Law Breaking and Disregard for Others another Moan !

Hi Longman - I am sorry if you feel the NAS doesn't take notice. Primarily, as moderators we work towards maintaining the community on top of our regular duties, and as a result, responses can take quite some time. This is particularly true when we need to involve other teams, as our expertise as moderators is fairly specific. At the moment, we're working to increase the amount of moderators we have on the community, which should help matters. 

Earlier, when I asked what you felt the NAS could do about sensory issues, I should have been more specific and asked for your thoughts on what the NAS could do about noise in wider society, even with more guidelines I think it would be a challenging situation to resolve. This was more curiousity on my part, than the position of the NAS. 

I've passed this thread round internally to teams better placed to answer your concerns. 

No worries.

Apologies IntenseWorld

I guess I'm just feeling exasperated cos NAS takes no notice.

I wasn't implying you are being pedantic Longman.

I just provided links for you as you questioned the provision of information.

I do not disagree that the NAS website is unwieldy - I have made the same point previously in another thread.

I think there could be a lot more autism awareness generally.

Well yes, some of these have useful paragraphs on sensory issues, but why aren't these same paragraphs on so many other fact sheets, such as the ones I've already alluded to.

All you've demonstrated IntenseWorld is that NAS is very inconsistent with the sensory information, as if it is not for all readers. Similary one of the links has something on sensory overload, but why there, not elsewhere? Why not accompanying sensory sensitivities?

The other thing is you did a search for sensory or somesuch, because you knew that was what we are discussing. The various people accessing these fact sheets don't know about sensory issues until they've been informed about it in the first place. So they only reach this stuff going deep into the NAS menu.

Look at the lead-ins. Your second is reached via "Working with people with autism" then go to "education", then go to "Educational professionals in Schools" then go to "Breaking down barriers to learning" then go to "Sensory"  five levels down into the menu. Surely sensory issues are more important than that?

Your third example also has 5 levels via a health route. And its pretty cursory stuff when you reach it.

The last one is a bit of a curio - 5 levels to get a few quotes.

You can pass me all the links you want IntenseWorld, but all you've demonstrated is that NAS regards anything outside the Triad of Impairments as very low priority.

Which is not a great help when you consider that many professionals don't recognise poor eye contact unless it is obvious gaze aversion, or think if someone does alright in a half hour 1 to 1 dialogue they haven't got a communication problem.

And why are you putting up the Press for Action campaign NAS when at the same time you are sending out contradictory messages?

IntenseWorld, you seem to be making out that I'm being pedantic, which I probably am. But I anticipate you'll be fairly vocal next time someone comes back with a professional reaction that (really and truly if NAS isn't explaining it to them who else is?) is hardly surprising.

However I seem to be on my own on this one.

http://www.autism.org.uk/global/content/search%20results.aspx?q=sensory%20overload

these and more are on the above link:

http://www.autism.org.uk/living-with-autism/understanding-behaviour/the-sensory-world-of-autism.aspx

http://www.autism.org.uk/working-with/education/educational-professionals-in-schools/breaking-down-barriers-to-learning/sensory.aspx

http://www.autism.org.uk/18322

http://www.autism.org.uk/environment

http://www.autism.org.uk/19044

http://www.autism.org.uk/living-with-autism/strategies-and-approaches/before-choosing-an-approach/understanding-the-child-is-key.aspx

longman said:

Thanks for the links IntenseWorld, the first one doesn't connect but I may find it another way. The second is certainly about sensory issues but doesn't consider sensory overload, and why only here and not in other factsheets?

Its not just sensory issues and sensory overload, the descriptions don't address potential for meltdowns either.

I wish NAS would respond to this constructively. I find it depressing that so many of the characteristics of autism/aspergers that people experience in their daily lives are not addressed by the Triad of Impairments approach.

I've previously asked why Triad of Impairments dominated training packages being provided for local authorities, and NAS seemed not to know anything about it. Yet they are the ones pushing it on all fronts as if it was suifficient to explain things.

This thread started with the sorts of things, sound and vision, which caused Paull stress. But according to NAS these aren't part of his autism.

What's the point of this forum if NAS never takes any notice of it. Please NAS provide more informative fact sheets. 

I believe that the Triad of Impairments have been used in diagnosises and explanations for many years and therefore it is simply a a term that has remained in common usage, regardless whether it is still a valid one or not.  

