Technology has introduced new behavioral dynamics in our lives that often catch us by surprise. What is consider normal and what is not, is often nothing but a matter of perspective. Today, there is a thriving tendency for diagnosing children as autistic (and/or having Asperger's) if they just lack the social intuition to communicate with textbook normality. This is not a completely unscientific assumption but a damaging societal narrative.
For those not familiar with the term, the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) encompasses such a wide range of subjective behavioral traits that pretty much anyone can fall within it's boundaries at any given time. The ASD implies that the individual has ongoing social problems such as difficulty communicating and interacting with others or engaging in repetitive behaviors. If one does not have many interests (whatever that means in their definition), then you can qualify as an autistic individual. having limited interests or engaging in just a few activities is also an indicator.
The tragic part is that the symptoms are typically recognized in the first two years of life — an age that is very much still in process and those who do the evaluation are anything but experts. They simply take a generic form and tick away boxes based on their own intuition and parents feedback. Keep in mind that the scientific research on autism is extremely vague and it can be hardly be called scientific. Not a single study has been falsified or replicated due to the fact that the definition itself is based on the rather shady "soft" science of psychology (I call it social engineering). To top all these, If the individual has a hard time functioning socially and forming relationships — whether in class, school or work — then this is the strongest evidence for having ASD.
Before I continue, I want you to pause for a moment and ponder upon a few important but rather inconvenient observations. We live in a society that is increasingly dominated by screen communication. Our public schools are pretty much brainwashing facilities for creating numbed wage-slave livestock. Due to the abundance of information and convenience in communication and entertainment, most people prefer to spend more time alone. Last but not least, communication, any way you examine it, incorporates deception and manipulation. We smile to people to like us. We use specific words to get what we want. We dress in order to attract. Every single thing we do incorporates a great level of sociopathy because life is based on deception. If children do not learn how to lie by the age of 4 then they are considered problematic. From the advertising boards we look every day to the fake greeting psychotic smile that is painted in our faces to make our way through the day — all this, is considered normal because everyone is doing it. That's the science behind a disorder. If you deviate from the center of the bell curve, then you have a problem. If that is not social engineering, I don't know what is.
If a child is not able to take part in our cultural theatrics it does not mean that he has a mental disorder. If a child wants to play, scream and fuck shit up like nature designed it, then this is perfectly normal. If the child is able to sit on a chair, glued on a screen and obey like a little soldier by copying savoir-vivre behavior then that is what is really fucked up — not the other way round.
Adding to this, we have to accept the fact that children imitate their parents. More and more millennials are literally glued in front of a screen all day long. How do you think a child will develop in such an environment? Monkey see, monkey do. People forget that children almost never hear words. Children imitate actions and body behavior. This is also why communication is mostly non-verbal. If there is behavioral incentive at home, and other kids are also screen-zombified then they will not find anything interesting while interacting which one another nor will they learn from their parents no matter how much they bitch about it with advice. This is the single most important mistake parents do but almost everybody seems to be oblivious to it. Parent comes dead tired from work, opens the computer and then he wonders why his neglected child is a behavioral fuck up.
Parents also forget that sometimes the kid just has to be told "Hey don't say or do shit like X." Many parents have no clue how to raise a child. They rather believe the new postmodern meme that something magical will manifest into its character because "fuck yeah intuition". Nature has designed children to be brought up and shaped mainly by parents. This is the very reason why the brain in young mammals is so plastic.. Children, no matter how idealistic we want them to be, do not just absorb info magically and become critical thinkers. They have to be sculpted to act in a certain way. Most people confuse this by saying to children what to think instead of how to think.
Adding to all these, the technological comfort of our time has created children that just want things as easy as they can get them from a computer click. They will scream and generally be a pain in the ass if something does not land in their lap. Nobody will do anything to guide their behavior or teach them coping skills because the parents have their heads too much far up their asses with the lame excuse of "Oh they're autistic". On top of this, they get to put on an individual education plan that makes it is almost impossible for the teacher to fail them. Other students around them reinforce the same behavior and voila: every single parent requires an excuse for their irresponsibility and laziness by throwing the "my child is autistic" trump card.
