Understanding Autism....This was very interesting to read

[FlameyFires76]

UNDERSTANDING AUTISM


(by Frank Vandermeiren, 2009)


It is very difficult to explain what autism is to a neurotypical person, or at least, in a way that a neurotypical person could understand and relate to. Describing autism for what it really is onto a neurotypical person would require that the person describing it be autistic, and would then be like trying to speak to someone in a language they have never even heard of, and of which they thus do not understand the vocabulary, grammar, semantics or even the non-verbal signs.

This is why autism is to date still considered a very enigmatic condition, for which the diagnosis according to the DSM-IV is based upon outer observations of the behavior of autistic people, and most notably of infants or adolescents on the autism spectrum - it is called a spectrum condition because there is no single, well-defined description that fits all autistic people. Yet, these very clinical observations of the behavioral patterns of autistic people are quite misleading as they do not describe the true nature of the condition itself at all; they only describe the perception of physical behavior (or the absence thereof) from a neurotypical point of view, and in relation to what is conforming to the standards of our neurotypical society.

The most common misinterpretation of autism comes from the neurotypical parents of autistic children who believe that autism is a disease, a defect, a disability, or a kind of braindamage, and who will then embark on a crusade to have their child "fixed again", so that the child would be able to grow up and be happy in the neurotypical world and pursue the dreams of happiness that all parents have for their children, but of course, based upon what those neurotypical parents themselves perceive as happiness. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work like that, and I will be trying to explain here why not.

First of all, it is imperative that one realizes that autism is neither a disease nor braindamage, and that it is not caused by anything environmental or medical such as - respectively - viral toxins or vaccinations. Of course, there are certain conditions which are truly caused by vaccinations - such as allergic reactions, resulting in inflammation of the brain and thus also in braindamage - or by other environmental influences - viral toxin secretions, polluting agents, et al - and which cause the child to exhibit an observable behavior similar (although not identical) to that of an autistic child. As a result, since the DSM-IV only focuses on observable behavior in order to cast a diagnosis, even skilled physicians often misdiagnose a child with autism when said child is not autistic at all, or with a non-autistic condition when the child is in fact autistic, and then I'm not even mentioning the doctors who cast a "convenience" diagnosis because they're not exactly sure on what condition their little patient has and cannot be bothered to invest any more time and/or energy in a proper assessment, or because they overestimate their own understanding of things and quickly label a child as either autistic or not autistic. Sadly enough, not all people with a medical diploma are good doctors, as we all know.

In addition to the above, the myth that autism would be caused by vaccines such as MMR (Measles/Mumps/Rubella) and that autism is somehow "reversible" is strengthened through the misconstrued observations of an autistic child's behavior by the child's neurotypical parents. Many parents will swear that their child was not autistic before it received the much-bespoke vaccinations - typically administered around the age of two - because that's when they started noticing an observable regression in the child's communication and interaction skills. However, there is a very logical explanation behind this if one truly understands what autism is, and if one has the so typically autistic trait of noticing all the seemingly unimportant - but in truth very important - details, all of which I will be getting into in the following paragraphs.

So what is autism then, and how does it "work"? Well, autism is a solely genetically predetermined neurological condition, and it is pervasive. This means that the condition cannot be seen as separate from the individual, just like the person's physical body characteristics - e.g. ethnicity, gender, hair and eye color, et al. This in itself is quite a misleading property, and it is misleading in two directions at the same time, because while there are those who believe autism to be a disease or defect that can and should be cured and who thus seek to separate the autism from the individual, there are also people who will only see the autism - and particularly so when it pertains to the parents of an autistic infant - while overlooking all other aspects of the autistic person's being. And this is exactly why many neurotypical parents believe that their child was not autistic before the age of two, when it received the much-vilified vaccinations. Allow me to clarify...

