Useful Notes / Autism Spectrum

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The Autism Spectrum is a range of mental conditions characterized by difficulties in social interaction.

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Characteristics of the Autism Spectrum:

So, what characterizes someone on the autism spectrum? Here are some signs to look for (they may have all or a few of these signs and to varying degrees):

• Delays in social interaction.
  • It's been called a "social skills learning disability", and for good reason: People with autism can have difficulty learning the non-verbal parts of social interaction, whether that's making small talk, dating etiquette, or just looking someone in the eye. Like anyone with a learning disability, people with autism can learn social skills - but it takes them a great deal of time and effort, and may always be difficult to do and imperfect in execution. For those wondering, this is the thing that causes most people on the Internet to self-diagnose, as it's usually the most visible symptom of autism. However, there are many factors to this problem with social interaction.
  • This includes the fact that for autistics, the ability to socially interact normally is not merely difficult, like for shy people or people who like telling the truth, think logically or have intense hobbies, but in addition is physically exhausting, like any job involving serious mental strain.
  • It is also worth noting that many autistics assert that in many cases the social interaction issues are not that they don't "read" the signals well, but rather that they learn to read multiple non-verbal signals. This includes those the speaker may not be aware they are sending. Much of the error and mental fatigue come from constantly having to pick the intended non-verbal messages amid the many unintended ones. (Consider this much like trying to pick out and accurately attend a single conversation in the middle of an active convention floor from 20 feet away.) It is very difficult, and can often include much misunderstanding or confusion.

• Logical Thinking. To the point that an autistic can border Cloudcuckoolander territory, they think in a very step-by-step manner, each conclusion a result of the one before. And it all works perfectly, except for when it doesn't, because society as a whole isn't perfectly logical and predictable.

• Literal Thinking. This is a frequently disputed point. Many autistics understand sarcasm, metaphor, analogy, and satire very well. Many can also be very adept liars due to their understanding of language and nuance (though lying tends to be rare and is usually for a deliberate and specific reason). The point of dispute is that while taking things literally and straightforward is the "default mode" for most autistics, it is by no means the only mode of operation.

• Lack of social "empathy". Note: This doesn't mean sociopathy. Another biggie, the term "empathy" is misleading, as people with autism do feel and appreciate emotions, but they are unsure of what emotion others are feeling. Extreme literal thinking means they can't see why a person would pretend to feel otherwise than they do, and this difficulty is solved by the only logical course of action - to paste in the emotion of whose emotions they are aware - usually themselves. Thus, if they feel happy, they assume the other person feels happy until they are informed otherwise. Unfortunately, even when knowing how the other is truly feeling, they may not know what response is wanted. And if they want to help, logic dictates they respond with how they would want to be treated, even though it isn't always accurate. For example, an autistic individual in a romantic relationship may not know that their partner wants them to say "I love you", because they assume that the fact that they love their partner is a given and needn't be said more than once for both people to know it.
  
  Another part of the empathy problem is that some people with autism also have trouble showing their emotions. They might not change their facial expression at all. When they come to realise this, they often overcompensate with even more grandiose gestures and obvious statements of how they feel. "And that makes me angry!"

• Narrowly defined interests. One of their more obvious traits. People with autism tend to build up a lot of knowledge about their interests, which run the gamut of... well, everything. Some people are interested in things that are age-appropriate, some will be interested in things that either are viewed as "too old" or "too young" for them. Some people will be interested in things that many people are interested in, others will find obscure interests. Interests can also change from time to time – some end up defining their lives with a certain interest, while others may change it every other week, but while they are into one thing, be passionately so. Some people have one obsessive hobby and then 'sub-hobbies'. For example, their obsessive hobby is writing, but this is made less obvious by the way that they have in the past obsessed over Transformers, Sonic the Hedgehog and Sylvanian Families, and even add new fandoms to the rotation, and so end up compiling a great deal of trivia and expensive collectibles about ALL these fandoms, but what all the fandoms have in common is that they intensely enjoy writing about them.

• Speech issues.
  • There are a lot of issues that can arise with an autistic’s speech. Some speak too formally. Some speak in a manner that is too fast or too loud. Others will maintain a monotone, have tics or wildly inflect. Again, it varies from person to person. A desire to be as precise as possible will often lead to Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, and oblique references and metaphors can lead to Blunt Metaphors Trauma. There may also be some stuttering, which may be countered by speaking louder (helps in debate team), and using extravagant hand/arm gestures to help convey one's meaning, in lieu of appropriate facial expressions.
  • Many autistics show the "little professor" aspect described by Hans Asperger in regards to these speech issues through not only often going overly in-depth for the average audience on a given subject, but also in having developed the habit of pre-emptively explaining what they are trying to express (sometimes many times over in the same commentary on the same idea). This habit develops for many because they have become so used to having what they've said misunderstood, or not understood in the first place, that they attempt to clear up any confusion before it becomes an issue... often creating a new issue as people frequently perceive these explanations as insulting or condescending in some manner.