Autism Spectrum Disorder is nothing but a persistent failure to learn social norms and develop fluency in the language of social archetypes. It's a refusal of adopting basic real-life social knowledge that either comes as a result of parenthood or technology. The excuse of the condition also implies that the child is somehow "gifted" in other areas and that gives leverage for reinforcing such a behavior. All a child has to do is demonstrate a subjective lack of interaction with other kids or show absence of social role models which by the way vary massively.
What we observe today is the equivalent to the environmental issues of the early 20th century, like lead and mercury poisoning. The only difference is that instead of physical pollutants, we now have behavioral ones. When there was no internet, people couldn't escape social interactions and they had to learn the rules of engaging with one another. This is not to imply that technology is bad. It is what it is. Times change. Nonetheless, just because we are caught up in the middle of this, it does not mean there is something wrong with us.
Prior to the internet age, those who are considered autistic either learned to deal with it or became recluses. Recluses that had a few interests and little interaction with people used to excel in their fields since everything they did, they did with massive obsession. This is also where I.Q falls short. Behind every single innovator we can easily see a person with what psychology falsely calls OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Behavior). Eventually these people will make it in their field. Bill Gates was one. Tesla was another. Much like recluses of the past, children do not learn social skills because simply the don't need to. They don't engage with many activities because our economic system focuses on specialization rather than a "jack of all trades" behavior that used to dominate in the past.
True autistic individuals are truly dysfunctional in every possible aspect. They are a very small percentage of the human population — not even a single digit. Yet, today with the ridiculous autism spectrum the numbers seems to grow like herpes in a brothel. This alone should indicate that we are talking about behavioral meme, not a biologically causative factor.
Parents often try to excuse such an autistic behavior with false correlations such as in the case with vaccinations. Sure, some children might react bad to some vaccinations but the "vaccines cause autism" statement is as accurate as measuring your fart's density on Everest. When autism itself has yet be defined properly, everyone jumps the excuse train with the first chance they get. It does not take long for irresponsibility to mask as some external factor such as screen glued parents excusing their own shortcomings with the generic label of autism.
The increase of autism might also be correlated with another factor; evolutionary fitness. We no longer have large wars and day to day survival duels that would naturally eliminate weaker individuals in the "autism spectrum". There's no more child labor either, where children (with problems or not) just do a menial task until they die and nobody notices the difference. Every single airheaded millennial wants their child to become the next Tesla but they all soon realize that their offspring are not cut up for it — no matter what they try to do. This makes them feel unease. Labeling them with the title" autistic" and offering them "special treatment" makes them feel better.
Professor Baron-Cohen demonstrated in a study that "Geeky parents", tend to have autistic children. The fact that there is no evidence demonstrating that is something genetic going on, it surely reinforces the idea that children simply reflect on parents' behavior. Simply put, parents who are focused on a skill that deals with things that most of society does not engage or understand, will more likely transfer similar behavior to their children. These children from their turn will have hard time engaging with other regular minded children.
Mental Disorders have become so fashionably accepted that is rather worrying. Every single problem we face today, every single thing we don't like, is labeled as a disorder and we pay someone else to solve it. We outsource our children's future because we deny to face the harsh truth. The autism spectrum cannot function as an excuse for categorizing our children as problematic but specially smart. If anything, the whole narrative speaks volumes about the behavioral shortcomings of the parents.
I enjoyed every word of this article. Congrats for the quality of content! It's a very good lesson on how to raise your children!
glad you like it.
You forgot to mention Big pharma.They're drug pushers. They feed kids with pills in schools like candies.
I will write a post about this one
I do think that autism is a real disorder. The Theory of mind by Baron Cohen makes much sense to me. The neurobiology between Asperger is very interesting. I guess there is also some defect in the development of mirror neurons: Neuronal systems very important in socialising and mirroring others. But I also believe that psychology in general is not a real science. Thus, I do think that people might wrongly be diagnosed with ASD. Temple Grandin has classic ASD, and you get a lot of insight into this conditions be reading her very introspective writings.
well said.
In order to understand the concept of "Autism", we have to understand the concept of "diagnosis."
The problem with the current conception of a "diagnosis" is that there is a presumption that once a diagnosis is applied, there is some actual knowledge about what is going on.
