I've been asked if I can explain how food intolerances can cause issues for people on the Autism spectrum. Some of you are being fed misinformation that Autism is actually caused by toxins, gut bacteria, and nutritional deficiencies. While any of these can exacerbate the sensory issues associated with Autism, they are not the cause of it. Autism can NOT be cured simply by changing a person's diet or giving them a detox program. At the most, you can alleviate the symptoms if a person does have a food intolerance, which in turn can make life easier for them by giving them one less discomfort to worry about. Discomforts which could be getting in the way of their ability to learn as they grow and mature by causing a constant internal annoyance or distraction.
Here's how it works:
Some people on the Autism spectrum have certain food intolerances, the same way as some people who are not on the Autism spectrum have the same food intolerances. Each person on the spectrum is as unique as an individual who is not on the spectrum, so some have issues with certain foods while others don't. In the case of a person on the Autism spectrum, the sense of discomfort from having a food intolerance can either be enhanced or it can be less noticeable compared to people with the same food intolerances who aren't on the spectrum. If the person on the spectrum who has the food intolerance is in discomfort, then it can consume their entire lives and actually get in the way of day to day learning and coping. Remove the foods that are causing the issue, and the discomfort will also be removed which frees the person's mind up for getting on with more important things, such as life skills development.
Will removing food groups help everyone on the Autism spectrum?
No. It will only benefit those who are having issues with the food types that were removed in the first place, the same as anyone who is not on the spectrum will only benefit from having food groups removed if they are actually intolerant to the foods being removed.
Picture it this way: Person A is on the Autism spectrum and has a gluten intolerance. Person B is also on the spectrum but does not have a gluten intolerance. Giving person A foods with gluten in them is going to cause them discomfort and will probably make life a little more harder to cope with. Removing the gluten will help this person because it's alleviating the discomfort of the symptoms of being gluten intolerant. Giving person B foods with gluten in them is not going to cause any issues, so there is no need to restrict them to a gluten free diet as it will have no benefit to them whatsoever. In fact, many people on the spectrum are incredibly fussy eaters, so restricting their diet further than they already try to restrict it themselves is not exactly making life easy for anyone, especially if they don't have an intolerance to warrant the restrictions being made in the first place.
What Causes Autism?
Autism begins at the moment of conception. It is caused by physical abnormalities in the brain structure. Whilst some parts of the brain for an individual on the spectrum contain excessive amounts of grey matter, other parts are lacking in grey matter. The areas that are in excess have to compensate for the areas that are lacking. The corpus callosum is also smaller for individuals on the spectrum, this restricts the flow of information between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. On top of this, the brain cells which would ordinarily die off from lack of use as an individual grows and learns do not appear to die off so readily for people on the spectrum This means that the brain is in a current state of learning, even after a permanent connection between two brain cells has been established as the best possible combination, the redundant cells are failing to step aside. NONE of this is caused by stomach bacteria or food intolerances. NONE of this can be cured by removing food groups or toxins or stomach bacteria. The best you can do is to identify IF there is an intolerance. If there is, then by all means, restrict the foods that are causing the intolerance. It will benefit the individual by removing an internal sensory issue. If there is NOT an intolerance, then DON'T torture the person by removing something that they'll actually be happy to eat! The best way to get a person on the spectrum to learn and grow at their own pace is to ensure they have as happy and as stress free an environment as is physically and emotionally possible to give them. Causing excess stress is NOT beneficial to their abilities to cope with the world.
So what should I do to help?
If you have a person in your care who is on the Autism spectrum and they DO have an intolerance to certain foods, you can help them by getting them used to eating foods that aren't going to cause them some kind of stress. In this case, restricting their diet will be beneficial in the long run.
If they DO NOT have an intolerance to certain foods, you can help them by NOT restricting their diet, especially if it's going to cause stress by force feeding them something that they don't like because it's blander than normal.
How should I respond to fanatics?
If you find someone who insists that Autism is caused by food intolerances and gut issues, you may find yourself hitting your head against a brick wall when they refuse to believe otherwise. Some people can't help themselves and once they've made their mind up, there's no swaying them regardless of how much factual information is offered. Don't stress yourself out over them too much. Have your say then move on, knowing that you've given your opinion and others who might be a part of the conversation as observers have heard your side of the argument. You can't help everyone, but you can help to give input into an otherwise one sided debate, and that in itself can help people to make up their minds for themselves.
Having said all this, I'll most likely be trolled by anti-vaccer fanatics and food intolerance fanatics after they've read this particular blog post. My policy on trolls is to not feed them no matter what they say. So if anyone wants to get on their soap box and tell the world how much of a horrible person I am for writing this blog, do so with the knowledge that I don't really care what you think or say. I'm happy with my post just the way it is and it won't be changed because of some cyberbully trying to force everyone to follow their own wildly inaccurate misinformation.
A collection of odds and ends from the mind of an Australian father with a blended family, all of whom are on the Autism Spectrum in one way or another.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Friday, January 3, 2014
Life before and after Asperger's
For those of us who grew up in the decades before the 90s, the diagnoses of Asperger's just didn't exist when we were kids. I sometimes wonder how different life would have been for me or my brother had we actually had some early intervention in our younger years.
I was always labelled the shy one, or known as the quiet weird kid at school. I wasn't shy, I was just incapable of communicating effectively most of the time. If I was asked a question, my brain would find a dozen ways to interpret it, so I'd have no way of knowing what the correct response would be. I couldn't quickly process an answer if I didn't know which way I was supposed to process the question in the first place. My brain still does this so I'm often giving answers to a completely different yet similar question to what I've been asked, which usually just confuses the person who asked the question in the first place. Sometimes I have to clarify what the question is actually about before I can answer, which further confuses the person who has asked it as they don't see the multiple ways of interpreting it the same way I do. The person who's asked the question might think I'm trying to complicate things, when in reality I'm trying to simplify things before I can begin the process of formulating an answer for them. Having grey matter distributed unevenly throughout the brain can cause a lot of complication for otherwise normal thought processes. The extra brain cells in some areas can mean extra possibilities for some thoughts, while the lack of brain cells in other areas can mean less possibilities for other thoughts. I'm not shy, I'm just confused a lot as my brain inputs information and then has trouble understanding how to process it. This can make life very difficult at times, especially in social situations where you're expected to have immediate responses during conversation. I've overcome a lot of the social issues as I've grown older and the extra neural connections have finally decided which combinations work best together, but I'm still self-conscious in front of new people and feel out of place when there's a conversation happening that I am physically incapable of keeping up with due to all the extra thought processes happening in my brain cavity while everyone else happily moves from one topic to the next.
Asperger's sucks at times, and I'll always be stuck with it. Those who know me well actually like my company. Those who don't know me will either get to know me and my eccentricities as a good thing, or just decide I'm a weird person they'd like to avoid contact with at all costs. Either way, I'm happy to be almost 48 years old with the worst of the mind hurdles behind me. I've found a group of people who are comfortably happy to be associated with me and who I'm comfortably happy to be associated with in return. Most of them live in Facebook land, which is a bonus because we don't have to make actual eye contact to converse with each other and I actually have time to think before I put my two cents into the conversation. I have met one or two of them, which went well because we all knew what to expect from each other after having gotten to know each other in thought over quite a good amount of time.
