Is autism the opposite of schizophrenia?

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Belief in a god / supreme being doesn't qualify as a delusion. Religion is a social phenomena. People on the spectrum are less likely to conform to social norms. That's why you will see more atheists here. It has nothing to do with autistics being more "rational", especially considering how irrational a lot of members on here are.

Belief in God is a socially acceptable delusion, but your point about social norms is a good alternative interpretation.

Yes, but there are different types of schizophrenia and not all hear voices:

Perhaps a best question will be "I believe in the curative power of crystals"

EDIT - better - "I believe in astrology"

The study:



I think the SPQ is this:

http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~raine/spq.htm

And there is indeed some questions style "I am an odd, unusual person."

Last edited by TPE2 on 02 Sep 2010, 9:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have one thing to say:
Your cited article has at its basis assumptions that are flawed.
It states:

I think 99.9% of the people on this site assume other people have minds. We just often don't understand why they think and act the way they do.

With that one flawed statement in the outlook of the author's article, we can deduce there was little to no time or intellect put into researching the concept. It is a prime example of the worst dribble the internet has to offer.

i saw this thread a few minutes ago, and i read the OP's post, but i am tired and so i did not read any ensuing posts, so what i am going to say may have already been said, or may have already been conclusively disproved.

it is an interesting idea that schizophrenia and autism may be opposites on a pole (not a spectrum), but i do not think they are related.

with myself as my subject of consideration in respect to autistic relationship with schizophrenia, i hastily compiled some crude ideas.

schizophrenia is characterized by a number of symptoms. some which seem opposite to autism, and some which seem similar. the ones that seem similar may be similar due to an entirely different neural genesis.
some symptoms of schizophrenia that seem opposite to autism are:

* disorganized thinking.
i believe autistic thought is ret*d by the need for extreme organization of concepts due to lack of intuition. autistic thinking is carefully compiled because there is a deficit of intuition that makes conclusions difficult to complete without examination of minutiae.

schizophrenic people (in an acute episode) often have disorganized thinking because they go into a "flight of hastily clutched ideas" that are the result of some sort of panic stemming from a paranoia that they are losing pace with what is going on.

* delusional thinking
i do not believe that autistic people are susceptible to delusions because the reasoning quality of autism is a slow and painstaking process that requires concrete evidence to be tested before belief can follow. i think autistic people must join all the dots before they can see the "picture".

i think schizophrenic people have exaggerations of reasoning, and can arrive at a conclusion rapidly due to their increased faith in their reasoning without the need for empirical proof. this may stem from some sort of "magical thinking" where they believe that if they thought it, then it must be true because of some supernatural force that releases them from the chore of having to go through all the evidence in a simple rational way.
because their brains are disengaged and flighty due to a sense of paranoid urgency in their need to keep pace and not "fall off the world", they do not seem to feel they have the time to stop and scrutinize all the details in a relaxed and methodical manner. it is like counting people on a platform of a train station while being seated in a train speeding past the station, and believing that the lack of an answer to how many people were there will somehow spell their doom. more than that, they feel that "god" helped them figure out the solution to the impossible task of counting them, and gave them the answer.

*depersonalization

with schizophrenics, there is often a sense of losing contact with their sense of "self". it is like they are outside their selves and they witness what they are thinking as if they are looking at another person. often they see what they think as a foreign person's thought with which they do not agree.

i think autistic people have an inability to detach from their self, and they can not disengage in order to "empathize" (or be "absorbed by") with another persons thoughts. i have never been anyone else than "me" and i am so strongly "me", that i can not live or even visit anywhere but in my own mind.



