The Impossibility of Defining Autism

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Well, honestly I would say that autism is very complex and it's definition would be infinitely long to figure out its effect on every single individual. It's impossible to define autism, you're right. But we must keep in mind that we are ourself and that "autism" simply is a word to describe our common traits or difficulties.

NTs struggle with other NTs. No one has this social thing entirely figured out. Nobody is perfect at it. Look at all the people stuck in unhappy situations and marriages. Life is not an easy thing. There isn't one book that gives you the directions to a perfect life. A perfect life doesn't exist.
There's always going to be highly social people and people who like to be alone figuring stuff out. Some are going to love asking questions while others absolutely despise them and don't want to provide any answers. Some people like to go with the flow while others are content shaking things up. We are not cookies made by the same cookie cutter
Some people are going to be gingerbread men, others sparkly orbish bulbs while others end up as Christmas trees with green sugar sprinkles all over them. It's just a matter of diversity. Life would be boring without it. You would always have the same cookie. Who wants that?
People did like me as a kid but I often did something to mess it up so it didn't last. I reached the conclusion I am better off being independent and not nearly as stressed. You can have a fun life without always being around other people. It gives you a chance to study your environment. You can scrutinize it completely, taking mental notes of the subtleties around you. Appreciating life and it's intricate complexities. It helps you delve into the deep mysteries that have fascinated mystics. alchemists and scientists throughout the ages. It's not entirely a bad thing

Not exactly, Everyone can complete an IQ test regardless of intrinsic intelligence. The manner of completion is a different issue.

Hah! Good point!

The REAL question to me is, are autism and NT just arbitrary labels for characteristics shared by groups of individuals which actually don't say all that much about them overal? One current theory in neurology is that any person born with a tendency towards higher intelligence, because of grey matter characteristics, is more sensitive to the defects that can trigger autistic traits. You can be "neurotypical" and have an autism-like cognitive style, you just won't have nearly as many disabilities. Too bad for us.

The general autistic differences are varied. Several ARE useful. Sorry if you don't agree. Normal does NOT mean perfect!

Sorry I am so rigid. I though heart attack meant that something affected your heart in some adverse way, causing arythmia or arrest. I then thought that Autism meant that one was autistic. As one site says "Autism is a developmental disorder that appears in the first 3 years
of life, and affects the brain's normal development of social and
communication skills. " The NIH says "Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a range of complex neurodevelopment disorders, characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior. " The FIRST line of any autism description in the DSM says "qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:"

OK, you can try to convince me. But FIRST please contact the NIH, all those doctors, etc.... and get THEM to agree with you. Have them change the DSM to show the right things. It's a TOUGH sell though. BTW it will cascade into a TON of changes. It could take DECADES to reconcile! The very name AUT ism ives clues to the meaning "auto-, aut- + (Greek: self, same, spontaneous; directed from within) " So autism has something to do with being directed from within or by your self. The site I found that at says "autistic
Showing evidence of autism, e.g., a disturbance in psychological development in which use of language, reaction to stimuli, interpretation of the world, and the formation of relationships are not fully established and follow unusual patterns. "

SO, just out of curiousity, WHAT makes you think you have an ASD?

I totally agree with the OP. Autism is so mysterious. I have read several stories of people who were severely autistic who came out of it and were somewhat "normal" And I have also heard of so many people that were odd as children and had many autistic characteristics that grew up to be "normal" individuals. And why is every case different? No wonder scientists can't figure it out.
My son is 5.5 years old and is diagnosed as PDD-NOS/possible Asperger's. He didn't walk until he was almost 2. Now he is running and climbing and jumping. He has low muscle tone, but it is improving all the time. He is very strong, he sometimes climbs on me and I have trouble getting him off of me! He is hugging me now on his own and telling me he loves me. His speech progresses every day. He is aking questions and making comments about things in his environment. His speech has surpassed what I thought it would ever be. He definitely still has issues, like not wanting to play with other kids, and having trouble focusing on his work, and being loud and saying repetitive stuff. But, over time, I am seeing improvement in him.

