autism via ro

the term autism was created in 1911 by Eugene Bleuler and it means isolated self

autism is a developmental disability which seems to be largely genetically heritable (runs in families). it is multiply determined so has no singular cause and is associated with a myriad of different genes. it influences how the brain filters through information taken in by the senses and how that data is combined as a whole again

autism is a disability and it can't be cured or medicated as one's neurotype can't be changed !!

in autistic brains, neurons activate easily. they don't differentiate between nuisance variables and more crucial pieces of data (eg the sound of of a tap dripping vs someone talking to you). this means the neurons can be distracted by small stimulus and miss larger more meaningful ones. however - this means autistic people are better at noticing small details and changes to their environment

autism is a spectrum disorder. this spectrum doesn't range from very autistis to not autistic as some misunderstand, but instead meaning it can show very differently between does with the disability. this syndrome is also highly comorbid with other conditions such as ADHD, epilepsy and learning difficulties (approx 25-75% of those with autism have some degree of learning difficulty)

masking is a big part of every autistic persons life. it involves two types of behaviour: camouflaging and compensation.

camouflaging is attempting to hide autistic traits in order to blend in. it's main goal is to avoid detection as disabled. meanwhile, compensation involves using specific strategies to help deal with challenges related to disability. the main goal is to appear 'normal'

most autistic people have to mask everything from their personality to information processing style and limited food preferences in order to pass as neurotypical

however research by Sarson et al (2017) showed that neurotypicals subconsciously identify someone is autistic often within milliseconds but just see them as weird. participants were less interested in conversation with and liked less these identified people. however, when participants were told they had autism, these biases disappeared

masked autistics often have a fawning response to stress which involves pacifying those that pose a threat. social threats are everywhere to those masking. fawning spares the risk of rejection but leads to a failure to connect with people in any meaningful way. this is due to them telling people what they want to hear. a common fawning tactic is mirroring. this consists of lightly mimicking people and trying to meet their energy to appear normal

stimming is defined as repetitive and unusual body movement or noises. all people stim to some extent but autistics stim more frequently, intensely and in a more repetitive manner

stimming can be used to help express joy or excitement but can also be a form of self regulated soothing to help deal with stress (or avoid self harm during meltdowns)

some research suggests autistics feel less in control of their bodies and themselves and so, for many autistic people, identifying outside of cishet binaries helps to put a name to the detachment to society and their body that they feel

[source one in links] 70% of autistic males and 76% of autistic females engage in sexual activity as opposed to 89% of non-autistics

[source one in links] autistic males are 3.5 times more likely more likely to identify as bisexual. autistic females are three times more likely to identify as homosexual

Rudolph et al (2018) conducted a study of 47,000+ individuals with self-reported high autistic traits were 1.73 times more likely to identify with a sexuality that couldn't be described as heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual

[source two in links] a 2018 study showed that only 30% of autistic people identified as heterosexual compared to 70% of neurotypical participants

director of the gender and autism program at children's national hospital, John Strang said gender diversity in higher among autistic as they may be less influenced by social norms and present themselves more authentically

[source one in links] autistic people are eight times more likely to identity as asexual

[source one in links] studies suggest autistic females report higher rates of unwanted sexual experiences than both non autistics and autistic males. further studies reveal that autistics have reduced access to or inadequate sexual education and have less sexual knowledge

this is not a definitive list of traits and just ones that i relate to

having an imaginary audience when alone

finding it hard to understand what others are thinking/feeling. this includes facial expressions and knowing if people are interested in what im saying

not understanding the natural flow of conversation and knowing when to speak

not understanding social rules and hierarchies

eye contact is hard and i need to force it

routine is important (when i worked retail i'd leave the house at the same time, had the same breakfast and wore the same ring everyday for example) and faced distress if this routine was broken

obsessive interests that take over my mind

stims and tics used to get emotions out- triple finger tapping, flappy hands, throwing items up and down, tapping, picking at skin, playing with hair, listening to the same songs repeatedly, repeating words and phrases (echolalia) etc

arfid -'safe' foods, only being able to eat a select few foods and have a general disinterest in eating

sensory issues with textures, bright lights and noise etc

sensitive to any criticism and crying at 'small' things

alexithymia - trouble naming and recognising emotions (research by Geoff Bird indicates about half of autistics suffer from alexithymia)

periods of verbal shutdown - actually hurts to try speak during these times

managing stress by control - cleaning my room, organising items, disorded eating

neglects physical health until it can't be ignored

anxious meeting new people (extremely shy when younger), adapts behaviour to match those around me, avoids friends if with new people, hard to form deep bonds, need to correct people if they're wrong but it causes distress

bottom up thinking

strong sense of justice

lack of empathy/no empathy

aspergers:

