Draft study - Autism and deafness

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I think the suggestion of the OP is ridiculous. The superior senses of autistics is not a disorder at all, and has nothing to do with language problems. Language is communication, not sensory processing.

My senses are disabling. I don't care if you use the word disorder or not, they are disabling. They are far more so, than any other part of my autism. The fact that I can sense things others can't is useful, when taken to the extreme I have, its disabling, and causes me physical pain, mental overload, and causes me to be unable to do things that are basic needs.

My senses prevent me from doing things as simple as showering, taking public transportation, shopping, walking down the street at night, and so on. I'm not saying "this is somewhat unpleasant but I can do it". I'm saying "This is beyond that point".

I'll pass out and vomit from showering, be unable to see or process vision after I get out, be unable to understand where to go, or how to get there. I'll literally follow my cat to my bedroom by keeping a hand on her, and following where she goes with a hand on her, to make it to my bedroom.

(And that's not even mentioning the migraines I get from my SPD, or my chronic headaches)

There's a reason they say I have sensory processing disorder as well as autism, and it really rather exists in me and in others. It's not just us being superior being. We have issues. We struggle. We hurt. And we make do with what we have and we do amazing things with them.

as for some other statements in here



We're not deaf, but we're also not ignoring people. We can't process the information. It doesn't make sense to us. Yes, it is a processing problem, but that doesn't mean we're ignoring people. It means our brains cannot process the information.

Am I ignoring trees when I walk into them, not knowing they are there, or am I unaware of them? The fact that I'm unaware because of a processing problem doesn't change that the fact that I'm unaware.

We're truthfully unaware of what is going on around us auditorily as well, because of our auditory processing problems. It's not ignoring, that'd mean we are aware that its there.

At least, that's what it is for me. People have attempted to call out to me, and I've not even heard sound, according to what I was aware of. Sure, I can hear according to hearing tests, but if the auditory processing isn't there, that doesn't change that I can't effectively hear it.

And it doesn't mean I'm ignoring them.


Anyways, to get to the basic idea, and to go to the simple response:



Then why can non-verbal PEOPLE communicate with someone speaking?

I specify people because autism is not limited to children, and being non-verbal is not limited to children.

However, those who are non-verbal, quite a few of them are capable of communication through AAC devices, including communication with people who speak. They cannot speak themselves, but they can hear, and use their devices in order to communicate back. That would not be possible if they could not decode language at all.

Just because someone can't speak doesn't mean they can't communicate. It just means that they need you to actually let them communicate in ways that aren't their voice.

Sometimes, when I get too overloaded, I lose speech, I go non-verbal. I don't lose the ability to process language in terms of what I hear necessarily. What I lose for skills varies. But the ability to process sound completely is actually one I lose very infrequently (though I have lost it before).

So, when I'm non-verbal, I communicate with my phone. I can't communicate with speech, but I can still communicate, responding to others speaking to me.

But people talking fast and expecting fast replies, that's hard. Slow down.


However, some people have told me that increased sensory processing problems seem to be related to decreased speech. This isn't always true, but its a frequent tread. These people find me interesting, because I have the sensory processing problems, but am verbal.

Do you also know how many deaf ppl are autistic?

The reason that I had no reaction to someone calling my name was not because I didn't hear sounds or couldn't process words.

I remember hearing and processing fine, but there was no reaction due to lack of social cognition that normally produces social orienting response, then some kind of communicative response like saying hi or withdrawing if shy in seven-year-olds, which was how old I was when I clearly remember people calling my name eberryday at school, and eberryone was disturbed that I had no reaction.

People thought I was deaf when I was little, but I wasn't.

Gallaudet did research that. In a study of 8 year olds with hearing loss they found 1/59 were also receiving services for Autism (ie were officially diagnosed) compared to 1/95-1/110 for hearing children of the same age (stats vary depending on source). Considering it has also been found that Deaf children with autism are diagnosed much later than hearing children, the statistics are probably still estimating low as LF autism is more easily identified than HF autism/Asperger's in Deaf people because so many clinicians know so little about how it presents in Deaf people so less obvious autistics are harder for them to identify accurately.

I find those stats from Gallaudet interesting, in terms of the percentage of people with a dual diagnosis. I work with people with disabilities for a living and I've occasionally worked with deaf clients. I found it really made me feel hyper-aware of my ASD traits because my deaf clients seemed so much more attuned to and adept at reading the nonverbal aspects of communication than the average hearing person, and those are definitely not my strong suits. At the same time, though, I almost felt this kinship in a way, since we both had a communication-related disability. Two communities that are both very different and very similar, so I'd be interested in hearing more about the experiences of people who are a part of both.

I solved my chronic headaches by drinking more water, at the age of 25. I was ignoring / not knowing how to interpret thirst, and not knowing how it was related to headaches. If it ever helps ...


Sorry for being too simplistic on my first post, I know reality is more complex than what I wrote. Even for me.

Sometimes I can't hear anything in noisy environment, and I can't participate in any conversation because of that.
Sometimes I really have problems speaking, but really occasionally : when I'm very tired or processing important stuffs. This typically happens when I walked fast, enter a building and have a lot to process at the same time. If someone talks to me, I can hear and understand, but it's really hard to speak.
Sometimes I lose the ability to process language, I hear a sort of flow of speech that I can't decode. But I can speak, it's like nothing can enter.

But usually my level of language processing is correlated with my ability to speak, which is correlated to my sensory load.

Before being communication, language is "sound". Sound has to be discriminated into meaningful information (matching chunks of sound with situations).

Those are in very different stages. The only sensory traits related to sensory processing which are not physical sensory traits, are instinctual reactions to sensory information, and I'm sure languages is not in that domain. Thus, language processing has no connection to physical sensory traits in ASD whatsoever (and neither has it in NTs). Language processing is an evolved stage late in the sensory processing mechanism that has no direct connection to the physical sensory processing system.

Last edited by rdos on 11 Oct 2013, 2:47 am, edited 3 times in total.

Thanks
Yeah I guess it's difficult to dx HFA/AS in a deaf child correctly.
But I guess that the number in the first post of the thread that 5% of all autistics are deaf is a bit too high.
I don't doubt that the number is a bit higher, but not that extreme.

But I could also imagine that it has genetic reasons. I make an example: white cats are more often deaf because the gene for white fur and not being able to hear are right next to each other.
The same could be also the case for deafness and autism. Just a thought.

Childhood vision impairment, hearing loss and co-occurring autism spectrum disorder.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24060256

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24290951
Autism spectrum disorders in 24 children who are deaf or hard of hearing.