Looking at his family tree, I can see that there are definitely traits of autism running in it, but no one on either side was ever diagnosed with anything. They are all just quirky, but fully functioning members of society. From some of the descriptions of their childhoods, I know they were probably odd children too.

So, it is so baffling. When my son was first diagnosed almost 3 yrs ago at 2.5 yrs old, I was terrified of what his future would be. But as time goes on, ( I still worry) but I am more hopeful as I see the improvements that he is making. I am encouraged by reading the posts and stories here on WP.

By the way, my son did an IQ test at 4 yrs old and it came back that he was borderline mentally ret*d which I think is total BS. I know I am his mom, and I could be biased, but I don't think I am on this one. So, I don't place much stock on IQ tests (at that young of an age)

Anyway, I agree, autism is a very interesting subject. I am NT, but I would say that autism is my "special interest"

Well, I DID have an IQ test that seemed like a regular IQ test around 6yo. But at 4 a number of kids apparently can't even read, so maybe you are right there. But borderline MR may not be that obvious at that young of an age. Borderline could mean right at low NORMAL.

Steve

This thread hurts my head.

To me autism is a lack of being able to relate to people and a preoccupation with self.
I don't care if I'm wrong.
I could probably elaborate by explaining the function of the autistic brain but I'm incapable of that right now.
It also seems to be just a delay in development.

BTW it is SUPPOSED to measure math, logical, spatial, and vocabulary ability.

Put really basically the idea of autism being primarily social doesn't work (and even many of the more irritating "experts" know this) because autistic people have various characteristic cognitive patterns (involving both strengths and weaknesses) that have nothing to do with social skills. At best the social stuff is likely to be a product of other cognitive stuff (or of the difference between an autistic and nonautistic people), not just plain social-at-the-center-of-everything. The reason so many professionals put social stuff at the center of everything isn't because they have any special insight, it's mostly because social differences are the first things early people like Kanner focused on (even though that was sometimes an observation made through a thick and obvious layer of bias -- as in not simply observing what the child did, but also speculating too much on what it meant).

And just typing that has completely worn me out language-wise. It is easy to restate common beliefs. It is hard to find words to challenge them. Even when the beliefs are at best partly accurate.

(Emphasis mine.)

Then there's no point talking to you. But I'm going to reply for the benefit of others who are listening, and you, specifically, who don't care if you're right or wrong, can go champion the theory that the moon is made of cheese. If you ever want to learn the truth, maybe read my post and it'll give you some food for thought.

Autism is not inherently a lack of being able to relate to people or a preoccupation with self. I have found from personal experience and what others have said that we aren't that bad at socializing, and do NOT lack theory of mind, but that there are barriers that prevent us from being able to connect with NTs. It's as if NTs speak English and we speak Tagalog. It's very easy to find English speakers, so oftentimes, NTs just assume that our problem is a deficit in the ability to speak (speaking here representing using nonverbal cues). And because Tagalog speakers are really rare, a lot of us never meet one, so we never realize there's a language we speak.

As for a preoccupation with self, I'm quite sure that we aren't any more inherently selfish than anyone else. This misconception comes from a few places. For one thing, it can be harder for us to learn what another person is feeling, which makes acting on that knowledge impossible. (You can't act on knowledge you don't have.) Also, since it's often painful for us to interact (and not as pleasant/beneficial) we seek out time alone far more often than most.

Can I point out here that I'm not sure if you might be using "normal" incorrectly to mean "good" or "capable" or something like that rather than to actually mean someone who is typical? "Normal" as properly used is synonymous with mundane (different connotations) and sometimes overlaps with (but means something quite different from) "functional," "good" and "acceptable."

Anyway, of course he's making progress; he's a kid. NT kids make progress. Non-autistic neurodiverse kids make progress. All kids make huge leaps of progress all the time. Like, NTs start out nonverbal and then usually learn to speak, for instance.

