HFA in Boy's Club

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I wrote a really long answer and captcha ate it all. I have a family and lots of new obligations coming up, I can't devote more time to this, particularly as my executive functioning sucks

Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0mIFmRCaCs

It's one of the best documentaries around. Among other things, it shows ABA, which is basically dog training for autistic kids. Don't do that. Just imagine people doing that crap to you, and feel the horror.

Just keep explaining things to him in a logical fashion, and ask him for his reasoning. If he won't tell you how he feels about something, it might be because he has no way of identifying and expressing complex emotions.

Read up on alexithymia and delayed emotional reactions. This may explain why he doesn't seem to react to things.

I think you are misinterpreting a lot of his intentions. I agree with Magz that he may be far from saintly, he probably just thinks he's copying the other boys.

If he's sensitive to touch, he may not see much difference in forcing people to shake hands and holding a sizzling hot dog to their skin.

There are a lot of old threads on WP that you can turn to for info.

Trolling is a good way to look at it, but, your post reminded me of something. You know, the way a toddler tests you by spilling his food to see what you do and then proceeds to repeat the action over and over again to see if the results are the same? My son would test social cause and effect that way. I imagine him thinking: "If I do this action, what happens? What if I try it again?" He never communicated any of that verbally, of course, but I am thinking about it, and think that was sometimes what he was doing and then he was misinterpreting the results.

That may also be something that applies here.

I did that. It all went into the Big Library of Interactions. I tried to figure out what people were thinking and feeling based on how they reacted to stimuli. It's what you do when you know something is going on but not what.

Kinda the NT process upside down.

Thanks for posting the link! I watched the video and made some notes and thought quite a bit. Many may not like what I have to say. I saw it as favoring one side of the story - those with high functioning autism. Little was presented about those that need to deal with more typical autistics. I wonder how a high functioning autistic would deal with a low functioning one...

First, I can understand Chris Packham's point of view very well. I am not on the spectrum, but can see it from here. I think I can understand and sympathize with both sides more than most. More than anything, I'd like to find ways to help Hal best. And since I truly admire and respect him, it must be for what HE desires, no one else. It also must be for what he is capable of and in ways that are, well, righteous. And finally, it must be done following the model of what the Club does - group dynamics.

Ya' know, human society has done things no animal societies can even approach. Even our closest relations, chimps, are nothing compared to us. This is because of the cooperative societies we are able to build. Empathy resulting in natural compassion is the fabric of human society. In the first section about 11:00 Chris' sister reminisces about when they were kids how everything seemed centered on Chris' interests. She remembers asking Chris "Why are you so good at manipulating people?" The answer she remembered was "Its 'cause the, I don't really care about them that much." I see this in Hal, although I have been reprimanded for it here. I am OK with both him being that way and for being reprimanded for it. Although I am not particularly social myself, I very much want others to succeed socially.

So being non-judgmental, I understand those that are blessed with empathy being naturally compassionate only with those that also possess empathy and are naturally compassionate. In other words, Neuro-Typicals. And I can see those that are not blessed with empathy becoming furious for being excluded or worse over something they do not have a clue about. In other words Autistics.

It's like a color blind person in an art class, only worse. Because of the lack of empathy they cannot feel compassion for those NTs that have no compassion for them. Those that want to "fix" them, those that have compassion only for what they think the autistic person should be, not what they actually are. But do autistics have genuine compassion, the kind that comes from empathy, at all? Well, I suppose some have more than others. Many are fond of animals, but is it for the love they can get from them or the love they can give to them? Chris was concerned for how he would deal with his dog's death, not how he could best care for him until them.

Hal has a dog named "Joe". When I need to talk to Hal about how to treat people I may say that he should not do something to a person that he would not do to Joe. There are some religious tenants that he may accept along these lines. I think he wants to succeed socially as much as possible and this should help him.