Having a house full of people on the Autism spectrum has had its head banging on the wall moments at times, but that's another story altogether. We have a happy family, and that's all that matters. We have happy children who live in an age where early intervention and extra support in schooling is now a reality. They still have trouble understanding how to process the world, but they're no longer shunned as weirdos or just fobbed off as being shy. We're the strange, eccentric family that lives in the middle of the street that doesn't interact with the neighbours. We aren't being snobs. We're just not capable of knocking on your door and introducing ourselves as easily as you might be able to with us. That's the other thing about Autism and Asperger's, we aren't always capable of initiating the contact, but we will actively make an effort to join in if we have a friendly invitation and don't get fobbed off as weirdos when we do go out of our way to make that effort.
We now live in a society that supports people on the Autism spectrum and my kids are growing up with the security of being accepted for who they are. It's also helping us oldies to accept who we are, after years of not knowing why we were different and why we couldn't interact the way the other kids at school did.
Our kids will always have their Autism and Asperger's, but luckily they won't have to go through all the crap that we did in our younger years.
I was always labelled the shy one, or known as the quiet weird kid at school. I wasn't shy, I was just incapable of communicating effectively most of the time. If I was asked a question, my brain would find a dozen ways to interpret it, so I'd have no way of knowing what the correct response would be. I couldn't quickly process an answer if I didn't know which way I was supposed to process the question in the first place. My brain still does this so I'm often giving answers to a completely different yet similar question to what I've been asked, which usually just confuses the person who asked the question in the first place. Sometimes I have to clarify what the question is actually about before I can answer, which further confuses the person who has asked it as they don't see the multiple ways of interpreting it the same way I do. The person who's asked the question might think I'm trying to complicate things, when in reality I'm trying to simplify things before I can begin the process of formulating an answer for them. Having grey matter distributed unevenly throughout the brain can cause a lot of complication for otherwise normal thought processes. The extra brain cells in some areas can mean extra possibilities for some thoughts, while the lack of brain cells in other areas can mean less possibilities for other thoughts. I'm not shy, I'm just confused a lot as my brain inputs information and then has trouble understanding how to process it. This can make life very difficult at times, especially in social situations where you're expected to have immediate responses during conversation. I've overcome a lot of the social issues as I've grown older and the extra neural connections have finally decided which combinations work best together, but I'm still self-conscious in front of new people and feel out of place when there's a conversation happening that I am physically incapable of keeping up with due to all the extra thought processes happening in my brain cavity while everyone else happily moves from one topic to the next.
Asperger's sucks at times, and I'll always be stuck with it. Those who know me well actually like my company. Those who don't know me will either get to know me and my eccentricities as a good thing, or just decide I'm a weird person they'd like to avoid contact with at all costs. Either way, I'm happy to be almost 48 years old with the worst of the mind hurdles behind me. I've found a group of people who are comfortably happy to be associated with me and who I'm comfortably happy to be associated with in return. Most of them live in Facebook land, which is a bonus because we don't have to make actual eye contact to converse with each other and I actually have time to think before I put my two cents into the conversation. I have met one or two of them, which went well because we all knew what to expect from each other after having gotten to know each other in thought over quite a good amount of time.
Having a house full of people on the Autism spectrum has had its head banging on the wall moments at times, but that's another story altogether. We have a happy family, and that's all that matters. We have happy children who live in an age where early intervention and extra support in schooling is now a reality. They still have trouble understanding how to process the world, but they're no longer shunned as weirdos or just fobbed off as being shy. We're the strange, eccentric family that lives in the middle of the street that doesn't interact with the neighbours. We aren't being snobs. We're just not capable of knocking on your door and introducing ourselves as easily as you might be able to with us. That's the other thing about Autism and Asperger's, we aren't always capable of initiating the contact, but we will actively make an effort to join in if we have a friendly invitation and don't get fobbed off as weirdos when we do go out of our way to make that effort.
We now live in a society that supports people on the Autism spectrum and my kids are growing up with the security of being accepted for who they are. It's also helping us oldies to accept who we are, after years of not knowing why we were different and why we couldn't interact the way the other kids at school did.
Our kids will always have their Autism and Asperger's, but luckily they won't have to go through all the crap that we did in our younger years.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Therapeutic Thoughts on Autism
For those who are unaware, I have 3 boys who are all at
different levels on the Autistic Spectrum, ranging from mild Asperger’s to full
on stimming and routine needing Autism. I also have a great many online friends
who have Autism in their lives in one form or another. Some are just beginning
their journey into life with ASD, not sure on how the future will shape itself,
while others are at the stage where their children have grown up to be fine
young adults who may still have special needs, but not quite as much as when
they were young children. The good news about Autism is that it’s not a static
condition. Being born with Autism isn’t necessarily the life sentence that some
so called "experts" and even some parents would like you to believe. Given the
right nurturing conditions, a child with Autism has the potential to grow and
learn and overcome a great many of the hurdles that life might throw at them.
People on the spectrum might not always be able to express themselves, but they
do take everything in, and they do process the information that is presented to them.
A handful of parents that I have seen online have come under
attack recently for paying large sums of money to various "therapists" to help
their children become more “normal”. Therapies such as ABA, which is designed
to teach children not to show their Autistic tendencies to the world, or
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, which injects oxygen into the system at high
pressure, to name but two. There are harmless therapies and dangerous
therapies. I’m not here to discuss which is good and which is evil. As parents
we all have the duty of care to do what we think is best for our children. If a
parent thinks spending money is the right thing to do and providing they’re not
actually causing harm to the child in their quest to make them “perfect” then that
is their choice as parents who believe they are doing what is best for their
children. Personally I see some parents who are actually doing what is best for
their own personal social status, rather than what is best for their child.
These are the parents who refuse to accept that their child is not the “perfect”
creature they expected them to be.
My own children make leaps and bounds every day. 5
years ago I would never have thought they would be as independent as they are
today. The only 'therapies' my boys have are personal timeouts while they sort
out the confusion of the moment for themselves, and life skills lessons at
their special needs school. My kids are lucky enough to be making progression
on their own. They thrive on having extra time to be able to sort things out for
themselves at their own pace. Children on the Autism Spectrum can be very
intelligent, you just need to give them time to sort life out for themselves so they can learn
from their own experiences. Give them guidance but don't baby them, for if you treat them as
babies when they are not, they will learn to stay as babies and you will have a fully grown baby to deal with in later years. Learn the difference between bad
behaviour and sensory issues and deal with it appropriately, there is a difference between having a sensory meltdown and having a temper tantrum. Observe and learn about your child as they grow so you can make the distinction and act accordingly.
Some "therapies" are designed to control the way the child displays themselves in public. Who cares if they
stim? I stim occasionally at the age of 46, it doesn't hurt anyone. The world
still rotates, so why hide something that helps someone to cope with their
sensory issues? I wouldn’t ask someone to give up listening to Music if it
helps them to relax at the end of the day, so why should I ask my sons to stop
moving their hands or fingers if it helps them with a stressful situation? They
know they do it. I know I do it. It still doesn’t do any damage to anyone, so
get off everyone’s backs about it! If you don't like it, leave the room and find something constructive to do with yourself. Honestly, it doesn't usually bother the stimmer to be stimming. If it did, then they'd be complaining about it themselves.
