How to make an NT person act autistic.

Post Reply New Topic

I have an M.S.Ed. in teaching blind people adaptive skills to better function in society. As part of my training, I learned Braille, how to use the long white stick, and other daily living skills. Because I have no vision loss, I had to wear a blindfold while learning these skills.

Learning how to navigate in the city under blindfold is frequently stressful. Many of my classmates started crying during lessons because they were so stressed out. We are not talking talking about misty eyes. My classmates were bawling. There are many times when I wanted to cry. But, I held it in. I suppose I had too much pride.

I will provide a few examples about what would stress us out.

I had a lesson on how to ride the light rail train in Chicago. A six lane highway was on both sides of the train station. I needed to rely on sound to know what the heck was going on in my environment. Unfortunately, the sound of the cars and trucks blocked almost everything out. On both sides of the light rail platform was electrified train track after a five foot fall. Thus, one miss step could cause me to fall and possibly fry or get run over by a train. On top of all that, the train station was in a bad neighborhood in Chicago. In fact, a fight nearly broke out on the train that I was on.

I know I was stimming like crazy because I was so afraid. I was jumpy as heck and my movements were mechanical and stilted. My head was probably tilted to the floor because I had no need to hold it up to acquire visual information. I also wanted to cry. I completely melted down internally. Observer on that day probably thought that in addition to blindness I had other problems. I also know that dozens of people were probably starring at me.

All of my NT classmates hated lessons where we had to solicit assistance from the public. The strange thing is that when the blind fold goes on the social skills disappear. The lesson would go as follows. The instructor would drop us off in an unfamiliar city and tell us to find a certain location under blindfold. Most students hated this because they despised asking strangers where they were and where to go. In addition, they had to locate assistance without the benefit of vision. I personally liked the lessons because I would just turn on the charm to get what I wanted. I also had no fear of looking stupid or incompetent.

My experiences of traveling under blindfold leads me to speculate that autism might be a purely perceptual issue of some sort.

Perception is a part of autism but not everything. I'm overwhelmed by visual stimuli which makes it near impossible to talk to even my closest friends when in a noisy and crowded environment.

But if I was blind folded and told I was going to the pool but really it was a completely different place and I knew I would have a meltdown. I would know through sound that I was being lied to.

Change is my most hardest symptom to deal with.

There are other symptoms too that go beyond visual perception.

I think change often is about perception, just not in the most obvious way.

Like to me, the reason I need everything the same, and it took me awhile to figure this out. But basically... I perceive everything. Well not everything, but I perceive far more bits of sensory data coming into me than most people do. It is difficult and stressful to have to process all of that information. If I am used to a particular place, or a particular routine, then that is less new information to have to process, understand, and figure out how to act on. So, if everything is always the same, then I can function better because I have to do less raw perceiving of things. But if something changes, then suddenly I'm flooded with new information and can't handle it and have a meltdown or shutdown or some other unpleasant experience.

Not everything about autism is perceptual (much of the rest of it seems to be cognitive or motor, although the boundaries between those things and perception are fuzzy rather than solid), but far more about it is than people often notice, because it's not all perfectly straightforward like sensory overload is.

I suppose people refer to autism as mind blindness. That way we can be blind to certain things in socialising. But I wouldn't probably talk more and make a whole lot of ruckus if I was blindfolded because of the uncertainty of what may be in front of me. I make a lot of noise when I'm scared and in the dark.
I just don't understand how people would talk less if blind folded. maybe NT's really need to make eye contact to talk to people. I'm the opposite. I just do it to be polite.

I perceive a lot more sensory data than most people do as well. This helps me to figure someone out within about 5 minutes or less. People don't believe me...until I do it. As long as everything is the same, then everything is fine. When something changes, I take all that in, and it no longer overwhelms me as it used to. I'm not quite sure what changed, but it was around the time I worked at a hectic grocery store, and I got used to stress from every direction, and learned how to handle it in spite of myself.