Much of the time, this presumption is not accurate.
Most "diagnoses" are simply a reformulation of the initial complaint, but in medicalese. Show up to the doctor and say your joints hurt? Why, son, you have "arthritis" (means inflammation or pain in the joints.) Note -- no real knowledge of WHY this is happening -- you just get your initial problem parroted back to you with a different name. That's your "diagnosis."
So apply this to Autism. You go to the doctor because there is a behavioral problem. And they give you a diagnosis of "Autism" --but that doesn't mean they have any idea what is actually going on. They just lump a bunch of problematic behaviors together and call them a name, but you could have done that yourself.
The problem with the diagnosis of Autism is that there is no underlying conception about what is wrong. There is, in fact, no reason to believe that folks diagnosed with autism have even remotely the same thing going on.
For example, there are parents who go through the hell of their normal child suddenly regressing, getting severe bowel problems and cycling between horrible constipation and wicked diarrhea, being completely incapable of interacting in any functional way, retreating to corners with their hands over their ears because they are so exquisitely sensitive to sound -- no one who has had any interactions with these children would attempt to belittle their condition as somehow "normal." And yet -- you also have socially awkward children with no other physical problems who are also diagnosed with the same problem, or at least in another place on the "Autism spectrum."
So -- when you are muddying the waters by insisting on giving people with vastly different problems the same diagnosis, when you resort to Junk Science by putting everything that you don't understand into the same basket, is it surprising that we can't figure out what the problem is?
Imagine if every time your car stopped working, society called it "Dys-enginemia." And then, you tried hard to figure out what was causing "Dys-enginemia", but there seemed to be no pattern -- sometimes you would find battery problems, sometimes valve problems, sometimes ignition problems, sometimes compression problems, and sometimes fuel injector problems. But it wasn't always the same problem.
And so your conclusion would be that valve problems cannot possibly cause "Dys-enginemia" because not every engine with the diagnosis has a valve problem. And in fact, you can "scientifically prove" that valve problems cannot possibly be the cause of dys-enginemia because only about 5% of engines with this diagnosis have this problem. And similarly, compression problems cannot possibly cause it because not every engine would have that problem, and so forth and so on.
Do you see how the junk diagnosis, the insistence on lumping all of the problems under the same heading, makes it absolutely impossible for you to find the problem, because the problems in fact all stem from completely different issues? The root cause of your inability to locate the problem is your insistence on starting from the "diagnosis" and attempting to prove that they are all the result of the same problem, when in fact they are not.
awesomely put @gwiss
Thanks for posting this. I have friends who are teachers, and over time -- the last few years especially -- they seem to have had an explosion of students they insist are on the "spectrum." It's become a meaningless word. I often worry about how this children will grow up, and whether labeling them this way -- and with such nonchalance -- may hurt them in the long term.
yeap. it has become an excuse-meme
I have read a few of your articles and it seams to me that an underlying theory that you don't mention but guides your opinion is the debate between Nature or Nurture. Here, on Autism and earlier on Introvert/extrovert you argue that it is social norms and life circumstances that determin these "conditions". You go as far as calling them bull shit, in other words completely made up or 100% nurture. What roll does nature, our genetic heritage, play in personal traits or abilities/disabilities like these?
I have referenced plenty of evidence in my post. Check the hyperlinks.
There is no evidence for genetic predisposition to explain such a massive trend in autism — nor there is for introversion/extroversion. They are based on subjective spectrums that seem to expand or retract depending on who examines them.
A very small percentage of the population has indeed severe learning disability and/or issues with socializing. Again, this percentage is extremely small. Thing is, with the "spectrum" theory, anyone can fall within that range and labeled as "autistic" with no other evidence other than a random person taking an interview and checking boxes.
If the parent is exposed to the idea of autism, even worse since their own bias will affect how those answers will be filled.
I think many so call psychological/ mental disorders are made up terms to describe people within the normal distribution curve. I don't mean all mental disorders are not real, but i with that normal distribution curve!!
I mean its also important for us to know that there is not just 1 normal distribution curve for a mental condition, it must be a multifactorial one!! And people go too over to classify people into "mental disorders", then start blaming stuff to cause them. We are all lying on some point of the normal distribution curve, and in the past it might not be as easily to access information so you didn't know others who "suffers" from it, but now, everything goes online~
I often say state that "whoever has parents, has issues" just to piss of the person who claims disorders for just about anything.