*derealization
i think schizophrenic people in acute episodes are prone to feel that the world that they see is not real. it is like a dream and they must feel very insecure and doubtful of the validity of what their senses show them. their impaired reasoning ability renders them clueless as to whether what they see is really happening.

i think autistic people see the extreme reality of the microcosm of their focus, and they find it difficult to accept any other appraisal of the area they are focusing on (if it is not in agreement with their own assessment) .


i am actually rather tired so i will draw my post to an end (i should post during the day when i have oodles of energy).

i think schizophrenic people are flimsily tied to themselves and are prone to flimsy conclusions drawn from impaired reasoning and are extremely paranoid and scared that they will suffer a catastrophic outcome if they do not get things sorted out in a period of time that is impossible for them to achieve.

i think autistic people (well just me actually because i do not deign to talk on behalf of anyone else) are solidly tethered to their self and are not satisfied with incomplete analysis of rock solid concrete evidence.

schizophrenics fly through the sky with a rocket strapped to their back with no rudders in a panic, and autistics plod slowly and incredulously through the grains of sand on the beach of the gradual developments of their proven ideologies.


there is a million more things to say but i will leave it there.

i am probably wrong i admit, and i am not the same as all of you and i am not talking about autism with the idea that i am the role model of autism.

every autistic is unique.
"autism" means "selfism".

There is a basic idea that autism and psychopathy represent two extremes of social cognition.
Crespi & Badcock appear to equate any form of psychosis to psychopathy, when they are not the same thing. They also apply narrow definitions to both autism and schizophrenia. Included in the pdf are three interesting articles which point out some basis flaws, and are very informative about schizophrenia in relation to autism. Anyone on the spectrum who reviews the theory will probably question C&Bs understanding of autism. The genetic mechanisms of the theory appear interesting,. The theory of everything approach seems poor.

Psychosis and autism as diametrical disorders of the social brain
http://www.sfu.ca/biology/faculty/cresp ... ck2008.pdf

P37. A complete theory of psychosis and autism as diametric disorders of social brain must consider full range of clinical syndromes


P38. Reunifying autism and early-onset schizophrenia in terms of social communication disorders


P39. Psychiatric disorders and the social brain: Distinguishing mentalizing and empathizing

The reasoning behind the poll probably relates to page 52.

I read the paper, and my impression is more that they equate psychosis more with schizophrenia.

I am in agreement with TPE2. Where is any form of psychosis equated to psychopathy?

Even about this study.

Correlations between SPQ and the sub-scales of AQ:

- AQ Social skills 0.35*
- AQ Attention Switching 0.27*
- AQ Attention to Detail 0.19*
- AQ Communication 0.43*
- AQ Imagination 0.06

Correlations between AQ and the sub-scales of SPQ:

- SPQ cognitive-perceptual 0.25*
- SPQ interpersonal 0.53*
- SPQ cognitive-behavioral disorganization 0.32*

* Indicates pairwise correlations with P < .001

All sub-scales of SPQ have a significant correlation with AQ, and only one AQ sub-scale (Imagination) does not have a significant correlation with SPQ.

I don't go to post all intra-scale correlations, but the only negative correlation between an AQ sub-scale and an SPQ sub-scale was between SPQ cognitive-perceptual and AQ imagination (-0.02).

Then, it seems that, at least in non-clinical populations, autistic traits and schizotypal traits are very similar (apparently, the only autistic trait that is not associated with schizotypal traits is the "Imagination", i.e., that thing about don't liking to read fiction and don't doing pretend play as children)

Seeing as I view the hypothesis that autism/AS is a manifestation of "extreme male brain" is complete crap, it follows that I feel schizophrenia as "extreme female brain" can be safely relegated to the same midden heap.

The logic seems to be, "I think women are more intuitive, and it seems like schizophrenics are super-intuitive, so it must mean that schizophrenia is an extreme female brain!! !"

First, we need to define what we mean by "logic" and "intuition," and then we need to demonstrate that these qualities are only present in a "male brain" or a "female brain." Based on my understanding of the previous two terms, it would appear that they are arbitrarily defined and broadly characterized, too much so to make definitive statements based on nothing but assumptions. The "Do you believe in God?" poll demonstrates how subjective the definitions of terms such as "logic" or "intuition" can be. Can we demonstrate that "logic" is governed by a physical structure in the brain and that this physical structure is inherent to a "male brain (and visa-versa for intuition)?" If not, I find such distinctions interesting, but not definitive.

