Further Autism Questions - Penultimate Post

A humorous reminder when pounding on the poor autism sufferers for their lack of ability to generalise, or see the big picture, or objectively look at their own behavior and thinking (and resist being made to) is my friend Christine's observation about the Unexamined Life not being worth living, that the Examined Life ain't so great either, is quite true as well. I can give you six reasons why the former is superior, especially in the realm of spiritual development. I also acknowledge that a lot of us take it unnecessarily far, and in even in the realm of sin and piety, it might be better to just shut up and follow the rules as written. It seems to work great for some folks.

Is cult membership more likely among Aspies? One would think they have a protective factor of being the sort of stand-up-for-what-you-think that leads people to alienate a whole room by insisting that something is teal (and we should enter teal on the form) when everyone else says it is green. Yet there does seem to be a surprising amount.  I find the concentration of kids who think they are trans to be related to this.  When they feel something very powerfully, they are willing to overlook a lot of disagreement at first in order to preserve the prominence of their feeling against the popular culture. But when you hang with large groups of people who have a similar approach, they reach some consensus and that becomes your aquarium.  If you say that the consensus is imposed top-down in cults, I would counter that the cult could not have grown up at all if there hadn't been some consensus, however inchoate, that the status quo is not a full or good explanation. The cult leader capitalises on something that is already there, s/he does not create the new idea.

I don't know what to make of the unpopularity of the extreme male-brain, theory of mind, hypersystemizing, less empathic hypotheses about autism. The complaints seem to be growing. Perhaps I just like those explanations and don't want to give them up. But the arguments against them fall into the category of "the research is old," (but is it wrong?), or those with autism are good at empathising with each other, and neurotypicals don't empathise well with us, so maybe it is just divergent but equal ways of seeing the world. I am not convinced. Even in subcultures that are quite tolerant of Aspie behavior in general, such as many technical fields, there is not an effloresence of empathy and understanding. Plus, I don't think anyone is making that claim about more severe levels of autism.  Relatedly, often right on the heels of that objection is "But it doesn't feel like that from the inside. You guys are focusing on external behaviors, but in our internal experience, we don't feel like we're wrong." That one troubles me. At some point, what you do has to become the definition, even if understanding the internal experience is the way to get there. Self-reference cannot be the final reality. I deeply suspect an unannounced agenda on this one, but am not at all sure what it is.

Poor coordination was noticed early by Asperger, and fine-motor coordination may be particularly vulnerable. I have absolutely seen it in myself, severe enough to be one of my major defining characteristics -bad handwriting, have to work twice as hard to be half as good, first on the clarinet, then on guitar work, and severe difficult making the hands do different things, which is a serious handicap with most instruments. I very quickly abandoned piano, and  I really saw it in my son taking piano lessons. When he took a battery of tests as a child because he seemed to be not fully attentive, the psychologist mentioned, almost offhandedly, that he was always going to have difficulty doing different things with the two sides of his body.  I don't know what tests he drew that conclusion from.

On that score of paying attention in class, he preferred, as many of us do, to read or daydream.  It is very much an ability to focus intensely and it annoys schoolteachers (and family members) when you tune them out, but man is it useful for doing research and some types of thinking. I am increasingly of the opinion that this is one of those things, like mood disorders or anxiety disorders, where a mild to moderate amount of something can be a tremendous advantage, just not in all situations. In our family we have variously seen this as ADD or OCD characteristics, and those might still win out as the best explanations.

Freezing up in the face of sensory overload and being literally unable to cross the street.  

Being unable to go to sleep if someone is breathing in the room. I am bothered by vacuum and other white noise.