• Motion and Motor Control. Associated with autism are various possible satellite traits: Physical clumsiness; tendency to move in repetitive ways, especially when stressed, called "stimming" (think everything from tapping your foot to rocking or flapping your hands); stiff and awkward walk; extreme sensitivity to sensory input (lights, noise, smells, fabrics, information...), social anxiety (not actually AS itself but often found alongside it), anxiety in general, a tendency towards epilepsy, difficulty planning and executing plans, excessive literal thinking, hyperactivity, a strong attachment to routines or familiar objects, and food allergies. Being able to focus to an abnormal level or for an abnormal length of time is common, as is difficulty in multitasking and dividing attention. These may manifest in many different ways and combinations depending on the person.

• Gaze Avoidance. Like most people in the autistic spectrum (as well as some social anxiety disorders), there are often troubles maintaining eye contact; it can actually feel uncomfortable or even painful. Because of this, since the non-verbal components of social interaction - body language and facial expressions - are largely learned visually, many with autism tend to have uncoordinated body language themselves (this can often tend to make people feel that they seem "creepy"), as well as an inability to correctly interpret the body language of others, often mistakenly described as a sort of "body language blindness" but more accurately described as a sort of "body language dyslexia" instead. Conversely, those aware that they are not meeting gazes, and becoming concerned that they may seem insincere may focus their gaze on someone for too long in a way that might make the other person feel uncomfortable.
  
  Of course, some people with autism do learn body language and emoting by studying actors in TV/film/theater and acting out their emotions. Compensating like this is terribly exhausting, as they're essentially giving a live stage performance any time they're talking to someone, and it can also lead to people sensitive to body language consciously or unconsciously realizing that the autistic is acting (as opposed to being natural), which is the sort of thing that in many people would be a danger sign. As a result, the autistic can come off as "creepy" even if they've theoretically solved their aforementioned body language problem.

• Other stuff.
  • Studies have shown that individuals on the Autistic Spectrum usually have a greater than average sensitivity to/empathy with, and desire to help, when they do notice somebody in pain. Their bluntness and lowered social inhibitions can make it easier for them to step forward to help than people who act 'sensitively' and tactfully ignore somebody's distress.
  • Autism was previously thought to be around four times as common among men as women, but is now believed to have roughly the same rate of frequency. There are several reasons for the apparent discrepancy, including that the obsessions associated with female autistics (ex. reading the same book many times) are less obvious than those associated with male autistics (ex. learning everything about World War I airplane engines), and many ASD traits (e.g. shyness) are not seen as unusual in women, or as socially crippling. Part of the problem is that most of the data comes from male subjects and thus may bias diagnoses, such that autism is diagnosed more frequently among men.
  • People with ASD are several times more likely to fall on the LGBT+ spectrum than their neurotypical peers. This may be due to being more willing to challenge gender norms, but it’s unknown if this is the exact reason.
  • Physical sensitivity may be either significantly greater or significantly lower than that of a neurotypical, in at least one area. Hypersensitivity is common, often causing the autistic to be a Picky Eater or have difficulty in wearing certain types of clothes. Hypersensitivity to noise is also common. On the other hand, there are records of autistics who have reduced physical sensitivity, or at least show no outward signs of discomfort, including one boy who showed no sign of pain at all prior to diagnosis of a twisted testicle (normally a very painful condition).
  • Unusual friends. People with autism often have trouble making friends their own age, and don't always notice if their friends make jokes at their expense (which leads to some people mistakenly assuming that they don't care. If they do notice, the chance is 90% that they will care), or what their background is, or their age, or their political or religious beliefs, or if they have disabilities, just as long as they show some interest in the autistic’s own field of interest. This often results in them being friends with other social outcasts. They also tend to prefer a small, close-knit group of friends as opposed to a wide social network. In some unfortunate cases this can result in them making very poor choices for their friends.
  • As with many other learning disorders, people with autism often appear less physically mature than others their own age, with a tendency towards rounded faces - which are usually associated with children.
  • It's not unknown for subjects to compulsively talk to themselves in various different ways.
  • Because of the gaze avoidance, body language and other social interaction issues (as well as their tendency to take things literally), autistics can often be Oblivious to Hints.
  • A lot of people with autism struggle with short-term memory impairment. Thus they appear to be very forgetful or absentminded, and giving them a number of tasks at once can be difficult for them; as soon as you give them one task, the last one pops out of their head. Some also have difficulty with "executive function", i.e. difficulty fully grasping the steps of a process and planning it out.
  • At times, someone with autism may have a meltdown when confronted with a situation that is unfamiliar or uncomfortable, or when they feel a lack of control. A major meltdown would include crying, extreme mood swings, anger, and severe emotional distress. They may lash out at others and indulge in self-harm, such as hitting themselves in the head. Those who are high functioning can recognize the signs of a meltdown and take steps to prevent or limit their reaction. Trying to reason with someone in the midst of a meltdown is difficult at best, as anything said or done could upset him or her further. The best effort to resolve this is to mitigate harm to them and not cause further distress. Trying to resolve the reasons for the meltdown must wait until it has passed and the person is in a better frame of mind to take in advice to help themselves.

