Autism Theory 25 Years in the Making
neurosciencenews.com
neurosciencenews.com
Medical Hypotheses is the very opposite of a prestigious journal. It intentionally rejects peer review, and is infamous for publishing AIDS denialism – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Hypotheses
Press release talking up a speculative theory published in a dubious journal.
WTF first I thought this was a typo and you meant ASD denialism or ADHS denialism or something, but no, it was right. It really exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_denialism
I am ok with different scientific opinions on a topic when there is strong evidence for multiple theories, or no evidence at all on any theory, but at this point the relationship between HIV and AIDS is crystal clear, just like with climate change.
I’m very curious whether this theory is an opportunity to explore the high rate of overlap between ASD and ADHD.
Most or all of these are common in my experience and my understanding of ADHD, including increased attention (despite the unfortunate name collision).
This also reinforces my desire to look into an ASD diagnosis and hopefully better understand how my ticker brains.
I heard a similar experience from Jonathan Blow (paraphrasing), "I was doing this contract database work I just didn't care about, and my whole motivational structure just shut down and I stopped working. They were paying me money to do it, so I felt guilty about not working, but that didn't actually help me start working again."
He didn't become truly productive until he went all-in on his interests and luckily that worked out for him (in the end).
And one thing it finally explained to me: why for certain contracts ($BIG_BANK_LTD SQL) I just stopped working when I had no interest in the project.
And it's crazy - I was on £££ per day and just COULD NOT do the work from lack of interest. Insane. I had to resign even though I knew this was an irresponsible thing to do.
For a year or two I actually switched to working as a care assistant in a home for the elderly. Then when I started a shift I just had to do my 12 hours shift - no scope for just freezing and not doing the work.
There being so much overlap between ASD and ADHD, it’s worth considering seeking a diagnosis and seeing if you might respond well chemically to treatment.
Also, is asperger's still a thing? IIRC it's been superseded by the term ASD.
One explanation of the high overlap between the two conditions is that the boundary between them is invalid. That's what this paper argues: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-019-0631-2
Over time I think the number of things autism describes will shrink and eventually the term will disappear as we correctly understand all the underlying conditions / factors.
The reason I believe that is my brother and his friends who all have a couple of mild to bad cognitive issues. Thing is they have different set of issues. And over time the severity of those issues has lessened as they learn to compensate.
My working theory is different parts of the brain are primed developmentally to handle certain cognitive tasks. If something goes sideways then you get a deficit. It's harder for the person to learn or perform that task. You get delays and impairments. Some of those can cause socialization issues. Others don't, like dyslexia.
What's the underlying cause, huge numbers of things probably.
(brainfart, I can't think of the name of these treatments atm)
Anyway, autistic people tend to have to learn how they're expected to behave, it costs them energy and analytical capacity, etc. In general they learn to manage, and you probably won't be able to tell someone is on the spectrum at first glance. This is especially true in women with ASD, who grow up with higher societal expectations. Same with ADHD really.
They're a series of traits which people can have at in different quantities individually.
One of the challenges seems to be that health insurances work expecting a concrete diagnose, and this labelling satisfies this need.
1. Thing - people disabled or shunned for autistic traits
2. Antithesis - people living successfully with similar traits (who escape medical judgement and classification)
3. Synthesis - Smash the two groups into each other at high speed and filter out a new perspective
As an aside, I wonder if autism as a word has any connection to "ought", as in "the way things ought to be". Lines up pretty nicely with mental rigidity and overmodeling to me
PS. I haven’t read the actual paper yet so I don’t know if they have already done this.
You may be looking for the word “neurotypicals”.
"In societies where people do not have freedom to pursue their interests and passions, where meritorious education is not valued, where men and women do not have freedom to choose their careers, and where nonconformity is not tolerated"
I have a hard time seeing how these types of advancements would have such a drastic difference in mating habits.
Growing up, I noticed that most of my groups of friends were groups of people where there was no expectancy of "being normal" (as we grew up, many of us ended up being diagnosed with different disorders, including things like autism).
Most of us lived in different neighbourhoods and went to different schools. Also, many of my friends _had_ no friends in school or their neighbourhoods. We tended to find each other and keep in touch with each other online (or things like SMS), and it's highly unlikely we would have found each other merely 50 years back.