I sometimes think that these days, anyone able to focus long enough on one subject to read a posting like yours will be classified as having some form of autism. Maybe we'll see the day that people who are able to read and digest a 1200-page history book will be diagnosed and locked up for their own safety.
At the extremes, autism is a disability of sorts, of course, but the "spectrum" has been stretched to include just about anybody, as if individual differences aren't supposed to exist, ignoring the fact that few things get designed and built without some engineer somewhere going into "autistic mode" for a while.
lol. I would need a mental institution for sure.
awesomely put
I work with kids on the spectrum, and they bring me such joy. My agency focuses on ABA therapy, and I've had a lot of success using it with non-verbal kids who are learning to be verbal. Thanks for the post, autism awareness is always great.
So you are saying that this is a behavioral training issue that can be manipulated given enough time resources.
Yes that's basically what ABA is
so you admit that this is entirely a behavioral thing that probably started from the child's environment aka family
I was not very talkative either and couldn't hear or talk well until high school & college. I probably have autism. Different kinds of people learn & do things differently. I went on to be a camp counselor for five years. My life is an example of the hope they can have. Was born 1985 in Oregon and now I'm teaching in Vietnam. IT does take more patient to work with some kids but it is totally worth it.
probably not
I agree! Patience is key, and never giving up on a child even if they do pose some challenges
My uncle has autism but found love in music, he was able to get a job a record store and alphabetized the entire shore his first week there
Thank you for writing this. There are many personality traits - some I posses - that could be called autistic. Things that used to be known as being introverted or socially awkward. Some of these traits I simply grew out of.
I have little doubt that were I born a decade later I would have been diagnosed as autistic. They wanted to diagnose my nephew with autism when he was 4. Now at 7 he's a perfectly happy, outgoing kid with lots of friends and completely "normal".
Your example describes perfectly what is going on in the world right now with how autism and introversion is perceived.
I have no interest in disparaging anyone who is close to a child that has real cognitive issues, but the spectrum diagnosis of today are scaring the pants off the parents, who are demanding special help for children that are slightly off base.
I have two nephews that both started being verbal later than most, were diagnosed with severe autism by the age of 2, and by the time they hit 6, they were acting like the dorky kids I grew up with. They'll likely have to ape their way thru life, learning off other's social cues.
My point is that the diagnosis come off so draconian and the reality is that these kids will likely live a close to normal life.
well said
Our personal journey into this world of autism began just over eight years ago with the birth of our son. The first thing we noticed was that he seemed very restless. He was always unsettled. He had a lack of recognition in his eye. He didn’t eat. He didn’t sleep. As each day passed, we recognized more ‘red flag’ characteristics of autism with repetitive behaviors, speech/sound delays and more. My heart out to everyone with autism spectrum disorder..!
children are designed to be restless.
if he got tired enough, he would sleep.
at some point if an idea gets into the head of the parent then reassurance of a belief will make self-fulfilling prophecies seem more and more evident.
Exactly.
The irony is that people who experience themselves being outside the normal, in only one way, will often perceive themselves as being weird or having a problem generally. Not recognising the fact that falling perfectly in the middle on all possible psychological and social traits is itself statistically unlikely, and thus far to the side of the curve.
No wonder why a majority reports having had psychological "issues" at one point in their life.
This is all to be expected since they are taught to believe they are 'special'.
I sometimes believe that if I get into a psychology class and teach them how to properly use SPSS most students will drop the major right there.
yeap. it's fashionable today. we all have issues. if you complain enough you get a paid friend and magic pills to cope. "science".
My younger sister is a psychology major and since my English is much better than hers, I've translated a lot of psychological papers for her and I was amazed by the small and obviously self-selected sample sizes that some of those researchers were going on from. You simply cannot make a conclusion about the human mind based on a study of 40 college students. You can pose a question, but any conclusion you claim in your abstract is more or less baseless. Small sample sizes are a huge problem in psychology I think. The thing is securing larger ones is almost impossible and those university professors and graduate students need to be churning out papers. So they all agree to accept tiny samples as some "necessity" as if it wouldn't invalidate most of their conclusions.
