnosis was a validation of my concerns.

longman said:

Scorpion0x17 may be right from his perception that he is different by degree not by nature. Personally I am more inclined to True Colors view of things, as I do feel radically different, even if in a milder form than most.

Maybe I need to revisit my view of the spectrum by saying that relating to the spectrum works for some, but I think it neither helps nor defines many others.

I think you and True have missed a key point in my post(s).

That is that I used to think the same - that I, and the way I think, is radically different to the way NTs think.

It was only through trying to answer the question of why I felt that way, by reading up on psychology and the way the human brain functions, that I realised that the differences between the way my brain functions and the neurotypical brain functions was not down to it's nature but the degree to which particular circuits and sub-circuits with the brain function.

A very poor analogy is that of computers (and, no, I'm not going to repeat the oft quoted, and I think very inaccurate, though sometimes usefull shorthand, idea that the NT brain multi-tasks, and the Autistic brain doesn't) - all, modern computers, no matter what their make or model are all essentially the same, they all use silicon transistors, which all work in the same way, and all use binary logic to achieve their programming. However, an Apple Mac is a very different beast to a PC, and even within each of those groups, Mac and PC, you have very wide range of degrees of functionality determined by the speed, power, and functionality of the components from which they are built. Fundementally, by nature, they are the same, but they differ greatly, by degree, in what they can do.

So, as I understand it, it is with NT and Autstic brains, fundamentally they are the same, they have the same basic components, and use the same basic logic, but the speed, power, and functionality of the circuits with the brains differ greatly.

That is, and is what I mean by, a difference of degree, not of nature.

I hope further Neurological studies may provide a clearer understanding of the nature of Asperger's - then I can actualy tell poeple 'why'.

The manifestations of autism are very varied. This is partly because there are a number of ways we can be affected, and everyone seems to have a different mix of these components. Some are more environmentally sensitive, some have more marked executive function issues, some have more marked motor control issues.

Moreover these components interact. They affect each other. And most people have one or more comorbid condition such as OCD, dyslexia, ADHD.

And then on top of that there is personality - the characteristics of an individual, aside from those down to autism, which affect the way the autism acts on an individual. This particularly shows in the degree to which people on the spectrum need support or strive to be independent.

As someone diagnosed at the manageable end of Aspergers Syndrome, I'm conscious I may have perceptions that don't apply to others, because maybe I'm having it easier, and maybe there's symptoms I don't have to as great a degree as I think I do.

But I think it is likely that some people experience a very real sense of difference from NTs because that's probably the case. While others may perceive themselves removed from NTs by degrees, because it is easier for those people to see their autism as just more limiting versions of problems NTs experience.

Scorpion0x17 may be right from his perception that he is different by degree not by nature. Personally I am more inclined to True Colors view of things, as I do feel radically different, even if in a milder form than most.

Maybe I need to revisit my view of the spectrum by saying that relating to the spectrum works for some, but I think it neither helps nor defines many others.