So how is it that my boys and many other people on the
Autism Spectrum can make so much progress in their lives if they don’t get any
intense therapy? From what I and a good many other parents have witnessed, they
actually just overcome their hurdles at their own pace. Numerous studies have
shown that the Autistic brain has pockets with not enough grey matter and
pockets with excessive grey matter. It just takes extra time for the excess
brain cells they have to sort out what connections work best before the
selected connections can be hardwired into a new skill. This 'natural progression'
works wonders and it's free, although I must stress It doesn't work for all.
Each Autistic brain is unique the same as each non-Autistic brain is unique. Natural
progression does happen and it has happened for my own children and for the
majority of children of the parents I converse with online. A lot of
expensive "therapists" take the credit for natural progression. They happily take
the money for it too. It’s a bit like those pimple commercials that try to make
you think you need to buy and use a product for the rest of your life at great
expense, with full endorsement by some young pop star who’s getting paid a
small fortune to show you their professionally made up and enhanced "cured" faces. Use
soap and water and scrub your face daily people, teen acne usually goes away by
itself anyway. If someone’s offering a cure for Autism ask yourself first, “Is
it possible, that given time, these improvements will happen anyway?” You’re on
the Internet reading this already, so why not use the Internet to find a network of
people who all have ASD in their lives and ask them for advice. Oh look, here’s
a good start... It’s the Autism group I started on Facebook a few years ago: Autistic Spectral Discussion. Bookmark the link and join in with the rest of us, we don’t bite
unless you’re publicly endorsing something that is known to cause harm to a
child.
If you're ever considering any therapies or magic 'cures' for your child, just remember these three don't evers:
- Don’t ever expect it to happen overnight
- Don't ever expect a cure without a brain transplant
- Don't ever rush Autism.
A brain capable of higher intelligence just needs extra time to learn. It's as simple as
that.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Fanatics and Bullies and Trolls, Oh My!... The Dark Side of the Autism Community.
There is a strange phenomenon that is happening right now in the online Autism community. I have no idea how long it has been around... certainly longer than I've been participating in online discussions concerning the Spectrum. It's something that regularly leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I certainly had no idea of its existence until I discovered various Autism awareness groups on Facebook back in February 2009. There are many forms of it too. In fact the outrage that some of my online friends have shown me today concerning a recent incident has prompted me to write about it all here. I'm talking about something I refer to as “The Dark Side” of the online Autism community. I presume it's not just restricted to the Autistic Spectrum, but as I am so active in this particular community, this is where I have encountered it all, so this is where I will concentrate my writing. People who have encountered this in other areas are welcome to put their comments in below.
My first encounter with “The Dark Side” involved a snake-oil salesman. I shan't mention his name nor his product as I have no intention of advertising false hopes to those parents who are desperate to find that one elusive, scientifically impossible cure for their children no matter what the financial, emotional, physical or psychological cost. These are the parents that this poor excuse for a human peddles his wares to. What I can tell you is that this self proclaimed Autism specialist (who is also a specialist of other fields not even remotely related to Autism but that can miraculously be cured via the same product) came from nowhere on a very popular Autism group that I was an active member of, posting all these outrageous claims in a discussion thread that Autism was caused by diarrhoea which itself was caused via breast feeding. The more we all collectively jumped up and down and asked him logical questions, the more he went out of his way to feed the fire. Not only by insulting our intelligence, but by insulting us too. Eventually he disappeared just as fast as he had shown up. It was then that I decided to have one more look at his website where he peddles his wares to the desperate parents who might not be well informed enough to realise that he's just full of it. That's when I discovered his motives. All of our questions to him that he refused to answer in the group were now on his website in the FAQ section with his own distorted answers. Answers carefully worded to make his product look like the godsend of cure-all products, and now with no way for us who do know better to question him. Yes, we were abused to be used. He deliberately got us all outraged enough to ask all the questions that people might ordinarily query him with should they be considering buying his product. In some cases he did a blatant cut and paste directly from the conversation thread, much to the disgust of those who had posted the questions in the first place. All of a sudden our words were anonymously helping this slime-bag to deceive the buying public into falling for his remedy. Thankfully we never heard from him ever again.
My next encounter with “The Dark Side” involved a man who has since been identified as a serial troll. For those who aren't up to scratch with the lingo, a troll in this sense is a person who baits people simply to generate an outrageous response, which is exactly how the snake-oil salesman extracted his information from us. This new man however was not out to con anyone. Rather, he is someone who is so strongly opinionated in his beliefs that he hates anyone who doesn't agree with him. Again, I won't be naming the individual here. This article is not written to name and shame. It is written to show the varied types of characters that people may end up encountering from “The Dark Side” in their daily online activities. Eventually this person got so carried away with himself that he started insulting people because of their genders, and because of their sexual orientations. He even went so far as to insist that we were all the one person using a fake profile. This in itself was the pot calling the kettle black, as some online searching unearthed a few little secrets about this man including a list of his known aliases, which by a strange coincidence were also the same people who were standing up in the forum to support him. One other thing that this man did which really made me feel sick to the stomach, was to private message certain members of the group, the adults who live on the Spectrum itself. He belittled them and spoke to them like they were unintelligent babies, often taunting them just to generate a response. I've seen a few screenshots of these messages, and they are very, very disturbing.
I have since left this Autism discussion group and started my own, as the administrators seemed to have abandoned it. How do I know this? Let me introduce you to the saddest section of 'The Dark Side'. The trolls who get off by making fun of the disabled. They don't do this to research for their product like my first troll encounter. They don't do this because they're just too pig-headed to see past their own opinions like my second troll encounter. They do this because they get a laugh out of bullying and making fun of people with special needs. Occasionally I revisit the old group, and I'm dismayed with the amount of fake accounts with celebrity names, or names that mock the disabled that are happily posting insults about how all our kids are “retards” with posted photos of children who quite obviously have Down Syndrome. It's disgusting and sickening to see how low these worthless excuses for humans can be, not only insulting our Autistic children, but our Down Syndrome children too. Admittedly, the old group has had a few changes in administration since I was an active member and the new admin's are doing what they can to weed these dreadful people out, but they keep coming back with new fake accounts. Why? Because they're getting the reactions that they're looking for. People are naturally outraged by this behaviour and pipe up with how despicable those involved are. So the trolls come back again, and again, and again, with no remorse and no consideration for others, just a sick twisted mission to insult and aggravate for their own warped enjoyment.
Today I was drawn to the attention of a stranger's Facebook wall by some very concerned people. I have no idea who this person is, but he seems to have joined numerous groups on different causes which makes him look like a really great guy. But the comment he posted to his wall with a link attached saddens me and makes me think that maybe he only joined the causes so that he could do some research before doing some trolling using some fake profiles of his own. The link was to an article about an Autistic male who had been raped, and this stranger's comment simply stated how he found it all so highly amusing. That my friends, is one sick mind. To gain pleasure from someone elses pain is beyond my capacity for logical thought. Especially more that the victim is someone who this person most likely considers (wrongfully) to be mentally disabled. This man must have one of the lowest forms of a sense of humour imaginable. This must be a person who see's a homeless man in the street, and then chuckles heartily to himself as he kicks the begging cup from the starving man's hands. I find it insulting that I have to share the same planet with this person. I am happy though that my friends have brought this individual to my attention, as I can now warn my other friends to block him from their Facebook accounts.