(Coincidentally, in the DSM-V, Autism and Asperger are merging to form an Autistic Spectrum diagnosis.  So this is an example of how sometimes medical terms and diagnosises do change from time to time.)

Having read through several of the NAS factsheets, I have found them informative.  However, they are not definitive and never will be, nor can they be.  They just give the common information applicable.  But there are plenty other sources of information, including books, which do go into more depth than the factsheets can realistically do so.  

Thanks for the links IntenseWorld, the first one doesn't connect but I may find it another way. The second is certainly about sensory issues but doesn't consider sensory overload, and why only here and not in other factsheets?

Its not just sensory issues and sensory overload, the descriptions don't address potential for meltdowns either.

I wish NAS would respond to this constructively. I find it depressing that so many of the characteristics of autism/aspergers that people experience in their daily lives are not addressed by the Triad of Impairments approach.

I've previously asked why Triad of Impairments dominated training packages being provided for local authorities, and NAS seemed not to know anything about it. Yet they are the ones pushing it on all fronts as if it was suifficient to explain things.

This thread started with the sorts of things, sound and vision, which caused Paull stress. But according to NAS these aren't part of his autism.

What's the point of this forum if NAS never takes any notice of it. Please NAS provide more informative fact sheets. 

Hope said:

It would be funny that you believe in survival of the fittest Paull, if not a tad ironic. After all, by your own logic yourself and everyone else with Aspergers would not stand a chance. 'Vulnerable' as we are, socially handicapped, we would be left to survive in the gutter!

Brilliant point.

There is an apple tree that grows the juciest tastiest apples, but if you take some seeds out of the same apple and plant them in different environments then all will grow differently. If one seed is planted in sand then it will struggle to grow at all, not because of it's genetics but because of it's environment.

For that apple seed to grow into a strong tree that will also provide juicy tasty apples depends on the environment as well as the genetics (good soil, lots of sunshine and water etc..)

Does that make sense ?

Paull said:

no more evil than anybody who has ever drawn a sword in a battle other than to defend ones own territory, which includes all the Roman Emperors..etc..etc..

Erm no.  A campaign of murder, starvation and torture of innocent civilians are not the same as armies fighting one another that would have (except for some cases) have chosen to be in the army.  Armies are not always acting in best interests as sometimes they are on the attack rather than defence, but you simply cannot compare the two.

Your thinking is very skewed.

Paull said:

no more evil than anybody who has ever drawn a sword in a battle other than to defend ones own territory, which includes all the Roman Emperors..etc..etc..

Can you really not tell the difference between aggression and self defence? Or between military engagements and attacks on civilians?

Alex R (posting personally)

no more evil than anybody who has ever drawn a sword in a battle other than to defend ones own territory, which includes all the Roman Emperors..etc..etc..

There is also this: http://www.autism.org.uk/sensory amongst other pages on the NAS website regarding sensory issues, so they are not ignoring the issue, however, if as you say they are not sending the information to local authorities then they need to do more.  People are inherently lazy and won't do anything if it involves work for them.  In my experience schools have not read the NAS website either so it does need sending out.

@Longman, the NAS apparently held a conference on:

Autism and sensory processing in everyday life 2013

but the link is broken when you try to access it from Google and when you look at previous conferences on the NAS website there is nothing listed, strangely.

Paull said:

no I agree with it all apart from when you say 'Hitlers insane racial views', I just find it funny that people see Hitler as some kind of villain simply because he lost the war, let's not forget that Alexander the Great, Richard the Lionheart, Gengis Khan, Napoleon etc...to name just a few of the more known, all had a similar ideology, to advance their own race at the detriment of others, to expland their territory, build their empire etc..but because they won their wars history mainly sees them as heroes not villains.

If stags decided not to fight and just split the fawns then the strongest genes will not get passed to the next generation, in the same way mankind has advanced through wars, through fighting only the strongest survived, the bloodstock of the human race is borne from fighting and the same thing can be seen in nature such as when other species have their own territory. They fight for their territory not because they are selfish but because the survival of their species depends on it because those that win the fight pass on the strongest genes, without this they would never have evolved and life on earth would be just a mass of brainless creatures with no need to evolve.

The point being that to call Hitler's view insane is to call nature insane because through nature species fight among their own species and others to advance their own kind at the detriment of those others. If Hitler is insane then so is every other person who tried to advance their own race and build an empire, and every other creature on the planet that did the same.

(This forum is not really the place for this topic.  However, considering it has been brought up...)