Don't you know man? 90% of their papers involves college students..probably the worst sample a researcher can take.
Well, I've also looked at some research about aging and how it affects mental faculties and so on and while it was quite interesting, they had a sample size in the tens, so different factors they were assessing like education and doing mental exercise like sudoku and crosswords regularly were represented by groups of literally a few people. I don't know how you write about your "conclusions" with a straight face when the variable you are looking at is represented by 4 people or something. And don't get me started on the we had 24 subjects, but we compiled our analysis on 21 because 3 were outliers (read including them would have made our study even more useless and our hypothesis even less substantiated) and we excluded them. But 3 people are more than 10% of your sampling...
I understand finding experiment subjects is hard, but working with sample sizes that are simply to small to be representative about anything simply ads no real value to your field and just obscures reality with a pile of papers to cite with claims and conclusions that have not actually been properly substantiated.
they get funding. that's how they write "conclusions" with a straight face.
Agreed. Being normal is kind of like being not special or unique. I probably had autism. Struggled to talk and hear and I would pretend that I was like an alien adopted by my parents like A.L.F.
Long, but good post. What is your view on the link between autism and vaccines ?
since autism is bullshit to begin with then the correlation is false.
Makers of all kinds of stuff list all kinds of stuff as a possible side-effects even if it is not proven or sometimes disproved just to make sure they don't get sued. It's much easier to print it on there and give a good reason to judges to dismiss lawsuits against them right out of the gate instead of having to litigate them and try to prove the lack of a connection which will be costly, lengthy and detrimental in terms of PR. That's why some smartphone makers might list that their devices may cause cancer despite the fact that the correlation remains undemonstrated and unlikely for not. It's a legal strategy that protects them from lawsuits.
Btw, are you sure that vaccines list that as a possible side-effect anyway?
... so some of the side-effects they failed to mention were Rabies, Morgellons and Mad cow disease?
Why not? There is a much smaller risk for a class-action lawsuit from people suffering from rabies than from parents of autistic children who would be wiling to sue, isn't there?
Of course, I'm not a lawyer and this is a possibility not a hard fact though I think it's a considerable one. You posed a question and I gave you a possible answer I guessed you might not have been aware of before that.
I think depression is crap, even though I am a victim of it, cuz even now I feel depressed but I can normally function! Think positive! and nothing is fucking wrong! Autism to some extent, I cant agree with you!
It is bullshit. We are all depressed. We have to in order to change a course of action. Depression is mostly evident in the western world where we have way too much time to sit around and philosophize. Sooner or later you will realize that life sucks and that most things are pointless. Throw someone in the desert to find water and depression vanishes.
now how about that.
I agree with you! But Autism i dont think what u say is right, its genuinly a terrible disorder!
I think you are pointing out a very serious problem. ASD and other mental "disorders" are bing overdiagnosed and diagnosted too easily. If you want to look for disorder of sorts, you would find them with virtually anyone as none of us function perfectly on all levels. And if you are a child and get slapped with a mental diagnose, that's bound to have a nocebo (a detrimental placebo) effect on you. In a way, many diagnoses easily turn into self-fulfilling prophecies.
I would say that the "magic" areas of your graph that are the fuzzy boundaries should be pushed to the outside as much as possible in order to put the label of disorder on as little people as possible, especially when dealing with children. A child is too maliable still, so giving them a label is not a very good way to go.
Still, I would disagree with the idea that autism is something that happens to you and my interactions with adults that have learned to function with such disorders leads me to believe that at least for some people on the spectrum, it's not really a behavior, but a way that their brain functions. They just notice different stuff, are interested in different stuff and their brains functions a bit differently than us "normals". But the thing is, it doesn't have a problem with functioning, it just functions a differently. The reason something like that would be viewed as a disorder is the fact that society has an expectation for your brain to function "normally".