Besides, certain recent research suggests that women present AS/autism differently than males, with AS/autism primarily characterized by difficulties socializing, which suggests to me that these symptoms are not reliant on having a "male brain," but exist independently and while they are affected by sex, are not defined by it. Besides, based on my understanding of the terms, I can be logical and/or intuitive; logic does not preclude intuition, and intuition does not preclude logic.

In short, these hypothesis needs to go back to the drawing board.

--XFG

The psych system doesn't generally look for developmental disabilitieson your way in so it is probably still true.

Moreover, it's not just what we think of it. It's science. Autism has been shown in recent studies to not only still be mistaken for schizophrenia, but schizophrenia is the number one psychiatric condition mistaken for autism in those studies.

Schizophrenia criteria are not just about psychosis, loss of reality contact. They are also about social withdrawal, inability to care for oneself, bizarre and unusual behavior, unusual speech patterns common in autism (referred to misleadingly ad formal thought disorder), assuming unusual postures, unusual repetitive motor mannerisms, echolalia, echopraxia, freezing in place, lack of certain kinds of commonsense behavior (dressing inappropriately for the weather for example), and many other things that do not have to do at all with lack of reality contact.

Add to that, many misunderstandings about autistic behavior that can lead to being misdiagnosed even with the psychosis part. This includes: literal answers to questions like do you hear voices, confusing verbal thoughts with voices, confusing compulsions with delusions of external control of one's actions, being highly immersed in fantasy worlds, identifying strongly with the mythology of being an alien or changeling, and many many others. See that huge book Tony Attwood wrote for more.

Plus, catatonia (which is a movement disorder, not a psychosis) is associated with autism. One study showed at least 10% of autistic people have catatonic features by adulthood. Catatonia is mostly not associated with schizophrenia, and yet you can get diagnosed with schizophrenia entirely for having idiopathic catatonia.

Schizophreniais not really a thing, though. It's a word that Bleuler thought up based on his theory of why a lot of unusual people acted how they did. These unusual people were not always even the same kind of unusual in any way at all. They were very different. Some may have been adult autistics. (I know some of Kraepelin's dementia praecox patients could easily have Bern autistic people who had increased trouble functioning as time went on.)

So you can't really say schizophrenia is the opposite of anything because schizophrenia is not a thing. It is a word long overdue to be changed and split apart and recategorized.

But there is a serious reason that the last criteria of schizophrenia is that it can't be diagnosed if it's entirely because of autism. (Most who diagnose don't check for autism though. Too much trouble.) The reason is that most autistic people meet the criteria for schizophrenia. Usually disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated, or (by the ICD) simple. But with a little misunderstanding we can even be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia For reasons stated above. I was misdiagnosed with both undifferentiated and paranoid even after my autism diagnosis and that was in the nineties.



As for the opposite of autism. The opposite of autism may be... autism. Seriously. I read a study once where children were rated on a huge list of traits. The choices were basically only three: Always/a lot, in the middle, and never/a little. Some children were autistic and some were not. The point was to figure out which traits the autistic people had different from the nonautistic people.

But what happened surprised them. The results were that nonautistic children were usually in the middle. Autistic people were on BOTH ends of any given trait. This is why autistic people are both the one's who barely talk and the one's who can't sshut up, and the one's who do both but never in the middle. Etc.