There is one other thing about the video that struck me. Chris was asked if he would want to be "cured" of autism if it was possible. He said no and the reason was all the abilities he would lose. That is looking at it like a zero sum game - gain social abilities at the expense of mental abilities. This assumes that the mental abilities are only because of the lack of social ones. There are many brilliant people with both. Chris' mental abilities could be in spite of the social inabilities rather than because of them. Chris himself quoted a statistic that only 14% of autistics had full time employment in the UK. Chris didn't seem to consider how much more his partner would enjoy his company if he was more social. Well, of course not!

All right, here we go. You have misunderstood a lot, but since I haven't seen Hal but we have both watched the documentary, let's talk about that. Maybe I can explain where you are getting it wrong.

Of course it tells the story of 'high functioning autism'. There are very few so-called low functioning (a misleading and annoying term) autistics who could pull together a documentary of this quality. Packham is an experienced tv presenter with contacts the rest of us can only dream of. The moment you get a documentary about less verbal autistics, you get a lot of misinformation along with it, and you almost exclusively see the person through other people.

What makes the documentary great is how it explains the inner world that is so central in autism. Most documentaries show a lot of outer behavior unexplained.

Quite a few more independent autistics work in the caring professions taking care of more disabled autistics. We have some members here. They are often able to interpret the behavior of nonverbal autistics in a was neurotypicals cannot. As such, they are of great help to people who can't speak up for themselves. We also have members on WP who need a lot of assistance, but are more able to write than speak.



Chimpanzees have empathy. They are remarkably similar to humans. You are misunderstanding what empathy means when used by scientists. There is cognitive empathy, the ability to identify emotions in others, and affective empathy, the ability to care, of which compassion is part.

Affective empathy is intact in autistics. What this means is that we care as much as the next person, we just have a lot of trouble understanding what is going on. When we do try to help others we usually do it in a clumsy way, because we try to offer the kind of help that we ourselves would like to get. This tends to backfire, we get punished for it, people get angry at us, so we learn early not to try to help others.

Scientists used to believe that autistics did not feel affective empathy, but that was a long time ago, and science has moved on since then. Unfortunately the myth about unempathic autistics persists. It seems to be particularly strong in the US for some reason.

What is fascinating is that you are missing the time element. The sister asked Chris this at a point where he was a traumatized child or teenager. Remember that autistics mature late. You are assuming that he doesn't have empathy just because his empathy levels match those of a much younger person. Over time, autistics catch up. It just has to be learnt in a cognitive way, not an emotional one.



What you just wrote was incredibly sanctimonous. This kind of stuff really upsets autistic people. You are being extremely judgmental. Neuroptypicals are not naturally compassionate. They are just as compassionate or incompassionate as autistics. It varies from person to person. What neurotypicals have is the ability to identify other people's emotional states. By your logic, sociopaths are nice people. They have cognitive empathy but not the affective kind, or at least less of it. Both these things exist on a scale.

It is painful being punished over and over again when you are only trying to do the right thing. Even the most unempathic autistics tend to be moral and decent.

It is also hard because NTs tend to have limited cognitive empathy with us. Because you have a limited ability to read our emotional state, you do a lot of unintentionally cruel things to us, just like Hal does with his friends. It's a two way thing, they do it to him and he to them, yet you only see what he does. Why? Because you lack cognitive empathy with him.



Chris Packham is British, for crying out loud. They're not a touchy-feely lot. He knows how to deal with taking care of his dog, and because he is autistic he is not advertising his empathy - read up on 'virtue signalling'. It's not something autistics do. And love is always a give-and-take. It's a private thing, those deep feelings. Packham was trying to get across how serious his dependence on his dog was.

Yes, autistics can and feel empathy for all kinds of people. It depends on the autistic person.

Yes, to me you are like a colour blind person. You don't see Chris's emotions in the documentary, his compassion, rage, love, all these things appear before your eyes and you don't see them.