Myths about Autism Spectrum Disorder:

There are a number of common fallacies, misconceptions and outright lies surrounding autistics and other autism spectrum disorders. These include:

• It doesn't exist. Yes, there are a lot of false diagnoses (and many more false self-diagnoses). If every condition which had those didn't actually exist, we wouldn't need doctors.

• Social disability means talent in a particular field. One of the most popular misconceptions on autism, made worse by how Hans Asperger himself described these people as "Little Professors". While a persistent obsession with any particular subject that leads to lots of study and practice in that subject may help in getting really good at it, people with autism are otherwise generally no more or less talented in anything than anyone else could become with that much study. One possible correlation is that since people with autism tend to be experts in their narrow field of interest, they can think of themselves as superior to those who do not possess such skills. How famous geniuses (supposedly) had autism (e.g. Albert Einstein) adds to the problem, and this of course attracts antisocial people to self-diagnose themselves with it, causing the syndrome as a whole to be associated with...

• Self-inflated Insufferable Genius/Autism as an excuse for bad behavior: While some autistics may develop or become egocentric and cultivate feelings of a superiority complex, it does not represent the community as a whole, most of who find this particularly infuriating since as this practice continues they find it harder to explain accidentally offending somebody without being seen as liars, or worse as trying to make an excuse for bad behavior. Most autistics don't see it as a 'Get Out of Jerkass Free' card, just an explanation.

• Sociopathy. There’s no correlation between whether someone is autistic and sociopathic traits, and just because they have difficulty understanding other people's emotional states doesn't mean they don't care. How nice or how empathetic they are varies from person to person just as it does with neurotypicals, but most have a normal understanding of right and wrong and a sense of justice to the point of being a Soapbox Sadie about social justice, animal rights, etcetera, but in a social situation they might be simply absent-minded and forget to pause and think what you might be thinking/feeling in a given situation, not letting you get a word in, ignoring your schedules and your needs (such as needing food or going to the toilet) and doing everything their way without realising they might be steamrolling you unless they've developed a sense of mindfulness about it or if they aren't called out on it, at which they will usually apologise.
  • Back in the days before autism was known, those who fell into the autism spectrum were often mistaken for sociopaths due to lack of outward emotions/displaying inappropriate emotions (e.g. John Elder Robison was chided for smiling when he heard of the death of another child when in fact, he was relieved that it hadn't been him who died). This can obviously create a bit of a problem; humans are easily put off by weird asocial behavior and may think "sociopath" instead of "autistic."

• No Sense of Humour.
  • This one's definitely wrong; while an odd or dark sense of humor is common, plenty of people with autism aren't afraid to make jokes about themselves. This one most likely came about because people with autism may simply not get a joke, especially situational ones, and thus not laugh. As noted, many autistics have an unusually strong sense of compassion for others and thus may find humor based on random cruelty or characters' gratuitous suffering upsetting rather than amusing. Also, while some may have difficulties understanding sarcasm, and find irony an even tougher beast, others will not only understand sarcasm and/or irony but range from occasional Deadpan Snarker to The Snark Knight. It very much depends on the person. Often the sense of humour is very dry or depends on peculiar wordplay only understood by the individual—see the Wikipedia article on Duclod Man for some good examples.
  • For many autistics their sense of humor is strongly grounded in wordplay. This is often the case because they understand the many ways in which words and phrases can be assembled and perceived. Therefore many can find many otherwise innocent or serious comments amusing or even laughably funny, which can cause more examples of people perceiving them as having inappropriate reactions to various situations. Telling puns, double-entendres, deliberate spoonerisms, and layered verbal humor (multiple meanings) are all sources of great amusement for many autistics. As mentioned above, a droll sense of humor and amusing remarks made with deadpan delivery so that the listener isn't always sure if a joke was even delivered can also be amusing. Particularly when such comments can be hidden as subtle jests, even delivered in the middle of a gathering of people, with a friend or family member who gets the joke because they understand the autistic’s sense of humor.