Every baby, autistic or otherwise, is a human being, with a personality, a character, a psyche. As the baby grows, so does its brain (and thus its neurology), and at the same time it will also grow psychologically. Now, what is so different about autistic people is that the autistic brain has a great deal more neurons than a neurotypical brain, and literally so by the multitudes, rather than as a percentage. The neurons in an autistic brain are somewhat less developed than the neurons in a neurotypical brain, but as there are literally multitudes of those neurons, they form lots of neural pathways - i.e. interconnections, which are experienced by the subject as associations - which either do not exist or only exist in far lesser quantities in a neurotypical brain. As a result, all neurological input to the autistic brain from sensory perception as well as from emotions and thoughts is not only much more intense than for people with a neurotypical brain, but also somewhat less distinguished and thus more chaotic. This means that the autistic individual is literally being flooded by an unfiltered and incredibly intense chaos of information (due to the multitude of neurons), which is somewhat out of focus (due to the fact that these neurons are not as well-developed as those in a neurotypical brain) and that the pathways these neurons have formed often cause certain sensory perceptions to overlap - a condition known as synaesthesia, which is genetically related to autism but which is usually not clinically diagnosed as it is generally not experienced as something negative if it occurs in a non-autistic individual - which even further increases the sense of chaos to the autistic person. In addition to this, given the much higher sensitivity to neurological impulses, an autistic individual will notice all the nitty gritty details of everything, which the neurotypical brain filters away as unimportant, if these details are even perceived by the neurotypical person in the first place. A somewhat anectdotal comparison could be made by observing a cat. Cats are often highly focused on things - usually moving things, because cats are predators - which you as a human being would not even notice if you didn't have a cat living under your roof.

Now, when an autistic infant approaches the age of two - the age upon which autism is usually diagnosed, and coincidentally but unrelatedly also the age around which the allegedly autism-causing vaccines are administered - the brain will already have sufficiently developed to have a great deal more of neurons compared to when the baby was born - and remember, we are talking multitudes of neurons in comparison to a neurotypical child of the same age - and thus the intensity of the flood and of each individual neural impulse will be much higher as well. At the same time however, around that age, the child's personality and character start kicking in, and will allow the infant to choose to which neurological impulses it will respond (and how), as well as which neurological impulses the child will ignore. As such, an autistic infant at the age of two may decide not to communicate any longer through the same set of communication tools as used by its neurotypical parents, and might even instead find that rocking back and forth or banging its head against a wall or against the floor, or hitting its own head with a toy, is a much easier or much more convenient way to express its frustration or emotions than having to make those shaped sounds which its parents call words. Wild and screaming tantrums neurologically cost far less effort than "Mommy, I saw a big black hairy monster with eight legs, eight eyes and mean fangs crawling on that black curtain - no, not that one, the other one, yes, that one - and now it's hiding on the other side, behind the wooden frame. Could you please get rid of it?"

In addition, given that the neurons in an autistic brain are all somewhat less well-developed than those of a neurotypical brain, an autistic child will also have a certain degree of motor skill impairment, which might possibly make it more preferable for the infant to use the very simple mechanics of rocking back and forth, screaming, banging its head against the table or all of the aforementioned over the more difficult task of trying to control its throat, tongue and lips and then form a grammatically correct sentence. And as such, to the observer, the erroneous deduction is made that the child has regressed, and thus also that autism is something that can happen to any child and that could therefore also be made to go away again.

Thusfar we've seen what autism is and how it works, but the story does not end there, of course. We live in a society for which the mechanics have all been devised by neurotypical people and for neurotypical people. And given the somewhat "space alien"-like nature of autism, auties have to exist in a world that is just as alien to them as they are to it. Therefore, that which is needed most is not so much that the autie would adapt to the neurotypical world, but that the neurotypical world opens up to the autie, in terms of re-evaluation of its own foundations and mechanics, as well as in terms of understanding, acceptance and respect. After all, some of the most groundbreaking scientific and artistic revolutions which have benefitted even neurotypicals have come from the minds of autistic people such as Isaac Newton, Nicola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig von Beethoven and many, many others like them.

Sadly enough, those who will not accept the scientifically established facts behind autism - be it out of religious beliefs (as in Scientology) or out of denial - and who thus seek to "undo" autism, are causing much harm to their children, as well as to adult autistic people, respectively by their pseudoscientific methodologies in wanting to "cure" autism and by their prejudices towards autistic adults, labeling them as "sick", "braindamaged", "defective" or just plain "retards"; the sheer number of disability-mocking groups on Facebook with the word "retard" in their name is astounding, and given the nature of the mockery, it is not exactly unthinkable that the bullies don't even possess the required intellectual capacities to understand or accept autism spectrum (or other) conditions. Because of the inacceptance and the being labeled as "defective" or "dysfunctional", the assertion that autism can and must be "cured" is insulting towards all auties. Or how would you feel, as a neurotypical person, if someone were to tell you that you are defective and that you need to be changed into a different person? Anyone familiar with the works of Aldous Huxley or George Orwell will know what I mean...