I have a family member who is on the spectrum and I've witnessed their whole development as I spent a lot of time with him from early childhood into adulthood. My limited and arguably anecdotal observations were that around the age of two he suddenly strayed from the expected behavioral path most children are on. He started spending more time playing on his own, singing and sounding off to himself, walking around oh his toes, taking more interest in listening to music or noise than talking to people and so on. Keep in mind that this was long before screens were a vital part of our lives, so I doubt that influenced him in any way. It was also before the autism diagnosis was popular here and it actually took them decades to slap a label on him. He is still not a screen addict. He has a younger sister who's younger by just a tiny bit and she didn't have any problems at all and is perfectly adjusted socially despite the fact that she was brought up in virtually the same environment. With this relative of mine, you can surely speak of a disorder as he still has serious trouble with social interactions and functioning normally in society. He lives with his parents and I expect that when they are eventually gone, he would stay with his sister and depend on her for certain aspects of his life.
Having seen this first hand, I doubt that this is just a behavioral meme especially in his case. But since the spectrum is so broadly defined, it is entirely possible that there a few very different conditions and types of cases that are wrongly grouped together and are caused in vastly different ways. There might be people under the spectrum that would have been considered "normal" if they weren't diagnosed at an early age as I think diagnosis nocebo is absolutely a possibility at least for the softer cases.
But we are all interested in different stuff based on how our environment guide us. It is part of the distribution. Your example is merely a simple behavioral pattern that we could be caused from a myriad of factors — especially early development ones.
the meme is the over-diagnosis. the "spectrum" includes literally everyone. Where does on draw the line between "normal" and not? usually is based on what parents think. That's what is really fucked up.
I agree, I don't agree with the post from kyriacos or see what basis he has to be an authority on this issue. Claiming the whole thing is some sort of "behavioral meme" sounds like another search for a silver bullet, meaning a simplified solution to a complex problem. With any physical or mental issue in our society, our knowledge is still evolving and growing, and there is room for debate about categorizations and incident numbers, that is normal. Overall though the narrow analysis posted in this article trivializes the efforts and struggles of many dealing holistically with the issue.
That's an assertion that you haven't actually demonstrated and as far as my arguably limited awareness of research in the field goes, others haven't either. We know that we have different tastes and interests and we for sure know that our environment and experiences play a significant part in those, but there is not good evidence that the environment is the only factor. How do you rule out innate personality factors that might affect interests as well?
Let me point you to another post of yours about cats and their personality. There you seem to point out behavior traits that are innate, right? I'm sure you agree that there are some behavior traits in humans that are innate, too, right? Well, why would you rule out the possiblity of a personality trait being optional? Why wouldn't it be possible some people to have an innately different way to process external stimulus. Of course, I'm far from proving this, but I think it's an option that is unreasonable to dismiss yet and it seems to me that it fits well with the evidence we have about autism and especially the more severe forms as I too am not entirely sure we are drawing the line fuzzy as it is at the right place.
Possibly, of course. But that hasn't been actually demonstrated to be the case. That's why I'm saying that it's way too early to rule out the innate option and I personally find it to have a bit more merit as of now. And it certainly doesn't have to be an either-or thing anyway. We could easily have all kinds of people that are currently on the spectrum with very different reasons for a similar condition. What I don't understand is why you discount all the other options in favor of one and that's why I'm discussing this.
We agree about over-diagnosis entirely I think.
Drawing the line might be a challenge and the middle ground might contain a lot of fuzziness, but I think it's already clear that people on either ends of the spectrum function very differently from a practical perspective. That's why I think making a differentiation does make sense despite the fact that I'm not sure that either ends of the spectrum are warranted to be viewed as disorders. That's why I think having it is not pointless, we should just not allow for the "diagnosis" part to eat up the middle ground.
Greaaaaaat content ......RIP for our children
not necessarily
People with autism always have a baby in their head...
yup, they hear a baby crying all the time...
I do not hear a baby in my head and I have autism maybe.
I might want to be a baby, if that counts, ha ha.
@kyriacos have you seen the brain scans on some of these children?
fMRI scans can be interpreted any way you want. Much like statistics, you have to choose you "base" for evaluation. Also, so far the brainscan method is more of a magic ball approach rather than science.
Read along here:
fMRI Gets Slap in the Face with a Dead Fish
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2009/09/16/fmri-gets-slap-in-the-face-with-a-dead-fish/
Sorry, but your post about the salmon has no correlation to which I am referring.