When you say "issues," do you mean "bad things?" Because if so, I want to point out that not being social should not go under this category. Nor should being loud or saying repetitive stuff. These things are not normal, but they are not bad. Not being very social has saved my sanity.

When you say that autism is mysterious, what you mean is that you aren't able to easily understand it, but because most people agree with you, you call this an inherent quality of autism. How about if I try that with the things I don't understand easily?
NTs are mysterious.
Marriage is mysterious.
Cliques are mysterious.
Math is mysterious.
You are mysterious.
The heuristics NTs use to make quick decisions without thinking about them are mysterious.
The Krebs Cycle is mysterious.
Baseball is mysterious.
The Olympics are mysterious.
War is mysterious.
String theory is mysterious.

Only now it sounds weird to you. You understand one or more of those things perfectly, I bet, without any effort. But it's not weird; what you perceive as mysteriousness is an interaction between ABC and a brain set up to understand XYZ, for any values of ABC and XYZ you can think of so long as ABC =/= XYZ. NTs don't understand autism, so it's kind of... "fashionable" (is that the word I want?) to call it mysterious, but it would be just as correct to say "NTs have a deficit in the ability to understand autism." (If such language offends you, think before you use it to describe us.)

I really don't mean to come off as hateful or angry here. People seem to think I do when I disagree respectfully, so I'm sticking on this disclaimer. I could blame NTs and say they take offense at everything, but why would I? I could as easily say I give offense a lot. It's like mysteriousness that way.

BTW I do think we have problems socializing most of the time. But where those problems come from may be inside of us, outside of us, in between us and other people, and I don't think those problems come from just some sort of "social module" in the brain being messed up. Not all autistic people socialize better with other autistic people, but enough do to call into question the idea that we're all inherently unsocial and unable to be social. But that's just my opinion.

That seems right to me. I have a very hard time relating to people of my generation and younger. I'd rather surround myself with the things that I like about the 60s and hang out with people who are at least 5 years older, instead.

I think I understand what you mean. I think "higher order" functions relate to our cognitive ability to laser focus on a specific point of interest and block the rest of the world out. The point of interest has no limits it could be intellectual pursuits, work pursuits, music, art, nature, writing, cooking, etc.

There is a correlation between low dopamine levels and Autism. There is also a relationship between low dopamine levels and ADHD. It is interesting that both of the conditions are linked to exposure to testosterone in the womb. Some children are born with the condition of hyperactivity.

ADHD is associated with sensory integrative disorders.

Normal levels of dopamine are required for focus, movement, executive function, desire, pleasure, and memory.

The hormone behind laser focus can be adrenaline. It can compensate for low levels of dopamine. If we are interested in doing something out of excitement or the stress of having to do it, we may release increased levels of adrenaline to accomplish the effort, sometimes to the intensity of laser focus.

When epinephrine (adrenaline) levels are low we can be immersed in our environment, without a great deal of cognitive direction. This may also be related to low dopamine. This state of being may also be necessary to recover from periods of time when our adrenaline levels are higher than normal.

This may be part of the reason we focus on special interests: An effort to increase dopamine levels.

Why do Autistic people stim: this can be the result of low dopamine levels.

Low levels of dopamine are associated with anxiety, depression, tourettes syndrome, and tics.

People with normal levels of dopamine usually can focus without the assistance of adrenaline.

Using adrenaline as a coping mechanism for low dopamine increases the stress hormone cortisol. High levels of cortisol can have a negative impact on communication skills. It can also result in chronic health problems.

Perhaps the positive aspect of low Dopamine is it can motivate someone to achieve much through intense focus.

There are many theories as to why a person may suffer from chronically low dopamine: genetics, brain development, instant gratification, watching TV at a young age may raise the threshold for pleasure, social isolation, etc. It may be integral to Autism and ADHD or just an association.