So what can you do if you ever come across a troll? Well, from experience I can safely say the best thing to do is to bite your bottom lip and make no response at all. Make sure you tell everyone else not to respond either. The trolls feed off your outrage and disgust. It's what they breath for. Feed a troll and they'll always come back for more. It only takes one person to keep protesting and the troll will greedily lap it up. Starve and ignore a troll and they'll try harder, but eventually give up and go in search of some other poor unsuspecting group to get their jollies from. Not exactly a win-win situation, as some other poor unsuspecting group of innocents will end up having to deal with it, but to date, it's the only solution I've found. Gather up all of your friends and tell them to hit that report button. The more people who report the person's activity the more chance there is that an administrator will sit up and take notice long enough to ban the creep. If the report button doesn't seem to help then message the admin's of the group directly. If you find yourself in a group that no longer has any admin's then do yourself a favour and find a new group. Facebook no longer allows people to take over admin of an open group if there are no administrators left in it. These groups will forever remain vulnerable to attack with no way of getting anyone to ever remove the offensive people or their posts. It's a bit like going to a school that has no teachers or adults to check the bullies every now and then. Sooner or later the bullies will take over.
Having said all of that, let me also state that there are a great many good and wonderful people in the world, especially in the online Autism community. Unfortunately there is also a minority of rotten apples that spoil the orchard for the rest of us, I hope you never have to endure the displeasure of encountering even one of them. They are such small minded, uneducated people who really shouldn't be allowed to call themselves human. Absolutely disgraceful!!!
Monday, April 12, 2010
Ari Ne'eman and the Spectrum Culture.
I have been sporting a little 'I'm with Ari' badge on my profile pictures of late. While some people support Ari Ne'eman, others vigorously oppose him. One of my Facebook buddies was having a conversation with me about the man earlier in the evening and she did something that no-one's ever done before.... she asked me for my opinion on Ari. This is what she asked:
Rather than saying Ari doesn't believe in finding a cure, I think it's more a case of he doesn't want to be cured. I've seen adults on the Spectrum say this numerous times and then all these parents jump up and down and twist the words to mean that these 'horrible' people have publicly stated that they're against curing Autism. If the man is or isn't for a cure to Autism then that's his business, he's entitled to his opinion as much as the rest of us. I don't believe in finding a cure either. It's not because I don't want to find a cure, I'd be happy if a magic pill came out tomorrow and eased the confusion for those who needed it. The only reason I don't believe in finding a cure is simply because it is not scientifically possible, and building up the hopes of people who don't know this is very disturbing for me. I'd love a cure, I just don't believe it's possible without restructuring the anatomy of the Autistic brain. There are physical differences in the brains of those on the Spectrum that cause the issues related to Autism. Most people don't want to know about this because it means, in their eyes, that there is no hope of their children ever being 'normal'. Progress can be made for the fortunate people on the Spectrum, but an all out cure is simply not scientifically feasable.
Ari's stance on genetic testing is more of an anti-abortion issue I think. He see's the issue in that it might have been him that was aborted had a test been available at the time he was conceived and that people on the Spectrum have just as much right to live as anyone else, rather than be 'prevented' from being Autistic via fetal execution. Again, this is his opinion and I admire people with opinions. Even if I wasn't to agree with this opinion, I would still admire the man for his opinions and for having the strength to come out in public to state it for the rest of the world to dissect and debate. And for the record, I do believe that people on the Spectrum have as much right to live as the next person, but I'm also not anti-abortion. It has it's merits where it is necessary so long as it is not abused just because a parent isn't happy with the perfection or lack thereof of their upcoming child.
I've recently been talking with adults on the Spectrum who are beginning to see themselves as a new human culture, not in those words, but in effect they are saying, 'Hey, there are now people on the Spectrum here. Don't discriminate against us! We're humans too. We are a new breed and want to integrate with society, get used to it!' which I totally admire. We are now seeing the beginnings of movements in the United States similar to what happened with the African American people when they started wanting equality with white people, rightly so I must add. Only now it's the people on the Spectrum and their parents and siblings and carers saying "Hey! We wan't to be recognised and treated fairly now!" There are many schools in the United States that routinely place children on the Spectrum in restraining holds for hours on end. If the child then fights back out of sheer terror the police are called and children as young as 5 are being arrested and led away in handcuffs. These people just don't get it! DISCIPLINE DOES NOT CURE AUTISM and it is NOT an effective treatment. If anything, it makes the situation worse. These are not animals or naughty children. They are young people who need time and patience and nurturing to allow them to grow and mature at their own pace. Time to allow their extra brain cells to sort out which connections work best together. Patience with their frustrations as they learn to cope with various situations. Nurturing of their strengths to help develop confidence in themselves as they prepare for adulthood.
Autism and Aspergers does not suddenly vanish at the age of 6 or 13 or 18 or any other age. As some individuals on the Spectrum grow and mature they learn to manage life's little hurdles a little better. The Spectrum is here to stay, and we need to accept it as a new culture before we start throwing all these highly intelligent people back into the mental asylums and writing them off as diseased or mentally retarded. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Some of my most trusted and intelligent friends are individuals who live on the Spectrum. For those who learn to manage their abilities, society needs to change to include them in all aspects. For those who continue to struggle, even into adulthood, society needs to change to treat them as human beings. That's a good starting point. We can work on improving it from there.
Yes, I do support Ari Ne'eman. I support that he has his opinions and I support that he is intelligent and is representative of the Spectrum's newly arising culture. The man deserves to be a part of the history books, not for his opinions, but for his achievements, and I believe he has many achievements that are still yet to come for him.
"I have read a bit about Ari, and so far.... I can't understand why people put him down for only being 22 years of age. I am friends with a boy who is 16 who is just as experienced. One thing I dont understand is why he doesn't believe in finding a cure. A cure would be nice - don't you think?"Now, before I continue, please keep in mind that the following is my own opinion. I am not here to put words into Ari's or anyone elses mouths. I do not speak for Ari or anyone else. This is me making my own conclusions based on what I have read and discussed online to date.
Rather than saying Ari doesn't believe in finding a cure, I think it's more a case of he doesn't want to be cured. I've seen adults on the Spectrum say this numerous times and then all these parents jump up and down and twist the words to mean that these 'horrible' people have publicly stated that they're against curing Autism. If the man is or isn't for a cure to Autism then that's his business, he's entitled to his opinion as much as the rest of us. I don't believe in finding a cure either. It's not because I don't want to find a cure, I'd be happy if a magic pill came out tomorrow and eased the confusion for those who needed it. The only reason I don't believe in finding a cure is simply because it is not scientifically possible, and building up the hopes of people who don't know this is very disturbing for me. I'd love a cure, I just don't believe it's possible without restructuring the anatomy of the Autistic brain. There are physical differences in the brains of those on the Spectrum that cause the issues related to Autism. Most people don't want to know about this because it means, in their eyes, that there is no hope of their children ever being 'normal'. Progress can be made for the fortunate people on the Spectrum, but an all out cure is simply not scientifically feasable.