• Lack of Imagination: Related to No Sense Of Humour above, it is frequently reported that autistics have little to no imagination, but this is verging on Critical Research Failure; there's a (fairly popular) theory that autistics have excellent imaginations. What they lack (and probably what the reports in question mean by autistics having no imagination) is Social Imagination; i.e., the ability to grasp that not everybody feels the same way. It requires "imagining" what another person is feeling, since you can't know for certain. To an autistic, this is logical because you're not them, and it's rooted in their difficulty to recognize emotions in others.
  • What autistics compensate with is an incredible Visual Imagination. Instead of playing with toys, they might imagine getting the toys out and having them coming to life in a way that physically playing with them can't produce. Movies too are a visual medium, and some autistics like to sit back and play an entire movie in their heads, perhaps imagining themselves in a role. If an autistic takes to writing down what they imagine, expect them to paint an amazingly detailed picture of their world and characters as they strive to make their readers see what they see.

• Caused by vaccines. Children lucky enough to receive regular vaccinations tend to also be lucky enough to have access to counselors and psychologists who can diagnose autism spectrum disorders. That debunks literally the only 'evidence' for this theory. A lot of the 'evidence' is people confusing correlation with causation, people not considering broadening diagnostic criteria and increased awareness as a possible reason for the apparent increase of autism prevalence, and one thoroughly discredited study that is contradicted by an avalanche of other studies. The case against Caused by vaccines is not that difficult to grasp, yet many people remain convinced it's all caused by jabs, which is leading to some pretty nasty stuff.
  
  The idea that the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine causes autism is particularly tragic, as women contracting rubella while pregnant is one of the few known causes of autism, yet that is entirely preventable through inoculation. The guy who did the MMR study, Andrew Wakefield, was struck off the British medical register for ethics violations. Some people still believe he's an honest man punished by Big Pharma for dissenting against them, despite the fact that it's been discovered he was looking for a way to make a vaccine (which he would benefit from selling) for just the measles, that did not include the ingredient he claims was causing autism in the MMR vaccine, and his famous study was financed by a firm of medical malpractice lawyers so make of that what you will.
  
  
• Caused by _____. While research continues (see below) and some of it is beginning to suggest several very plausible explanations for what causes autism, nothing has conclusively been shown to be the cause of every case of it. It's also possible that each genuine case of it has a completely different cause, or a different combination of multiple causes. People with autism are not only different from other kinds of people, but often from each other as well. Research also continues into whether people have autism, from birth, develop it at some time later in their early childhood, or both.

• Defines one's entire identity/explains all quirks. In fact, autism is rarely the only unusual psychological condition individuals have, and being socially awkward may exacerbate other psychological conditions such as borderline personality disorder or Social Anxiety. Autistics also vary as widely in regard to sexuality as anyone else. They are also just as likely to have fetishes as anyone else. Needless to say, having atypical sexual interests as well as neurological functioning can be extremely difficult. Some also suffer from alcoholism and drug addictions. Furthermore, the interaction between these conditions can be quite complex, leaving open questions of cause and effect, and whether one condition causes the other or is merely aggravating it. One should never assume everything about an autistic necessarily arises from the condition alone.
  
  Additionally, autism has a sliding scale of intellectual and physical functionality and socially functional variations — some autistics just have minor social difficulties to go with their obsessions and tics, while others are almost crippled socially as well as these other symptoms.

Treatment of Autism in Culture and Society

Treatment of ASD varies throughout Hollywood. The most common portrayal seems to be that of the awkward "little professor." Other possible portrayals of adults with autism include Matthew from NewsRadio and Reverend Jim from Taxi. AS will often be stereotyped, with anyone who has it being shown as a textbook case. ASD is unfortunately still in the Hollywood stage where, when a character has it, it will be his defining characteristic or even his full personality. There probably never will be a Hollywood film with a "100%" accurate depiction of ASD- because it really does vary from person to person. There are certain films that attempt to depict how a person with autism would go about finding love: Mozart and the Whale is about a male and female autistics who meet each other, and Adam (2009) has an orphaned Aspie young man find himself falling for the new tenant in his apartment. More recently, a 2010 remake of the TV series Parenthood features a child with autism, luckily presented in a stereotypical yet kind portrayal (tics, need for schedule structure, and a particular enhanced/hyperfocused hearing ability).