The only truth is that what we do not know on autism is much more than what we know
the fact that we don't know much should make us very wary about the way we treat our children.
People are starting to understand that each child or adult with autism is unique and, so, each autism intervention plan should be tailored to address specific needs.
if you don't understand what you are dealing with and if everything points to the fact that it is nothing but a behavioral meme then we should stop messing with children's heads.
it could be important to understand if any treatment is of any real utility, especially in improving the quality of life for affected people... not only treating some superficial symptoms!
when there is no baseline and when children constantly change and see their behavior evolve, is hard to measure really.
@kyriacos great article to create discussion about a "shady subject" for some as Autism! I agree with most of the topics you raised but I can't agree when you say (if I understood it clearly!) that Psychology created Autism...
Psychologists tried to name something that is not fully understood yet. As I see it (as a Historical-Relational Psychologist ;)), Autism is the lack/negligence of the first relationship humans have: with their parents.
As you say, "Nature has designed children to be brought up and shaped mainly by parents. This is the very reason why the brain in young mammals is so plastic..". So our brain is formed by the relationships we engage in and this is being studied by Neuropsychology and Historical-Relational Psychology (brought up by Luria and Vegotsky, to name the most important authors). If this basic relationship fails our brain enters a mode of self-protection (autism = autos - self), it has to create a world on its own in order to function. It starts creating strict routines and memorizing facts to feel more comfortable in a world that is chaotic for it.
So there are clinical methods to treat Autism symptoms and the most results-visible one is when we start looking at the child as missing that important step: relate to someone important for them so they can feel comfortable enough in the human world.
Of course it takes years of therapy to see results as we are changing/shaping a person's brain but it's being proved that this method makes the difference from the behavioural methods that only treat practical issues as learning to lace your shoes!
Sorry for the long comment but I wanted to leave you with these thoughts! :) And probably continue the debate...
Check these links!
http://www.centropsicoterapeutico.com/publicacoes/proposal-for-rehabilitation-of-autism/
http://www.centropsicoterapeutico.com/publicacoes/without-others-we-become-autistic-vigotskyan-therapy-with-an-autistic-teenager/
http://www.centropsicoterapeutico.com/apresentacao-associacao-portuguesa-relacional-historica/ci-em-perturbacoes-de-desenvolvimento/1a-edicao-da-escola-de-verao-rita-leal/
Some info is in portuguese as the Clinic I'm familiar with is at Coimbra, Portugal, but one of these days I'll translate their contents and share with you.
I'm also going to share more scientific-based information and I'll tag it with #autism. I think it's really important that more and more people are aware that Psychology is a science, based on scientific studies from many years of observation and dealing with the most diverse people.
Woow thank you for this info !
you are welcome
good post
What a great read, thanks so much for this insightful article!
good message you shared
Autism’s environmental risk factors
Research also shows that certain environmental influences may further increase – or reduce – autism risk in people who are genetically predisposed to the disorder.
Great Post @kyriacos I really love your writing, autism
"A good exercise for heart is to bend down and help another up"
"Autism"- A- Always, U- Unique, T- Totally, I- Intelligent , S- Sometimes, M- Mysterious. #supportautism #loveautism
seguime te sigo, upvote y upvote! gracias !
Autism can be life threating, it is still a matter of debate. We all have at some phase of life, undergo through depression. So this is the case with autism.
Living can also be life threatening.
Very interesting article and convincingly true. My husband of a dozen years, a genius and artist/chef, saw a documentary and told me he thought he was on the spectrum of Autism, probably more like Aspbergers. It turned a light on in my brain and made me understand him better. He thinks in a different way and is very interesting, people like him and some love him, he doesn't have good communication skills to go out and communicate, but if someone talks to him he is amiable and interesting/interested. Yes, they simply think in a different way to the so-called "norm". I think that's what makes him a genius in so many areas of his life. One day I will share some of these on Steemit. I really enjoyed your words. Thank you
I don't think we need to call your husband autistic. he is just different socially.
Thank you Kyriacos that's what I tell him. Are you of Greek or Cypriot heritage? I spent many years in Athens and often visited Cyprus and speak Greek. I put up a small piece this week about my walking guide to Athens. Kind regards
Hairete
Good authors coming out with some great articles these days... Thanks for sharing.