Ari's stance on genetic testing is more of an anti-abortion issue I think. He see's the issue in that it might have been him that was aborted had a test been available at the time he was conceived and that people on the Spectrum have just as much right to live as anyone else, rather than be 'prevented' from being Autistic via fetal execution. Again, this is his opinion and I admire people with opinions. Even if I wasn't to agree with this opinion, I would still admire the man for his opinions and for having the strength to come out in public to state it for the rest of the world to dissect and debate. And for the record, I do believe that people on the Spectrum have as much right to live as the next person, but I'm also not anti-abortion. It has it's merits where it is necessary so long as it is not abused just because a parent isn't happy with the perfection or lack thereof of their upcoming child.
I've recently been talking with adults on the Spectrum who are beginning to see themselves as a new human culture, not in those words, but in effect they are saying, 'Hey, there are now people on the Spectrum here. Don't discriminate against us! We're humans too. We are a new breed and want to integrate with society, get used to it!' which I totally admire. We are now seeing the beginnings of movements in the United States similar to what happened with the African American people when they started wanting equality with white people, rightly so I must add. Only now it's the people on the Spectrum and their parents and siblings and carers saying "Hey! We wan't to be recognised and treated fairly now!" There are many schools in the United States that routinely place children on the Spectrum in restraining holds for hours on end. If the child then fights back out of sheer terror the police are called and children as young as 5 are being arrested and led away in handcuffs. These people just don't get it! DISCIPLINE DOES NOT CURE AUTISM and it is NOT an effective treatment. If anything, it makes the situation worse. These are not animals or naughty children. They are young people who need time and patience and nurturing to allow them to grow and mature at their own pace. Time to allow their extra brain cells to sort out which connections work best together. Patience with their frustrations as they learn to cope with various situations. Nurturing of their strengths to help develop confidence in themselves as they prepare for adulthood.
Autism and Aspergers does not suddenly vanish at the age of 6 or 13 or 18 or any other age. As some individuals on the Spectrum grow and mature they learn to manage life's little hurdles a little better. The Spectrum is here to stay, and we need to accept it as a new culture before we start throwing all these highly intelligent people back into the mental asylums and writing them off as diseased or mentally retarded. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Some of my most trusted and intelligent friends are individuals who live on the Spectrum. For those who learn to manage their abilities, society needs to change to include them in all aspects. For those who continue to struggle, even into adulthood, society needs to change to treat them as human beings. That's a good starting point. We can work on improving it from there.
Yes, I do support Ari Ne'eman. I support that he has his opinions and I support that he is intelligent and is representative of the Spectrum's newly arising culture. The man deserves to be a part of the history books, not for his opinions, but for his achievements, and I believe he has many achievements that are still yet to come for him.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Personal theories on Autism.
Some people have read my previous blogs on the anatomy and composition of the Autistic brain and have messaged me via facebook with questions on whether I think their ASD children should have some sort of scan to see if any abnormalities are present. Others have messaged me asking what my thoughts are concerning the MMR vaccine. My response is as follows:
If your child has Autism a scan won't make much of a difference to his or her lifestyle. It depends if you personally need to verify this and if you can find a doctor willing to organise it all for you. The studies I've read have all been in relation to autopsies on adults with Autism. I don't really know how obvious it would be in a child. The late Kim Peek, the Autistic savant that inspired the Rain Man movie, had a complete scan and discovered he had no corpus callosum at all. Once he knew, it didn't really change his life. But I guess it was nice to know, if not for him, then perhaps for his long devoted father who took care of him up until the day he passed away.
Personally I don't believe vaccines are causing Autism. If there is any link then maybe an already Autistic brain could possibly be tipped just that little bit over the edge if the right conditions exist to cause a bit of extra blockage in the corpus callosum. This is just a personal theory of mine based on my own readings of various studies. I don't believe there are any studies to support my logic. I just found lots of pieces of the puzzle, contemplated them and came up with my own conclusions. My previous blogs go into more detail, you can find links for them to the left of this one.
There are genuine cases of baby's seemingly developing normally and then changing into Autistic children overnight at approximately the age of 2. It is a recognised form of Autism. There are also genuine cases of baby's showing signs of Autism from birth, this is also a recognised form of Autism. The main problem with theories on Autism is that it is such a wide and varied spectrum. No two Autistic people are alike just as no two non-Autistic people are alike. They are just as individual as the NT kids down the street, right down to how differently their brains develop and learn. I believe some people on the Spectrum are capable of managing their Autistic tendencies better as they get older than others. The brain just needs that little bit of extra time and nurturing so it can figure out which of the excess brain cells work best together before they get 'hardwired' into place to form a memory or skill. Other people on the Spectrum are not so lucky. I think it all depends on which parts of the brain contain the lack of brain cells and which parts contain the excess. There are theories that the reason some Autistic people are more gifted in certain areas than others, such as being a wiz at maths or painting or what-have-you, is because the excessive in grey matter sections of the brain that 'take over' for the sections that are lacking are actually in the areas where the maths or the painting or the what-have-you's would normally reside. It's different for each person.
I have 3 boys on the Spectrum, ranging from very high functioning for my eldest boy to classic hand flapping, tiptoeing, sentence echoing, lining up of objects etc, for my youngest. My older brother I believe is an undiagnosed Aspie and as I've studied and learnt about the Spectrum, I've come to the understanding that I too have quite possibly grown up with Asperger's myself. In my family's case the Autism seems to be genetic. I was never given any vaccines whatsoever and our son's all exhibited signs of Autism from birth. They just never seemed to take notice of us like other parents babies did.
I have many, many friends on facebook who are parents of children on the Spectrum as well as many, many friends who are adults on the Spectrum. They are all free to ask me any question on any topic related to Autism and I have many, many people who are happy to discuss these issues. Part of the reason why I ended up with my theories that you've seen in my blogs is due to the bouncing around of thoughts in my Facebook Autism group with some very intelligently minded people.
I'm not an expert. I'm just a parent of 3 Autistic boys who has done his own personal research of the available information about the Spectrum. With my multitude of online friends, who mostly in some way have Autism in their lives, I continue to learn about this different ability. My children are all gifted in their own little ways. Sometimes I see them as an upgrade of myself. The only disability they have is via the uneducated people in the world who just don't fully understand what Autism is. It's not a disease, it's just a different way of life with different priorities. I believe our eldest boy will grow and learn and develop enough to be able to make his way in the world on his own. As for our youngest.... time will tell. He makes the most amazing progress when we least expect it. Some of the things he is doing now, we never dreamt he would be capable of doing only a few short years ago. All this without the need for snake-oil remedies and cures which so often get the credit for what seems to be natural progression. We might have 3 Autistic children, but we also wouldn't swap them for the world. It just makes the rare cuddles and kisses all the more special.
If your child has Autism a scan won't make much of a difference to his or her lifestyle. It depends if you personally need to verify this and if you can find a doctor willing to organise it all for you. The studies I've read have all been in relation to autopsies on adults with Autism. I don't really know how obvious it would be in a child. The late Kim Peek, the Autistic savant that inspired the Rain Man movie, had a complete scan and discovered he had no corpus callosum at all. Once he knew, it didn't really change his life. But I guess it was nice to know, if not for him, then perhaps for his long devoted father who took care of him up until the day he passed away.
