![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
delta_mikeThis interview with Ari Ne'eman was good reading on the subject of providing support for people with Autism-spectrum conditions. For a chap of 22 years, he's surprisingly articulate, and rather good at explaining things in ways that my brain can synthesize rapidly.
In particular, I read the line, There are a lot of social rules that we don’t understand, and tremendous consequences inflicted on us for violating them, and nodded knowingly.
The reference to Temple Grandin was also great -- I'd stumbled across her book, Animals in Translation, a few years ago, and devoured it. It was fascinating, and helped me understand myself.
This is because I have traits in common with some people on the Autism spectrum: I think visually; I'm sensitive to bright lights, and sound, and -- as anyone who's ever tickled me -- probably touch, too. I have a highly systemizing mind. I was generally poor at handling social interaction -- I understood computers better than people. Bullying in school was a problem.
Somehow, somewhere along the way -- perhaps through brute force trial and error -- I've developed a better model of people, meaning that I'm now typically as good as most neurotypical people at understanding and inferring other people's mental state. I have social skills!
But they took a long time to develop -- towards the end of undergraduate degree and beyond -- meaning that I now feel that I missed out on a huge range of social opportunities I didn't understand.
I've never been diagnosed with an Autism-spectrum disorder, and thinking about the concept now, I'd be worried about acquiring that particular label. I wouldn't even call it a disorder; merely a specialization.
But it's only just occurred to me after all the discussions here that I can reasonably describe myself as 'not neurotypical', too.
In particular, I read the line, There are a lot of social rules that we don’t understand, and tremendous consequences inflicted on us for violating them, and nodded knowingly.
The reference to Temple Grandin was also great -- I'd stumbled across her book, Animals in Translation, a few years ago, and devoured it. It was fascinating, and helped me understand myself.
This is because I have traits in common with some people on the Autism spectrum: I think visually; I'm sensitive to bright lights, and sound, and -- as anyone who's ever tickled me -- probably touch, too. I have a highly systemizing mind. I was generally poor at handling social interaction -- I understood computers better than people. Bullying in school was a problem.
Somehow, somewhere along the way -- perhaps through brute force trial and error -- I've developed a better model of people, meaning that I'm now typically as good as most neurotypical people at understanding and inferring other people's mental state. I have social skills!
But they took a long time to develop -- towards the end of undergraduate degree and beyond -- meaning that I now feel that I missed out on a huge range of social opportunities I didn't understand.
I've never been diagnosed with an Autism-spectrum disorder, and thinking about the concept now, I'd be worried about acquiring that particular label. I wouldn't even call it a disorder; merely a specialization.
But it's only just occurred to me after all the discussions here that I can reasonably describe myself as 'not neurotypical', too.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-16 08:33 pm (UTC)We both have mental models of both neurotypical and autistic-spectrum persons, and this is unusual.
There's a chap I know, a former PsiPhi member now off working in the wider world, who had a reputation for being intensely arrogant and very difficult to get on with.
So, I got on with him really well. In fact, I think I'd only been speaking with him on [subject-du-jour] for about 90 seconds, whereupon he asked me whether I was gainfully employed and wouldn't mind working in the same place he was..
In this conversation, other neurotypical (but geeky!) people were getting riled that they were being told to change their ways, because their modus operandi was inferior, and that -- for their own good -- they should clearly use Browser X instead (or whatever the topic was), they got miffed and were not in any way appreciative of the advice.
Because I could see, not explicitly stated, that this was the chap's expert, considered, researched position, and that he was trying to help them benefit from his depth of understanding and reasoning on the subject.
More than that, I could engage with him meaningfully on the subject, and ask him sensible questions in a manner that he understood, appreciated, and -- in the face of a reasonable argument or statement of fact -- was entirely happy to update his opinion based on that information.
In that particular case, I tried to translate the assumptions made by either side so they could understand each other. Can't remember how effective I was; it wasn't a significant deal.
That's just an example. But there is a slightly perverse mirror-image effect going on -- while autistic persons often have extreme difficulty getting the hang of recognising and understanding the signals and mental states of neurotypical persons, so do neurotypical persons find it difficult to understand the social conventions of people on the autistic spectrum. This is because, quite simply, they think differently. A mental model that works for one will only (at best) crudely approximate the other.
And where there are two substantially different modes of thought, surely there are more..