My late grandfather was one of a number of allied servicemen who assisted in the relief effort at the Nazi concentration camp, Belsen, circa summer 1945 approx.  

He said you could smell the smell of death and decay before one even set eyes on the place.  When he drove through the gates, he saw sights that no one would ever wish to see.  He witnessed first hand the resultant human suffering caused by the brutality of the ***.  

Adolf Hitler inspired hatred in a nation and the resultant persecution of Jews, Gypsies, Russians, Slavs, the mentally ill, the disabled, and homosexuals, etc, resulted in the deaths of millions.  Genocide on an industrial scale!

There was also hideous medical experiments being carried out on human test subjects.  Whereas Dr Hans Asperger was ethically researching high-functioning autism, others were using the neurologically disabled and the mentally ill for hideous medical experiments, many of which served no medical purpose other than sadism.  

It is practically a given that some Austistic people were amongst the victims of medical experimentation and genocide, especially if they were amongst the aforementioned persecuted groups.  

Adolf Hitler and the *** were extremely evil.  Lest we forget, at this time of year when we commemorate our war dead (says I, an ex-Royal British Legion staff member).  

It would be funny that you believe in survival of the fittest Paull, if not a tad ironic. After all, by your own logic yourself and everyone else with Aspergers would not stand a chance. 'Vulnerable' as we are, socially handicapped, we would be left to survive in the gutter!

This also arises with NAS guidance to social services, in care and support services for adults - information for local authorities. This is what NAS appears to be telling support workers.

One factsheet is titled: "Factors to be considered during assessment of people with autism".

It begins: "People with autism have a disability characterised by a triad of impairments as follows".  (I don't understand why the diagnostic tool then becomes the descriptor).

"absence or impairment of two-way social iteraction". (Does this mean reception and transmission? Or between two people?)

"absence or impairment of comprehension and use of language and non verbal communication";  (do we all have a language problem on the same level as non-verbal?)

"absence or impairment of true flexible imaginative activity with the substitution of a narrow range of repetive stereotyped pursuits".

That is to say triad of impairments including "lack of imagination". It then listed 9 related problems we might then go on to develop: resistance to change, obsessive or ritualistic behaviour, high levels of anxiety, lack of motivation, inability to transfer skills from one setting to another; vulnerability and susceptibility to exploitation, depression, challenging behaviour, self injury.

There is nothing here about eye contact, or facial expression, nothing about sensory issues or sensory overload.

And this is guidance to support services for adults. It doesn't say at what level of severity.

What's the point of "Living Rewarding and Fulfilling Lives" and the rest of the Autism Strategy, if this is what NAS tells local authorities?

I've already commented under "Work and volunteering" in a thread about what to tell employers, by querying some of the employer factsheets.

On of my issues is NAS's constant use of the Triad of Impairments to convey to others what autism involves. I understand the Triad to be a diagnostic tool determined by what is unambiguously distinctive. It is not meant to provide a pen picture.

In the factsheet "What is Autism?" (for employers) page 3 defines the common characteristics. These are divided into "Social Communication" "Social Interaction"  "Social Imagination" and "other factors".

The last sentence in the first category, in a paragraph on non-verbal, they say "they may also find it difficult to maintain eye contact".

Amongst "Other Factors" "The person may also be sensitive to noise, smell, taste or touch"  But nothing is said about sensory overload.

Eye contact is probably crucial to both communication and interaction, as its not just about eye to eye but not looking at what else is going on on people's faces, their gestures and inflexions. It probably explains a lot of this, yet is classes as a minor "may" be present symptom.

Also while "they may have formal, or stilted language, or a monotonous tone of voice", nothing is said about facial expression, which may not be appropriate and may confuse others. It is not just about what we read with our eyes but what we convey.

Using the triad, especially the "lack of imagination" thing doesn't cover what other people will perceive of people on the spectrum. I wish I could get NAS to rethink this. 

Trouble is my understanding is that NAS has people on the spectrum on their committees and sub-committees.

If so I would like to think that if there are enough such representatives they are well placed to introduce better understanding.

Which is why it rather worries me when the NAS Moderator asks what would I like NAS to do about it?

I don't understand why sensory issues and sensory overload don't get a higher profile.

I don't think society as a whole takes noise problems seriously, I think it's an NT thing and unless the NAS gets taken over by people with ASCs I can't see how things will change.  It's like asking people not to smoke because the smoke is offensive (as well as dangerous).  It doesn't bother them so they don't care that it bothers you.