If I understand your question, you are looking for ways to simulate autism so that caregivers can have receive better training. You might be able to do this with the sensory aspects. I don't know how you would do this with some of the other things common among autistics.

I'm thinking that instead of a blind fold, you need things that would overload the senses, Special glasses that increase glare, overload contrast and color saturation, add random scintiallations. Earphones that add layers of complexity to sound or layer in grating noises. Clothing that has weird sensory properties. Food with atypical textures and odors.

Oh if you're looking for ways to simulate autism I'd suggest simply not doing it. Here's why:

http://www.ragged-edge-mag.com/archive/aware.htm

http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/focus ... age04.html

http://www.ragged-edge-mag.com/0903/0903ft1.html

They made a convincing case for why disability simulations are a bad idea. I've never done one. Now it seems that's just as well.

This disability simulation fad has spread beyond disability simulation. It has become so popular that it is now being used to simulate other things and the problems seem just about the same as the ones for the disability simulation. Many highschools have decided to do teen parenting simulations. They give the highschool students a raw egg and the students have to carry it everywhere they go for a week. This is supposed to simulate how having a baby in highschool will really make your life much harder.

This simulation fails (in my mind) for the same reason the disability simulations fail. It's too easy to cheat. It's over very quickly. And the participants get overly stressed out because they lack the coping mechanisms that come with the actual condition...parental love, in the case of teen pregnancy. They also are very thrilled when the simulation comes to an end. Just as being blindfolded doesn't simulate blindness, carrying an egg doesn't simulate parenthood. But these simulations continue since there is now a firm belief that they are accurate and helpful.

The silliest simulation was a beautiful fashion model who did an ugliness simulation. She wore a fat suit, uglyfying makeup and ill-fitting clothes. Then she walked around New York City to discover how terrible life was for an ugly woman as opposed to being beautiful. It missed the point hilariously and for the same reasons the other simulations miss the point and don't really work. Later she gave a weeping interview on television about the horror of walking around New York as an ugly woman. Men didn't even notice her!! Oh the horror.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments!

I apologize for the confusion.

I am not suggesting that we simulate autism. In order for me to learn how to teach skills to persons with vision loss, I had to learn them myself. The only way to learn how to teach Orientation and Mobility skills is to put on a blindfold. Even the NFB, National Federation of the Blind, would probably agree with that statement.

I don't know anyone would stimulate sensory overload. They wouldn't be able to experience it the same because their brain can filter things out.

What you're talking about is a several-weeks-long program wherein you're taught effective strategies for navigating without sight. That's not quite the same thing as what anbuend was talking about upthread, which is just giving nondisabled people some sort of "fake" disability for too short a time for them to learn to cope and without teaching any useful strategies.

I think Chinese Water Torture works on the basis of sensory input . .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_water_torture You can reduce a persons tolerance for sensory input just by keeping them awake for a long enough time. I agree that you cannot duplicate an autistic's issues but the idea in these simulations it to give some understanding.

I think what can't be simulated are some of the ways information is processed in autistcs once it gets past the sensory stage. You can't easily recreate a central processing disorder. Maybe some drugs would simulate it.

Seems to me they are missing something important. The disability simulations as described here have become little more than parodies. What they haven't taken advantage of is the psychological power of a simulation and how if leveraged differently could actually help understanding rather than hinder it. Rather than letting it become a structured exercise in "pity the poor disabled", take the intensity of the experience and turn it into something positive.

To say that such things are useless is the equivalent of saying I can understand another culture only by reading books. That going there and tasting the food and working beside them has no value.

I'm thinking the problem is these things were designed by non-disabled people. If they were developed and run by those with disabilities, then they would be more than just "feel bad for the gimps" days.

Oh yeah, LSD to mimic synesthesia. I forgot about that stuff.

LOL. I think that is a classic example. Cannabis can distort perception of time. Other drugs mess with memory. I suppose none of these get to the core.

You could make a person autistic by emotionally neglecting a non-autistic from young age to the age of 25, since the needed stimulus aren't met this person doesn't develop these sufficient and thus the neural pathways breakdown.