Autism is also a quite treacherous condition in its high-functioning form, which is medically synonymous to Asperger Syndrome, as stated in the DSM-IV. It is treacherous because high-functioning auties appear to be "just like everyone else" at first glance, but they will always exhibit a number of behavioral traits which come across to neurotypical people as "funny", and which almost always elicit mockery or bullying from neurotypicals. One of such traits is the fact that Aspies can be easily mislead - either by accident or on purpose - by ambiguous language or non-verbal communication, e.g. body language, facial expressions, et al. Autistic people are normally also honest to the bone and therefore mentally project this trait onto everyone they communicate with - after all, auties are perfectionists and see no reason to lie or deceive, and thus they expect their conversation partner to be equally truthful and sincere - with as a result that they are easily assessed as "gullible" or "dumb" by people with bad intentions.

Another social problem auties typically face is that in trying to convey a concept by means of written language, their choice of words is usually misinterpreted by neurotypicals as being blunt, hostile or cold. This is however pure misinterpretation, because in essence, words are nothing but a very inefficient means of communication, an abstraction layer for ideas, concepts and emotions. Ideally, we would all be communicating through telepathy, and then the recipient of the communication would understand the concept being conveyed in exactly the same manner as the sender does. Alas, the human species is at present still bound to primarily verbal communication, and in the neurotypical world - which is very much obsessed with conformity to social rules and traditions - words are usually attributed with certain preconceived meanings and emotions - a phenomenon which is described by the term "loaded words" - and thus a neurotypical person's choice of words not only conveys intellectual ideas but also a "preprogrammed" message regarding his or her state of mind. For autistic people however, it doesn't quite work that way.

See, auties are aware of the fact that words are only words and that they are an inadequate means of describing things, which is why auties often find certain words or expressions to be funny or amusing, and why auties can be very elaborate in their explanations - as I am being right now - or often have difficulty answering a question with a simple "yes" or "no". To an autistic person, words are only a mechanical tool for conveying thoughts and logic, and not quite so much for conveying emotions through a choice of words with a certain preconceived emotional value attached to them. I myself often compare us auties with the Vulcan species in the "Star Trek" science-fiction franchise. For those of you not familiar with "Star Trek", the Vulcans are a benevolent humanoid species with pointy ears and copper-based blood, which gives their skin a slightly greenish or greyish complexion. Their life expectancy is about three times that of a human being, and they also possess a physical strength several times that of humans. Now, Vulcans have very violent emotions, and in the Vulcan past, this used to lead to all kinds of violent wars and conflicts on their homeworld, which is why they have since then adopted a new way of life, which is entirely based upon meditation, discipline and logic. Their entire mortal existence is lived in honor of logic, discipline, precision and perfection, and their violent emotions are suppressed via meditation and self-discipline. Because of this, humans often find Vulcans to come across as arrogant, mechanical, cold and without imagination or a sense of humor, but from the Vulcan perspective, humans are primitive, violent, duplicit, dangerously foolish, unpredictable and arrogant. And thus, if we return to planet Earth now and compare the aforementioned to a communication via words - and especially so in written language - between auties and neurotypicals, then the latter will most often read emotions and intentions in the words of the former which are not really there, because this is how the neurotypical world communicates, while in truth the autie is only being logical and descriptive of a concept or a situation. Ironically even, arrogance is far more of a neurotypical trait - and these days, even a socially accepted one, especially among businessmen and politicians - than that it is to be found among autistics.

But if autism is truly a genetically predestined neurological condition, then what about all those therapies that seem to have an effect, such as diets, stemcell therapy and the likes? Well, those therapies - and it is important here to understand that they are therapies, not cures - do work, because they would work just as well for neurotypical children. Many of these therapies can help regulate the brain chemistry, guide the establishment of new neural pathways and free the brain of toxins, resulting in less neurological distress, increased interactivity and concentration, et al. Yet, if one were to apply those very same therapies to a neurotypical child, then this child would exhibit the same kind of improvements in responses, reflexes, concentration and lowered neurological stress levels. This is because everyone - whether autistic or neurotypical - has certain toxins in the brain from parasitic viruses and other environmental pollutants. Such therapies can therefore be useful, but they are not a "cure" for something that isn't even an illness to begin with, and they also do not change the brain structure, which, as scans and autopsies have shown, is different between autistic brains and neurotypical brains.

Canadian film maker Keri Bowers - who is on my Facebook friends list - said a really beautiful and inspiring thing... She said: "In essence, auties have it all right. It is not they who need to change, but it is WE who need to change and who need to enter THEIR world." Keri continues to try breaking through the prejudices surrounding autism via her film work, but I personally find these quoted words from Keri to already speak as rigidly as a mountain. May the neurotypical world have heard them, loudly and clearly as a herald's trumpet....

[cyberpedz]

Thank you very much for that post very interesting and a good explanation.

[tayomismo]

thanks for the post