Though I agree that the term is used as an oversized umbrella - such is the case in many mental diagnoses - I think this is more because mental illness is such a a tricky, new and understudied field that most people just don't really know where to put things.
This isn't true. Down's Syndrome kids with extreme autism, and other dysfunctional austistic folk can and have been nurtered to function in many aspects. In fact there are D Syndromers accepted into college and joining synchronised dance teams.
The accusation of bad parenting being the cause is a common one, and it seems you have the idea the wrong way round. For a long time, Doctors essentially accused parents of not nurturing their kids in the right way, and there was a certain shame and stigma against autistic kids.
Over time, knowledge developed and it's understood that this is no longer the case (As I said, I'm sure the umbrella is too big, but hear me out).
Autism doesn't just come with behavioural deficits. There are neurological and even systemic issues tied in, such as seizures, immune deficiencies, gastrointestinal disorders. We don't hear about this stuff because we typically only hear about the 'hyperactive' kids or the 'weird kids who dont look at you'.
Likewise, Language impairment is a real thing, as is extensive anxiety and other symptoms. Saying it's the parents fault is an easy way out but I don't think there's any proof to it.
Also, though the specifics are generally inconclusive, there is strong evidence to suggest it is genetic and indeed heritable.
Now I'm not only talking about the 'completely dysfunction, real' ones that are single digit percentages, but most of the strongly established forms of autism.
I think good parenting can possibly neutralise the effects of some weak forms, allowing a child to be nurtured into a fulfilling environment, and so a failure to compensate for their deficit could be a way to blame parents, but it's gonna be there regardless.
And finally, I agree that those defined on the edges of autism shouldn't be called a 'disorder' at all and we simply need to learn how to approach them differently, but giving them the diagnosis can be helpful regardless, if they are struggling to get through life for reasons beyond their control.
Diagnosing at birth is probably unlikely unless either paid for as a private clinic, or there are very strong concerning symptoms. I don't think most good doctors would be so quick to judge a child, otherwise we'd be in a pretty dystopian world right now.
I get the sentiment but let's be real here. Most of this is happening for advertising purposes just to show that they can be like us. We know that they will always looked down upon and probably never be able to compete with others.
there is no correlation from any studies that I have seen since most kids go through these problems sooner or later.
not an easy way. In fact, the "scientists" would agree that it is mostly the parents since applying ABA therapy is more or less like "teaching them the right way". If that works, like they claim then yes, it is the parents and the environment upon which they grow up. We see a surge of cases today because I honestly believe and witness that most parents get bored and just leave their kids in front of the tv or playing games with a tablet.
The whole term "autism" is a joke. It is like watching a sick person and diagnosing them with "illness".
One very important aspect of Autism is; Most Autists are Savants. This ability makes them astonishingly outstanding. Most of them have Eidetic memory, some are mental calculators, while some can recall information to the minutest detail. Isn't it amazing?
Nice piece. Followed you
wonderful blog, I upvoted you and followed you
I guess my kids are doomed, we've brought them up with things like manners and tried to instill the idea that honesty is still the best policy, regardless of whether or not you can get away with something.
The Psychology Today article about lying made me wonder if a dog is lying/deceiving when it buries a bone or a cheetah when it covers its kill?
Shit, isn't that anthropomorphizing?
Now what the fuck am I supposed to do? I probably need an anti-depressant to handle this anxiety disorder.
everything is about deception in nature. You are not far from it.
i'd like it to be true..my girl suddenly reverted sometime around age 2. if i look at older videos of her, shoveling into a bucket, making eye contact,babbling...and then half a year later, silence. all purposeful movements gone..just flapping her hands, zero eye contact. regretfully she did log some heavy amount of time in front of the screen (something i blame myself for)...but would it cause this drastic change in behaviour all of a sudden? losing vocals and ability to do things? had this severe fever twice around that time without being sick that went away after half a day..always had this thought of how it could be inflammation in the brain, but i'm no doctor.
Can I suggest you speak to ACTUAL autistic people before assuming we are all under-parented brats, or else totally incapable of meaningful communication or interaction?