Personally I don't believe vaccines are causing Autism. If there is any link then maybe an already Autistic brain could possibly be tipped just that little bit over the edge if the right conditions exist to cause a bit of extra blockage in the corpus callosum. This is just a personal theory of mine based on my own readings of various studies. I don't believe there are any studies to support my logic. I just found lots of pieces of the puzzle, contemplated them and came up with my own conclusions. My previous blogs go into more detail, you can find links for them to the left of this one.
There are genuine cases of baby's seemingly developing normally and then changing into Autistic children overnight at approximately the age of 2. It is a recognised form of Autism. There are also genuine cases of baby's showing signs of Autism from birth, this is also a recognised form of Autism. The main problem with theories on Autism is that it is such a wide and varied spectrum. No two Autistic people are alike just as no two non-Autistic people are alike. They are just as individual as the NT kids down the street, right down to how differently their brains develop and learn. I believe some people on the Spectrum are capable of managing their Autistic tendencies better as they get older than others. The brain just needs that little bit of extra time and nurturing so it can figure out which of the excess brain cells work best together before they get 'hardwired' into place to form a memory or skill. Other people on the Spectrum are not so lucky. I think it all depends on which parts of the brain contain the lack of brain cells and which parts contain the excess. There are theories that the reason some Autistic people are more gifted in certain areas than others, such as being a wiz at maths or painting or what-have-you, is because the excessive in grey matter sections of the brain that 'take over' for the sections that are lacking are actually in the areas where the maths or the painting or the what-have-you's would normally reside. It's different for each person.
I have 3 boys on the Spectrum, ranging from very high functioning for my eldest boy to classic hand flapping, tiptoeing, sentence echoing, lining up of objects etc, for my youngest. My older brother I believe is an undiagnosed Aspie and as I've studied and learnt about the Spectrum, I've come to the understanding that I too have quite possibly grown up with Asperger's myself. In my family's case the Autism seems to be genetic. I was never given any vaccines whatsoever and our son's all exhibited signs of Autism from birth. They just never seemed to take notice of us like other parents babies did.
I have many, many friends on facebook who are parents of children on the Spectrum as well as many, many friends who are adults on the Spectrum. They are all free to ask me any question on any topic related to Autism and I have many, many people who are happy to discuss these issues. Part of the reason why I ended up with my theories that you've seen in my blogs is due to the bouncing around of thoughts in my Facebook Autism group with some very intelligently minded people.
I'm not an expert. I'm just a parent of 3 Autistic boys who has done his own personal research of the available information about the Spectrum. With my multitude of online friends, who mostly in some way have Autism in their lives, I continue to learn about this different ability. My children are all gifted in their own little ways. Sometimes I see them as an upgrade of myself. The only disability they have is via the uneducated people in the world who just don't fully understand what Autism is. It's not a disease, it's just a different way of life with different priorities. I believe our eldest boy will grow and learn and develop enough to be able to make his way in the world on his own. As for our youngest.... time will tell. He makes the most amazing progress when we least expect it. Some of the things he is doing now, we never dreamt he would be capable of doing only a few short years ago. All this without the need for snake-oil remedies and cures which so often get the credit for what seems to be natural progression. We might have 3 Autistic children, but we also wouldn't swap them for the world. It just makes the rare cuddles and kisses all the more special.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Autism for Trekkers
A lot of people I know just can't seem to fathom what Autism is all about... it's not an easy subject to explain. A lot of people I know are also heavily into Star Trek. So please forgive me as I try to sort things out for my Trek loving friends in the Autism department. What follows is an explanation of Autism as seen from my own viewpoint as a father of 3 boys who are on the Spectrum, but with a twist. I'll be doing a lot of comparisons to a certain fictitious starship and its fictitious crew. If you know a bit about Autism, then you may learn a bit about the Star Trek universe. If you know a bit about the Star Trek universe, then you may learn a bit about Autism. If you know nothing about either subject then you will either be educated or completely and utterly confused. Autism... Google it. Star Trek... YouTube it. Lets see how confused I can get the world on both subjects then.
So lets take a good close look at the original Starship Enterprise and its crew. The ship is made up of various components all stuck together to form some sort of purpose. The large circular saucer section with the bridge on top, the engine room, the transporter room, the cargo bay, the torpedo bay etc, etc... Most people know what the thing looks like. If it's important to you and you don't know what it looks like, just google a picture of it. There should be a multitude of images to look at.
Now that we have our empty starship lets fill it with some raw cadets, all eager to learn and ready to find their place on board this wonderful new spacecraft. Starfleet Academy will need to look after this job themselves. Each section of the ship will be allocated a certain number of people who will need to learn their roles on board. Some will form bonds with others and will make a nice career for themselves in their own specialist field, while others will be deemed not suitable for service and might eventually be removed from the ship.
OK, so we have all these eager young cadets on board. They are all allocated to the area of the ship that they are showing a talent for. The cadets in engineering are learning everything they can about the warp drives. The cadets in the transporter room are discovering how to move molecules from one spot to the next. The medical students are playing with their antibodies and nanites.
Now lets compare all this to a developing brain. As a baby grows in the womb, the DNA strands are busy like Starfleet. But instead of allocating a set number of cadets, the DNA allocates a set number of brain cells. Like the cadets, the brain cells will all have to find their purpose. As a person grows and learns, some of the brain cells will make permanent links with each other to form memories. The brain hardwires itself over its lifetime by figuring out which cells work best together and which cells are just a waste of time. This is the process of learning. As we learn, our brains create connections between all the little squidgy bits that live inside our scones. In the case of the Starship Enterprise, the brain cells are represented by the cadets. Eventually the starship will be a finely tuned instrument, run efficiently by all these "eventually" well trained cadets.
So now our starship has all of its allocated cadets, all set to excel in their own special areas. The science team is to be run by Mr Spock. Mr Spock as most of you will know is the Vulcan Science officer on board the ship. He spends most of his time on the bridge, and the science team need to report directly to him. Down in the bowels of Engineering we have Mr Scott. Again, his team needs to report to him. Dr McCoy is in the sick bay with his own team of experts. Uhura is in charge of communications. Mr Sulu gets to play with the steering wheel, while Chekov keeps track of the weapons systems.
If we get back to our developing brain, we can use all these people in charge to represent the different areas of the brain itself. Spock is the section of our brain in charge of the scientific and mathematical bits, but he has no understanding of emotions. Dr McCoy is an expert in empathy however and is raw with emotion and his little outbursts of rage. They all have their places on the Enterprise. In the brain we also have specialised areas. There's a whole section of our brain that looks after maths, another section to look after emotions, another for communications. It has all been pre-allocated by the DNA strands from the point of our conception.
Back to our starship now. Let's say Mr Spock and his science team are busy doing their scientific analysis and they come across some problem that requires some form of human emotion to understand further.... Whoops! Mr Spock is from the planet Vulcan. Vulcans are taught to repress their emotions from birth. So he's suddenly at a loss. Dr McCoy however, is full of all that emotional crap. Perhaps he could help. But its a bit hard for Mr Spock to see Dr McCoy with both of their busy schedules. There must be an easy way to pass the information from one officer to the next.... hmmm????...... Oh look! Starfleet command put someone in charge of the whole ship. Captain Kirk. He's not allocated to any specific area of the ship at all. He's just plonked smack in the middle of the saucer section up on top in the bridge. Mr Spock can take his silly emotional problems to the captain, and then good old Kirk can allocate it to Dr McCoy! Woohoo!!! Problem solved. In fact, if any officer has a problem, all he or she has to do is take it to the captain, and then anyone else on board who might be of assistance can be told to get in and help out. What a marvelous Idea. If only the brain could function in the same way.