while autism is the correct name for the disability, it used be called (and still is by some) Aspergers after the doctor Hans Asperger. the term 'aspergers' is harmful due to its naming after a man who was a nazi doctor and was complicit in nazi exterminations of disabled children. he also played a critical role in identifying disabled children to send to spieigelgrund where they were subject to experimentation or euthanization. asperger presented a certain type of autistics (low support need savant types) as useful to nazis. non white, gnc and queer autistics were ignored by him due to this type he was trying to put forward. he saw his type of autistic boys as almost superior to 'normal' children but had eugenicist ideals and sent more severely disabled children to their deaths. autism isn't actually the only diagnosis named after a nazi era doctor whose name has since been changed - another example is reiters syndrome being renamed to reactive arthritis

however this isn't the only reason the name was changed. the other is that several specific diagnosis, including the former aspergers, were grouped together under the autism label to avoid mis diagnosis in 2013. aspergers used to refer to some autistic people who did not also have a diagnosis of a learning disability. the definition and label of ASD could further change in the future as more becomes understood and as some feel the current label is too broad

early research:

early researchers of autism studied girls but typically left them out of research. some early researchers concluded autism was caused by an 'extremely male brain' and that autistics were too rational and analytical. this affected diagnostic guidelines and led to the statistic of autistic boys outnumbering girls 4 to 1. the ramifications of this are still very present today

autism speaks and curing:

one of the most well known and the largest autism research organisation in america is autism speaks. i haven't done enough research to speak on them in detail however it is known that they only have a few autistic board members, only approx 1% of their money goes towards helping autistics, they released an incredibly fear mongering and harmful advert titled ' I am Autism' and advocated for terminating pregnancies with embryos suspected to have autism among other controversies. They also promote ABA (Applied behaviour analysis). this therapy is based on the idea that reinforcing certain behaviors will lead kids to repeat those behaviours and it essentially tries to make autistics act neurotypical through methods that used to include electric shocks. its focus is on eliminating 'problem' behaviors rather than developing skills. though typical punishment is now banned in the UK 'new ABA' still has many cases of items important to children withheld from them and therapy is considered successful when the child behaves how the therapist wants not how is healthy. this heavy focus on compliance can teach these children that their body doesn't belong to them. ABA'a primary objective is changing autistic childrens behaviour so that they fit in. it seems unnecessary to point out how shaming and punishing autistic children for behaviours caused by their disability is deeply harmful and leads to self hate

the developer for the first treatment for autism, Ole Ivar Lovaas, also did work with the UCLA Feminine Boy project which was esentially conversion therapy. the first subject studied in this project was a 4 year old boy who's later suicide was attributed to this treatment.

here is a quote from him about his work in ABA, taken from an interview with Paul Chance: 'I just reached over and cracked her one right on the rear. She was a big fat girl so I had an easy target... Then she hit herself again and I really laid it on her... So I let her know that there was no question in her mind I was going to kill her if she hit herself once more.'

here is a statement from him about autistic people in general: 'You start pretty much from scratch when you work with an autistic person. You have a person in the physical sense - they have hair, a nose, a mouth - but they are not people in the psychological sense.'

female autism:

this idea of female autism is one i seem to see a lot these days but its a harmful idea as it puts autistic people into more rigid boxes and ignores the large number of trans and gnc autistics. labelling different symptoms as male or female is so reductive and it feeds into the western idea of two set genders.

among girls, autistic symptoms seem less severe which is likely due to socaliastion leading to heavier self policing. stims are usually less physically damaging, shyness is seen as more normal and meltdowns are viewed as emotional outbursts. more aggressive behaviour leads to punishment for not acting in line with gender stereotypes. such stereotypes encourage young girls to mimick adult interaction as play (playing houses, toys such as fake vaccums and kitchens) leading to many autistic girls can more easily fake routine interactions younger than their male counterparts. there is no female and male autism, there are just gender stereotypes that bleed into every part of our lives

autistic brains develop in areas associated with social skills for far longer than neurotypical brains. Bastiaan et al (2011) and their research suggested that by age 30 there were no evident brain differences between autistic and neurotypical brains. other studies suggested this happened by age 50

in fact, a 2013 study found that autistic brains were 42% more active than allistic brains when at rest

a 2012 study by the National Library of Medicine, found autistic people were significantly more likely to be non-theistic (attitudes chatacterised by a lack of belief in the existence of gods)

the 'autistica' website claims that autistic adults without a learning disability are 9x more likely to die by suicide and that autistic children are 28x more likely to think about or attemot suicide

it seems autism has between a 74% and 93% chance of being heritable, and if parents have one autistic child, there's only a 7% to 20% chance of having another autistic child [source three in links]. (this makes my autistic sibling and i statistically unlikley :3)

research by Karst JS and Van Hecke AV (2012) suggest that about 85% of autistic people have difficulties living independently