Sounds great. The dog is probably giving him the empathy other people aren't.



Nah. Some of those talents really are due to autism. Partly it has to do with systemising. We tend to be unusual in a lot of ways. Most autistics don't have those kind of talents, but they exist.

Also, the fantastic sensory experiences is something that would be hard to let got of. There are people who say LSD makes people feel like autistics do. I haven't tried it and am not going to, but it is an interesting idea.

The statistics on employment are extremely unreliable. It only concerns people who have a diagnosis. There are lots of people who fit the diagnostic criteria but function well enough in life to avoid diagnosis.

Honestly, until you are better informed about autism and empathy I don't think you should be working with autistic children. I'm sure you will just see this as an autistic person "judging" you, but the ignorance you display here really has me concerned that you are going to harm this child with your misunderstanding of how his mind works. You really need to read up more on autism and what it is (good current research) and you need to spend a lot more time getting to know how the autistic mind works from actual autistic people rather than your own "clinical knowledge" if you're going to be any practical help to autistic kids.

You seem rather impervious to taking in new information from adult autistic people, and that has me very worried for Hal's sake. I wonder if you have truly considered anything that's been said to you here by autistic adults or have just filed it away in your brain as "autistic misinformation about themselves". You talk at us rather than to us, with supreme NT arrogance based in I'm not sure what as your "expertise" in understanding autism is severely lacking, and it doesn't bode well for Hal.

I hope therapists and social workers that have such a limited understanding of autism are dinosaurs that are on the way out, and that you don't represent the majority of NT people in such professions, responsible for vulnerable children and young people.

NT social conditioning is a terrifyingly strong thing. It produces a type of rigidity that I think is just as strong as the hard-wired kind. If the OP's community is anything like mine, everything is viewed through the lens of good or poor character. It is hard for NTs to fight it unless they are really motivated to do so. Otherwise, everything is interpreted as confirmation bias or nonsense.

Folks, I have taken what you have said to heart and tried to apply it to what you have said and to what I observe in Hal's behavior. I also have scanned what literature seems appropriate on line. It seems every time I do, there is some kind of "shape-shifting" going on about what autism is, and how it applies to what we are trying to do with Hal. Btw, Hal really likes coming to the meetings and activities. He is also free to stop at any time. If we were so off base as you folks make it sound, he would be long gone.

Good bye and God Bless.

I hope "God" or someone is looking out for the people you're "helping". I would suggest sticking around here and reading more input from autistic people, but I don't think it would do you any good as you don't seem capable of taking in new information. I hope you find a job that is better suited to your abilities and leave vulnerable autistic children alone.

Half of the sources online are unreliable. Source analysis is important. I would avoid Autism Speaks. The National Autistic Society, which I linked to before, is reliable.



The kid doesn't have alternatives. He would not be long gone, because the alternative is to isolate himself.

He's a brave kid out to experience life. I wish him the best, with his positive attitude he may do well in life - if adults don't try to modify him too much.

- - -

This thread made me really upset. How many times do people come here and ask for advice, then proceed to ignore it, because they are unable to open their minds to the idea that the world is not the way they think it is? Everybody wants a quick fix for autism, where they don't have to go through any personal change to achieve it. But the only way to do it is to start looking at the world differently.

I sometimes wonder why people don't see it for the gift that it is - if you are NT, and you can open your mind in such a way that you start getting glimpses of an autistic reality - then the world opens, possibilities present themselves, ideas appear. You achieve a flexibility and an ability to communicate with different types of people that in the past was unattainable. Isn't that worth some personal discomfort?

I like the slogan:
Autism speaks: now it's time to listen!
But they don't.

This


For me this thread is far less like what you say than some others in this subforum. The OP is genuinely willing to learn and confronting us is all about digging into the truth. It's nothing close to some other threads here, where some parents ask for easy tricks to discipline an autistic child and then refuse to hear about their child's perspective.