In the past, people like us surely would have ended up relating with normies, mostly due to a lack of an alternative.
You say "it would mean that X" which makes one expect you'll mention some X that is implied by the hypothesis, but you're you're merely re-stating the assortative mating hypothesis.
Step 1: Redefine term (so autism is a trait); Step 2: Based on that definition make a research; Result: Devoid the original meaning of the term
Autism was a disorder and now it is a trait. Instead of a disorder with certain obvious/extreme traits.
>>McDonald’s theory, titled ‘The Broader Autism Phenotype Constellation-Disability Matrix Paradigm (BAPCO-DMAP) Theory,’ is consistent with the current science on the genetics of autism but shifts the focus to positive traits of autism and to historical events that changed the prevalence of autism in society.
Let me define the "The Broader Schizophrenia Phenotype Constellation-Disability Matrix Paradigm" and redefine Schizophrenia as being moody and day-dreaming kind of person. It also stands for creativity and thinking out-of-the-box.
>>McDonald’s theory also highlights how the prevalence of autism has increased in higher income countries due to societal changes that increase freedoms in education, employment and other opportunities for both men and women.
Now I go on and explain why it is more prevalent in higher income countries, where the meaning of autism is different and is researched to oblivion.
>>McDonald said she now knows what causes autism but it is not something that could be cured and, honestly, she wouldn’t want to do that.
We usually (medically) treat disorders (not cure them) and we certainly neither treat nor cure traits. In that context it makes sense, but one has to see the shift of disorder to trait.
It’s probably also unhelpful to label someone with ‘asbergers’ as disordered. They have traits, some that are beneficial and at the same time some that create problems functioning in every day society.
_If_ this is true, and I think autism could cause distinctive traits or disorders that impact quality of life.
Thankfully this is hypothesis is actually testable. If proven true, then autism would logically be able to cause changes in brain operation that are positive as well as negative.
Thus “traits” is a helpful word to include in the discussion.
Aspergers seems to mean a personality for most (even researchers), altho it was intended to describe a disorder. But given the bad definition it's rather clear how we ended up like this.
Taken from wiki regarding the DSM IV definition of ASD in 2000:
> ASD is a subset of the broader autism phenotype (BAP), which describes individuals who may not have ASD but do have autistic-like traits, such as avoiding eye contact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum#DSM_IV_(2000)
> Let me define the "The Broader Schizophrenia Phenotype Constellation-Disability Matrix Paradigm" and redefine Schizophrenia as being moody and day-dreaming kind of person. It also stands for creativity and thinking out-of-the-box.
It appears that similar links have been drawn for schizotypals vs schizophrenics vs control:
> Another study found creativity to be greater in schizotypal than in either normal or schizophrenic individuals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity_and_mental_health#S...
> We usually (medically) treat disorders (not cure them) and we certainly neither treat nor cure traits. In that context it makes sense, but one has to see the shift of disorder to trait.
From the article:
> McDonald said she now knows what causes autism but it is not something that could be cured and, honestly, she wouldn’t want to do that.
And this echos the thinking of an autism advocate I know. There's been some evidence of pre-natal biomarkers that predict autism, and they worry that people may, in the future, early terminate - and people like them won't have the chance to exist.
In anticipation of some pseudoarguments in the vein of, ‘a disorder causes trouble for the individual; homosexuality does not while autism does,’ consider that, until recently, being openly gay was very much a social hinderance. In a better-structured world, we may have significantly more suitable accomodations for autistic people that would alleviate the societal difficulties they currently face.
Autism in pretty much the same: things are perceived and done differently, but that doesn't mean people are broken.
Following this metaphor, the real problem is that society keeps making only scissors (and mice) for right-handed people.
>In anticipation of some pseudoarguments in the vein of, ‘a disorder causes trouble for the individual; homosexuality does not while autism does,’ ...
Actual autistic people suffer because of everyday stimuli. Not being socially accepted is just a different problem, but it shows how "spectrum" autism is often used as an excuse.
PS.: Homosexuality was never defined as a disorder. It was labelled a disorder after the fact, because the definition is not the impairment but your preference for the same sex.