The severity of autism varies, hence the "autistic spectrum". Some people are lucky enough to have a mild enough case that, although it affects how they live and interact, they can also deal with society as a whole while others may have severe enough cases that they require close and near-constant supervision and won't interact much at all with anyone. It can be hard to tell: someone's upbringing and education can make a huge difference, and being aware of the condition and how to deal with it often helps a lot.

Note that there is no known prevention or cure for autism; it's neither a disease nor ailment, but a fundamental difference in the way the brain is wired. Treatment only exists in isolating problematic symptoms and making an effort to overcome or work around them. There is a lot of misinformation going around about the nature of autism, often thanks to the above misdiagnoses and the following backlash, and you really should do the research before you end up making the wrong assumptions in front of the genuinely diagnosed.

It is open to debate whether autism is simply a collection of traits that every human being has to some degree or another. It has been said that autism is contagious; their logical thinking and open-voiced approach to telling you what they think makes them good at bringing you around to their point of view. The irony here is that ASD is characterized by an absence of social empathy and that copying others' behavior unconsciously is socially empathetic.

It's important to note that while autistics can be very nice, open people, that doesn't mean they're all nice all the time, or that they're naive, and can actually be good at working out how other people think (partly because they had to put so much more effort into working it out in their youth; talent is cheap). It's something of a 50/50 whether an autistic wishes they weren't, or they may actually look down on Neurotypical people, thinking of them as mindless sheep following the status quo, dishonest and arrogant, or even cruel and insensitive, though this sense of superiority can ironically lead them to exhibit the same behavior themselves. Try to upset them deliberately and you may not get the reaction you expected, and while it depends on the individual, they may have a very unexpected Berserk Button.

In professional fields, those with autism are sometimes Bunny Ears Lawyers (or The Wonka if they're the one in charge). Some, however, will just come across as either oversensitive or as unpopular Jerkasses. Many of the outward symptoms also share at least some similarities to Japan's Hikikomori, especially with regard to socialization; autism has been described as one of the traits according to some Japanese commentators.

There is still a lot unknown about autism, as with most mental conditions, and research into the condition continues today. Likewise, the term "Neurotypical" is sometimes used as an in joke by people diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders to refer to people who aren't diagnosed with one, and some use it as an insult or slur. Allistic is another term used to refer to non-autistic people, as neurotypical or neurodivergent can also refer to people with, say, bipolar disorder or depression. Putting the person first, before the disorder, is important to many people who either see it as just another trait such as hair or eye color or don't want to define the person by what they see as a disease that he or she has. Of course, like every other issue as to how to treat autistic people, not everyone agrees on this, as some may see it as patronizing. Most of the people who push for people-first language are, in fact, parents, rather than people who actually have autism. Often, people who actually have autism spectrum disorders prefer to be referred to as "an autistic person" or "an autistic" rather than "someone with autism", because their autism is such an integral part of their identity. They know that any negative aspects of it could not be gotten rid of without also getting rid of the positive aspects, such as an amazing memory, or visual thinking.

One more important thing to remember: People with ASD are capable of overcoming several of the signs mentioned above and learning the socially acceptable behaviors, just like anyone else, especially with the help of therapy; just because someone with autism starts out lacking understanding of social cues doesn't necessarily mean that they'll never be able to immensely improve it. Speech issues can be corrected with speech therapy, and given time, some can develop a broader range of interests. Therefore, it should never be assumed that someone is not autistic simply because they don't overtly display any signs. It is fairly normal to encounter people with autism who are surface-level indistinguishable from neurotypical people until you spend a great deal of time with them. Or until they come right out and tell you.

Resources for People with Autism

If you have autism (or suspect you might), don't fear! Although people with autism have more social challenges than the average person, these challenges can be overcome. Plus, there are a lot of resources out there to help you.

• Counseling. If you have not been formally diagnosed with autism, a diagnosis is your first step. See a psychologist who specializes in High Functioning Autism. This is the person who is best qualified to diagnose you and then help you after the diagnosis. If you have been diagnosed but are not currently seeing a counselor, consider signing up for an appointment. Weekly meetings with someone who understands the way you are wired can be an invaluable resource to improving yourself.

• Social Skills Guides. Social skills, like any other skill, can be learned. It just takes study and practice. Fortunately, there are lot of resources available to help you study. Here are a few: Succeed Socially, or Improve Your Social Skills (need to pay for some of the content) . You can also check out your local bookstore—many books on conversation, etiquette or relationships will be helpful to you.

• Online Communities. You Are Not Alone. Get linked up with other people with autism or other people who are trying to improve their social skills, and you will have much more success. Check out the communities at WrongPlanet.net, Aspies Central, Psych Forums Asperger's Forum or r/SocialSkills.

• Support Groups.

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