Actually, you are right. That's why I involved myself in the first place. I thought I saw a glimmer of hope. It's just that the stuff about neurotypicals having the 'gift of empathy' and that sort of crap really stuck in my craw. I'm finding I'm very stressed out these days due to life. I have a lot going on now. I'm probably being oversensitive and losing my patience because of having to say the same things over and over again. Sometimes it feels like chipping away at Ayers' Rock with a toothpick, it's that slow a process.

I'm going to be a lot less active on WP in the foreseeable future. Just too stressed out, and I'm losing my cool and saying things I haven't thought through well enough. Aspie bluntness is just not that great a teaching tool.

I'll be around a bit, but will try to avoid putting my foot in my mouth

Have a nice evening

Sometimes one has to put one's foot in one's mouth

In order to know what the foot smells like.

Otherwise, one will not be able to remedy any stinky smell which emanates from it.

In other words, people have to make mistakes in order to learn from mistakes.

I really do think the culprit here was rigidity. There was a part of the OP that I think wanted to do something positive for this child. He just could not expand his mind beyond viewing the boy as having NT character issues. He went from questioning the validity of the diagnosis for the boy, to doubting the validity of the diagnosis as a whole, to finally thinking of autistic people in an ablest way through his own way of thinking. Each iteration seemed to get worse than the prior one.

The person I feel empathy for most (b/c ahem, yes, I can) is that poor boy. I don't know what lead him to being raised by a great-grandmother -- but I cannot imagine the journey that took him there was not full of trauma that would hit an autistic child especially hard. I wish the person who came here was the great-grandmother herself. A club coordinator can only do so much, anyway. I suspect that the great grandmother is in the weeds herself, and could really use the guidance. From what the OP described as her community (a one stoplight town) she probably does not have a lot of options or resources.

This thread was both fascinating and frustrating. It also reminded me of why I wound up pulling my kid from public school and homeschooling him- because otherwise well-meaning people who I believe really *wanted* to help him, were probably never going to actually understand him, and were pretty butt-headed about being open to learning more about what was REALLY going on inside his head, and learning about what was really going to help him (instead of being dead-set on getting him to respond to their chosen methods and beliefs). They wanted him to fit neatly into some definition, and have *predictable* disabled behavior. Worst of all, much like the OP, they seemed so convinced that he was being a pain in the butt on purpose. As though he just loved the stress created by his misbehavior.

My son never in a million years would have done that Handshake thing. He would have seen it as ludicrously meaningless and therefore impossible to participate in. There are so many things here that I feel are being misread. Like the tomatoes in the salad thing. That actually made me laugh. He's not trying to make life miserable for everyone. He's trying to connect. Extroverted Aspies have a really, really hard time.

If I were to give any advice to the OP, I'd say he should just matter-of-factly explain the situation to Hal in these situations. (For example:) "This is the reason we do [or don't do] this. I can't make you do [or not do] it, but if you refuse, people may think you're a jerk. Your intention may not be for others to think you a jerk, but that will be the outcome." And the adult may have to accept that the kid will hear this information and yet not change his behavior, and be okay with that. The kid may need to let that information percolate for awhile, and it may be an enormous challenge for the kid to change *his* behavior and do something that feels ludicrous to him. This doesn't make the kid rude or conniving or manipulative or dense. I don't know how many times the teachers at my kid's former public school would complain to me, frustrated, about something my kid wasn't doing, when they had just explained to him what to do [or not do]. As though simply by explaining the correct way to behave, a person can instantly adjust and move on. Like say a person is afraid of balloons. Sit the person down and say, "balloons are no threat to you." Then you bring out a balloon and the other person shrieks and hides, and you get frustrated-- "but I just explained to him that balloons aren't anything to be afraid of!" The fearful person isn't being unreasonable; YOU are. I think there is a lot of this going on in this situation.

I hope it is OK to hijack, but welcome back, Carpenter_Bee!