I've found that if you reverse the traits that I have that get me diagnosed as autistic, they can turn into another kind of autistic person. I have trouble holding onto idea-thoughts. Some autistic people are immersed in idea-thoughts. I perceive the world as raw sensation and patterns thereof, some autistic people can't get out of their heads enough to notice sensations. I struggle to understand words and rely on people's pattern of movements to understand what's happening. Some autistic people struggle to notice movement patterns and rely mostly on words. I have always been quite passive in some ways -- being unable to easily avoid social interactions or other events when they happen to me, but unable to easily seek them out deliberately either. Some autistic people are noticed as unusual because they exert their will so strongly to either approach or avoid such things. I grew up being (without intent) magnetically attracted to objects associated with sensations (such as waving colorful objects in my face). Some autistic people come off as stiff and formal and not in the least bit subject to such things. I learned that words have meaning long long after I learned to speak (by repeating patterns of sound with no direct meaning). Some autistic people understood language perfectly long long before they could speak.

And not only all that -- but when I did chance to do things differently than I described myself above, I would swing all the way over to the opposite. There are conditions which work like that. People who are bipolar are usually manic, depressed, or both, but rarely in between. Perhaps autistic people are similar in some areas other than mood. You couldn't find an opposite for bipolar as it is its own opposite. Autism may be the same. At least if you're looking at it certain ways.

And autism is not an extreme male brain. That's just one guy's method of selling books. He force-fits his theories. Parts that don't fit are dismissed. His idea even of what a male brain looks like is not all that scientific. One scientist told me that some autistic traits are more characteristic neurologically of females. But even that is talking averages, not absolutes. (And that part is about actual cognitive science. Not how people answer a bunch of biased surveys.). The extreme male brain theory is pop science, the worst of the "science for nonscientists" that autism research represents. Most autism research seems to involve pulling something out of your butt and manipulating your data (whether consciously or unconsciously) to fit. Schizophrenia can't possibly be an extreme female brain because it's not a thing, it's a collection of unrelated things bound together by sloppy thinking.

Exactly. I was never fond of Baron-Cohen. On an asexuality message board I used to frequent, one member actually wrote to Baron-Cohen to ask about people who are "non-gendered," or people who get low scores on both "empathizing" and "systemizing."

The response? "Non-gendered" people didn't exist and that anyone who scored low on both scales obviously didn't understand what counted as "systemizing."

In other words, throw out any data that doesn't fit your model. Ever since then, I've been extremely skeptical of anything Baron-Cohen spews. And I agree with what you said about "schizophrenia."

--XFG

Are you serious?

First off, I don't think the kind of thinking that leads to delusions is necessarily the opposite to logic. To me, it looks almost indistinguishable from logic. Except that it has these teeny barely detectable twists and bends in it. But delusional people are often hyperrational, it's just that there's a twist in their version of rationality.

Plus there's this weird way our culture distinguishes clinical delusions from ordinary delusions most people have. That line is utterly arbitrary. 

A diagnosis of schizophrenia doesn't require hallucinations or delusions or any other loss of reality contact though. It can happen to those with a sort of early onset dementia. Or many other things. As I said it's not one thing. 

But my main beef with your idea is that you sincerely believe autistics are hyperlogical.

I think that assumption started because many autistics who can use language are hyperlogical.  Not all but many. 

Some who don't use language are doubtless hyperlogical. Some undetermined number are not. 

I'm a kind of autistic person who seem to be a minority in those who use language but we do exist. 

And from the standpoint of someone like me, both "psychotic" people and hyperrational autistic people are immersed in the world of ideas. The difference is just a combination of degree, and the way both sorts of people fit ideas together. But you're both in the idea realm. 

OTOH, people like me struggle to put together an idea. Some of us manage to. Some of us pass as doing it. But it's not natural to us. Just writing a post like this is painful. 

What we have instead of words and ideas is direct sensation of what is around us. And the patterns those sensations form. And that has a lot more to do with reality than most typical people, or psychotic people, or hyperlogical people. You all seem detached from this from my perspective, it's just a matter of how, and what degree. 

And people like me are autistic despite our lack of hyperlogical thinking. Really. We may be a minority, particularly among those who use words, but we do exist. Kindly stop acting as if we don't.