Poll: What Do you Know About Autism
- Thread starter Saint of M
- Start date
Not much, and anything I posit about Autism should be taken with a huge grain of salt and double-checked against actual facts. All I'm really confident enough to say, from interacting with autistic friends and family, is that Autism Speaks is a garbage fire of an advocacy group.
Dinosaurs are similar, I was a space shuttle kid instead. I used to know a lot of the names, but haven't kept up on the latest research. Have seen some really cool stuff regarding more accurate body shapes regardling soft tissue and fat which makes a lot of dinosaurs a bit rounder, instead of the "skin stretched over a skeletal frame" depictions I got as a kid. And feathered Dino's look awesome.
Dinosaurs are similar, I was a space shuttle kid instead. I used to know a lot of the names, but haven't kept up on the latest research. Have seen some really cool stuff regarding more accurate body shapes regardling soft tissue and fat which makes a lot of dinosaurs a bit rounder, instead of the "skin stretched over a skeletal frame" depictions I got as a kid. And feathered Dino's look awesome.
In university I did modules about dinosaurs and modules about autism but I did better in the former so I will say on balance, I know more about dinosaurs than autism. My professor in particular was of the mind that DSM-IV and especially DSM-V make relatively common human behaviours into clinical disorders. When I was updated on DSM-V, I had to admit that I all but threw up my hands and shouted "this shit is bananas!". Very nebulous definitions, ambiguous classification and new "catch-as-catch-can" disorders made it kind of sketchy within the medical community.
I was taught that autism is a form of developmental retardation affecting emotional intelligence which often manifests as an inability to notice and understand social cues. Both neurological architecture and neurotransmitter deficiency has been blamed for it; the current science is leaning towards a bit of column A and a bit of column B. There is a certain subset of the internet that self-diagnoses, largely as an excuse for poor behaviour. Then again this is the internet, what did you expect? Clinical diagnosis is often difficult due to conflation between autistic behaviours and certain personality types including natural introverts, contemplatives and people who are simply socially awkward. As far as I know, no definitive physiological test exists for autism which puts its status as a psychiatric condition under a small degree of dispute, there is a small minority of psychiatrists that believe it to be a psychological condition rather than a physiological one. The consensus seems to be that we simply lack the tools to diagnose from a purely physiological standpoint.
I was taught that autism is a form of developmental retardation affecting emotional intelligence which often manifests as an inability to notice and understand social cues. Both neurological architecture and neurotransmitter deficiency has been blamed for it; the current science is leaning towards a bit of column A and a bit of column B. There is a certain subset of the internet that self-diagnoses, largely as an excuse for poor behaviour. Then again this is the internet, what did you expect? Clinical diagnosis is often difficult due to conflation between autistic behaviours and certain personality types including natural introverts, contemplatives and people who are simply socially awkward. As far as I know, no definitive physiological test exists for autism which puts its status as a psychiatric condition under a small degree of dispute, there is a small minority of psychiatrists that believe it to be a psychological condition rather than a physiological one. The consensus seems to be that we simply lack the tools to diagnose from a purely physiological standpoint.
Well, I AM autistic, really. Although, I do know a fair bit about dinosaurs, as well. Does that make me over-qualified?
Imo, autism has grown so broad in what it encompasses that simply saying "I'm autistic" tells me absolutely nothing about you. I've known people who have been properly diagnosed with autism who aren't medicated and merely have mild learning disabilities combined with some mild awkwardness. I know others who are effectively nonfunctional as people. The types of behaviors that arise from it don't even appear to on a scale, but kind of all over the place. That's not even counting what the internet considers autism to be. I'm gonna assume it's essentially typified by "lacking mirror neurons".
Not quite. It does affect empathy, but instead of eliminating it, it instead messes with the dials. So in some cases you do get full-blown sociopathic behavior, while in others you get people who are overempathetic.C117 said:
For example: in my personal case my compassionate empathy (the conscience) is very high. My cognitive empathy (understanding how other people feel and think) is a little screwy, but I've gotten good at the analysis bit. As for my emotional empathy (feeling what other people feel), that is very low. As such, I can feel bad for someone and want to help, I can sometimes recognize that someone feels bad and in some cases figure out why, but I can't feel bad with someone.