Well,... there is one part of the brain that works a bit like the captain. It's called the corpus callosum. You see, the brain is divided into two hemispheres: left and right. On one side we have all the emotional crap and creativity. On the other side we have all the mathematical and serious stuff.... well, that's a simple view of it all but for this analogy it's close enough. And stuck slap bang in the middle of the two hemispheres, we have the corpus callosum. It's the soft connecting tissue that allows contact between the two halves of the brain. So if the mathematical side of our brain requires a little emotional input to help understand something that would otherwise be logical, it can communicate via the corpus callosum with the emotional side to help understand things a little better, and visa-versa. So in our brains, we have all our separate areas doing their own things, just like on the Enterprise, but also getting help from other areas, via the captain of the bridge, the corpus callosum.
So our Enterprise is now a perfectly working brain. End of non-Autistic story.
Now.... lets view this same scenario, but change a few things to make things fit in better with the Autistic Spectrum.
Imagine, back when Starfleet was allocating its cadets, that it allocated way too many people in some areas, and not enough people in others? On the one hand, for each menial job there are now 3, 4 or 5 cadets more than is actually necessary to get things done, yet on the other hand there is only 1 or 2 cadets in places where 3, 4 or 5 cadets would normally be allocated. The ship is now overloaded in some areas with cadets who are all fighting to work out who's going to be the best person for the job. Mr Spock surely doesn't need this many people to make up his science team... and they're all equally qualified... so how's he going to decide who to keep and who to get rid of? This could take a while longer than expected. Dr McCoy is busy losing his mind with all his extra nurses and interns. He's going to have to weed out the best from the rest too. The whole ship is working on overload.... well, that is except for the understaffed areas. The galley is now run by only a few people who need to feed the entire crew. Dinner's going to be a bit late. Instead of the whole crew learning how to run the ship efficiently in the space of a few years, all this confusion is going to cause massive delays before each section is ironed out and working at its best.
Well, guess what?... people who are on the Autistic Spectrum have to go through just this exact same thing. For some unknown reason, the Autistic brain develops with far too much grey matter in some areas, and not enough grey matter in others. There are sections that have a perfect count of brain cells, but the areas that are excessive and the areas that are lacking are going to cause some issues. There are so many more possible ways for all these cells to be connected. Just like the confusion on the overcrowded Enterprise, the Autistic brain is going to take longer to figure out how to hardwire these extra cells, and which combos are going to produce the most efficient results. This could therefore explain why so many kids with Autism take longer to hit their milestones. Theoretically, the sections with the extra grey matter will have to compromise for the sections with the lack of grey matter, so not only do the excessive areas need extra time to work out how to work most efficiently, but they also have to do more than their fare share of the workload. While a non-autistic person might be toilet trained at an early age, an Autistic person might still require toileting assistance throughout their childhood, sometimes even into adulthood. A non-autistic kid might be walking and talking before they get to pre-school. An Autistic person might not have these skills developed until much later in life. The extra crew on the Enterprise slows down the selection process for deciding which crew members can responsibly restock the replicators, and the extra brain cells in an Autistic brain slows down the selection process for efficiently learning how to tie your own shoe laces.
Not every person on the Autism Spectrum faces these challenges. Every person on the Spectrum has their own individual brain and personality, just like non-Autistic people do. Some have bigger challenges and hurdles than others. That's why Autism is classed as a spectrum. There are so many different ways for any brain to develop, Autistic or not. So some people on the Spectrum will find life a bit easier than others who are also on the Spectrum, just the same as anyone else. People with Autism just have extra challenges to face as they grow and learn and try to weed out all those extra brain cells.
OK, so let's get back to our overcrowded Enterprise. Starfleet Command has already made one big stuff up with the cadet allocations, How much worse could it be?... Whoops! They just made another silly mistake. They forgot to allocate a captain. Sorry Kirk. You're no longer in the picture. I suppose he could still sit on the bridge, but Starfleet hasn't given him all his training. So even if he is present, he just doesn't know how to allocate to other sections. Kirk, is either away on permanent shore leave, or he's decided to sit in a warm chair in the middle of the bridge. Either way you look at it, he's not there to do his job. So if Spock has some emotional issues, he's not going to be able to get it sorted out by Dr McCoy. McCoy's still there, but he's just too busy, and no one is there who knows enough to allocate him the job. The ship is not only running with a badly allocated bunch of cadets, it's now also being run by different sections that are failing to communicate together. It's not looking too hopeful for the Enterprise in the efficiency department now!
So how does this compare with an Autistic brain? Well, studies have shown that in Autistic people, the corpus callosum is either non-existent, or has at least some part of it smaller than would otherwise be considered normal. This would either cause the two hemispheres of the brain to have no communication between them at all, or perhaps only a reduced flow of information trickling through the smaller pieces of tissue. So just like Spock would no longer be able to get McCoy to handle the emotional details, the section of the brain in charge of logic wouldn't be able to turn to the section in charge of emotions if the need was to arise. It is also known, that the corpus callosum is usually smaller in boys than girls anyway, which can explain why there are a greater number of boys with Autism than girls. The girls have the advantage in the corpus callosum department, so a reduced size might not make such a noticable effect on them.
So now you know about all this Autism stuff in a bit more detail, if you were a bit bewildered by my earlier blogs but this made a bit more sense to you, try reading the older blogs again. You might understand what I've been saying for a change.
So lets take a good close look at the original Starship Enterprise and its crew. The ship is made up of various components all stuck together to form some sort of purpose. The large circular saucer section with the bridge on top, the engine room, the transporter room, the cargo bay, the torpedo bay etc, etc... Most people know what the thing looks like. If it's important to you and you don't know what it looks like, just google a picture of it. There should be a multitude of images to look at.
Now that we have our empty starship lets fill it with some raw cadets, all eager to learn and ready to find their place on board this wonderful new spacecraft. Starfleet Academy will need to look after this job themselves. Each section of the ship will be allocated a certain number of people who will need to learn their roles on board. Some will form bonds with others and will make a nice career for themselves in their own specialist field, while others will be deemed not suitable for service and might eventually be removed from the ship.
OK, so we have all these eager young cadets on board. They are all allocated to the area of the ship that they are showing a talent for. The cadets in engineering are learning everything they can about the warp drives. The cadets in the transporter room are discovering how to move molecules from one spot to the next. The medical students are playing with their antibodies and nanites.
Now lets compare all this to a developing brain. As a baby grows in the womb, the DNA strands are busy like Starfleet. But instead of allocating a set number of cadets, the DNA allocates a set number of brain cells. Like the cadets, the brain cells will all have to find their purpose. As a person grows and learns, some of the brain cells will make permanent links with each other to form memories. The brain hardwires itself over its lifetime by figuring out which cells work best together and which cells are just a waste of time. This is the process of learning. As we learn, our brains create connections between all the little squidgy bits that live inside our scones. In the case of the Starship Enterprise, the brain cells are represented by the cadets. Eventually the starship will be a finely tuned instrument, run efficiently by all these "eventually" well trained cadets.
So now our starship has all of its allocated cadets, all set to excel in their own special areas. The science team is to be run by Mr Spock. Mr Spock as most of you will know is the Vulcan Science officer on board the ship. He spends most of his time on the bridge, and the science team need to report directly to him. Down in the bowels of Engineering we have Mr Scott. Again, his team needs to report to him. Dr McCoy is in the sick bay with his own team of experts. Uhura is in charge of communications. Mr Sulu gets to play with the steering wheel, while Chekov keeps track of the weapons systems.
If we get back to our developing brain, we can use all these people in charge to represent the different areas of the brain itself. Spock is the section of our brain in charge of the scientific and mathematical bits, but he has no understanding of emotions. Dr McCoy is an expert in empathy however and is raw with emotion and his little outbursts of rage. They all have their places on the Enterprise. In the brain we also have specialised areas. There's a whole section of our brain that looks after maths, another section to look after emotions, another for communications. It has all been pre-allocated by the DNA strands from the point of our conception.
Back to our starship now. Let's say Mr Spock and his science team are busy doing their scientific analysis and they come across some problem that requires some form of human emotion to understand further.... Whoops! Mr Spock is from the planet Vulcan. Vulcans are taught to repress their emotions from birth. So he's suddenly at a loss. Dr McCoy however, is full of all that emotional crap. Perhaps he could help. But its a bit hard for Mr Spock to see Dr McCoy with both of their busy schedules. There must be an easy way to pass the information from one officer to the next.... hmmm????...... Oh look! Starfleet command put someone in charge of the whole ship. Captain Kirk. He's not allocated to any specific area of the ship at all. He's just plonked smack in the middle of the saucer section up on top in the bridge. Mr Spock can take his silly emotional problems to the captain, and then good old Kirk can allocate it to Dr McCoy! Woohoo!!! Problem solved. In fact, if any officer has a problem, all he or she has to do is take it to the captain, and then anyone else on board who might be of assistance can be told to get in and help out. What a marvelous Idea. If only the brain could function in the same way.
Well,... there is one part of the brain that works a bit like the captain. It's called the corpus callosum. You see, the brain is divided into two hemispheres: left and right. On one side we have all the emotional crap and creativity. On the other side we have all the mathematical and serious stuff.... well, that's a simple view of it all but for this analogy it's close enough. And stuck slap bang in the middle of the two hemispheres, we have the corpus callosum. It's the soft connecting tissue that allows contact between the two halves of the brain. So if the mathematical side of our brain requires a little emotional input to help understand something that would otherwise be logical, it can communicate via the corpus callosum with the emotional side to help understand things a little better, and visa-versa. So in our brains, we have all our separate areas doing their own things, just like on the Enterprise, but also getting help from other areas, via the captain of the bridge, the corpus callosum.
So our Enterprise is now a perfectly working brain. End of non-Autistic story.
Now.... lets view this same scenario, but change a few things to make things fit in better with the Autistic Spectrum.
Imagine, back when Starfleet was allocating its cadets, that it allocated way too many people in some areas, and not enough people in others? On the one hand, for each menial job there are now 3, 4 or 5 cadets more than is actually necessary to get things done, yet on the other hand there is only 1 or 2 cadets in places where 3, 4 or 5 cadets would normally be allocated. The ship is now overloaded in some areas with cadets who are all fighting to work out who's going to be the best person for the job. Mr Spock surely doesn't need this many people to make up his science team... and they're all equally qualified... so how's he going to decide who to keep and who to get rid of? This could take a while longer than expected. Dr McCoy is busy losing his mind with all his extra nurses and interns. He's going to have to weed out the best from the rest too. The whole ship is working on overload.... well, that is except for the understaffed areas. The galley is now run by only a few people who need to feed the entire crew. Dinner's going to be a bit late. Instead of the whole crew learning how to run the ship efficiently in the space of a few years, all this confusion is going to cause massive delays before each section is ironed out and working at its best.
Well, guess what?... people who are on the Autistic Spectrum have to go through just this exact same thing. For some unknown reason, the Autistic brain develops with far too much grey matter in some areas, and not enough grey matter in others. There are sections that have a perfect count of brain cells, but the areas that are excessive and the areas that are lacking are going to cause some issues. There are so many more possible ways for all these cells to be connected. Just like the confusion on the overcrowded Enterprise, the Autistic brain is going to take longer to figure out how to hardwire these extra cells, and which combos are going to produce the most efficient results. This could therefore explain why so many kids with Autism take longer to hit their milestones. Theoretically, the sections with the extra grey matter will have to compromise for the sections with the lack of grey matter, so not only do the excessive areas need extra time to work out how to work most efficiently, but they also have to do more than their fare share of the workload. While a non-autistic person might be toilet trained at an early age, an Autistic person might still require toileting assistance throughout their childhood, sometimes even into adulthood. A non-autistic kid might be walking and talking before they get to pre-school. An Autistic person might not have these skills developed until much later in life. The extra crew on the Enterprise slows down the selection process for deciding which crew members can responsibly restock the replicators, and the extra brain cells in an Autistic brain slows down the selection process for efficiently learning how to tie your own shoe laces.
Not every person on the Autism Spectrum faces these challenges. Every person on the Spectrum has their own individual brain and personality, just like non-Autistic people do. Some have bigger challenges and hurdles than others. That's why Autism is classed as a spectrum. There are so many different ways for any brain to develop, Autistic or not. So some people on the Spectrum will find life a bit easier than others who are also on the Spectrum, just the same as anyone else. People with Autism just have extra challenges to face as they grow and learn and try to weed out all those extra brain cells.
OK, so let's get back to our overcrowded Enterprise. Starfleet Command has already made one big stuff up with the cadet allocations, How much worse could it be?... Whoops! They just made another silly mistake. They forgot to allocate a captain. Sorry Kirk. You're no longer in the picture. I suppose he could still sit on the bridge, but Starfleet hasn't given him all his training. So even if he is present, he just doesn't know how to allocate to other sections. Kirk, is either away on permanent shore leave, or he's decided to sit in a warm chair in the middle of the bridge. Either way you look at it, he's not there to do his job. So if Spock has some emotional issues, he's not going to be able to get it sorted out by Dr McCoy. McCoy's still there, but he's just too busy, and no one is there who knows enough to allocate him the job. The ship is not only running with a badly allocated bunch of cadets, it's now also being run by different sections that are failing to communicate together. It's not looking too hopeful for the Enterprise in the efficiency department now!
So how does this compare with an Autistic brain? Well, studies have shown that in Autistic people, the corpus callosum is either non-existent, or has at least some part of it smaller than would otherwise be considered normal. This would either cause the two hemispheres of the brain to have no communication between them at all, or perhaps only a reduced flow of information trickling through the smaller pieces of tissue. So just like Spock would no longer be able to get McCoy to handle the emotional details, the section of the brain in charge of logic wouldn't be able to turn to the section in charge of emotions if the need was to arise. It is also known, that the corpus callosum is usually smaller in boys than girls anyway, which can explain why there are a greater number of boys with Autism than girls. The girls have the advantage in the corpus callosum department, so a reduced size might not make such a noticable effect on them.
So now you know about all this Autism stuff in a bit more detail, if you were a bit bewildered by my earlier blogs but this made a bit more sense to you, try reading the older blogs again. You might understand what I've been saying for a change.
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