To 'Low-functioning' Autistics:

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Perhaps we could use colors for different parts of the Spectrum like in a rainbow. Perhaps say. green could be people more affected with symptoms of Autism and say purple for people more mildly affected. Maybe people won't get offended then. Personally, I think that as much as Norny has tried to show that he is not being offensive, perhaps people could just try to take him at his word and not be offended. I would be less offended if people could just nicely, politely, and respectfully have a conversation about the actual subject at hand rather than nitpicking Norny's wording.

Eloa, I find it extremely interesting how you say that when you were a kid you could recognize family members as people but only in the context of the home and when they were not at home you did not recognize them as people. The reason I find this so interesting is that when I have face blindness, I sometimes don't recognize people out of the context that I am used to seeing them in. The first time I saw my brother's roommate outside of their home I had no idea who he was even though he was with my brother at the time. It was embarrassing because I introduced myself and asked if we had ever met before. Now I am much more used to seeing him and I can usually recognize him in a context outside of his home. But it took me a couple of years of seeing him to be able to do that.

Also I might not recognize a word if it used out of context. This happens less often than face blindness but it happens often enough that it is really noticable. And sometimes even if an object is out of context I might have difficulty and it might take me an extra minute to register what it is or what to do with it.

I wonder if what you experienced with not recognizing people as people outside of your home is an extension or a more severe way to experience what I described that I experience.

Kindomofrats, I wonder if how you see people strictly as objects is a greater extension of this same phenomenon as well. It would be really cool it it were an extension of the same thing. That would make us similar in that regard but just different in the degree in which we experience the same thing.

I would have thought there aren't many on here because there are quite a few who can't communicate (including via text).

I "watched" this thread because I have a son who is profoundly/severely autistic [insert other way of describing it that you prefer] who doesn't communicate at all (yes we are trying to teach him to type and use other augmentative communication devices, with no luck) and was curious to see the responses. Sadly he doesn't communicate (yet?) so he can't answer these questions for me himself.

I noticed in your signature that you have two kids on the Spectrum. I am curious if they are both the same gender and if they are both fairly close to severity or if one is much more severe than the other. I wonder how closely the ranges are when they are siblings. Also girls can present differently than boys so I wonder if you notice that as well if your other child is a girl. I also wonder when people have more than one child on the Spectrum if the order of age will affect the severity as well, like if the older child might be more severe or vice versa and also if it makes a difference if the children are close in age of much further apart.

It's been scientifically documented that differences in functioning between two autistic siblings (even identical twins) exist, and are quite common. One identical twin might be an "high-functioning" Aspergian, while the other twin might be a "low-functioning" classically autistic person.

That is really interesting to me because Autism sets in during the second trimester of pregnancy. So I wonder if it could be because of different conditions in the womb with each pregnancy or if it has to do with hormonal or chemical differences with the mother. I know that a child's genotype is affected by the mother's responses to external experiences during each pregnancy, like if she were in a famine situation or something. That is an extreme example but how her body would adapt to that environment would affect the outcome of the genotype of the child in her womb. I wonder if external influences could also have an affect on creating an Autistic child and to what severity the child could be.

What you stated makes a lot of sense.

I'm green and purple striped.

LOL!!

If we use colors, it ought to be a color wheel instead of a spectrum, and colors represent various traits, so that when you added up your traits, you got a color that represented your strongest autistic trait, with white in the middle, so if someone had a really light color they would mean they had many traits at about the same level.

But somehow I don't think the idea of "I'm a light turquoise autistic" is gonna catch on... especially since you KNOW all the computer people are going to start using hex codes for the colors.

Hey, That's pretty cool. I like the color wheel. We could see how many colors we could create.

All one has to do is go to Home Depot. You could pick up samples of literally HUNDREDS of colors. Go to the paint department.

Yeah, I have spent WAY TOO MUCH time looking at color paint sample squares. Eventually I will get around to painting the walls of my house. Key word is "eventually." It is really fun looking at color samples. My husband and I really enjoy that. It's a nice cheap date! :p

I like the idea of a 'colour spectrum' but as Callista said, it would likely struggle to catch on. I can foresee success with the idea if there were some 'colour dictionary' that one could refer to, in order to understand exactly what the colouring of a particular person meant of them. Due to a general lack of understanding, it would likely not be a viable option today however.

I wonder why, with over 80,000 members on WP, there is such a scarcity of replies to your topic.
There are many non-verbal severely autistic people who write blogs and books about their lives.
I like the blogs of Larry Bissonnette and Tracy Thresher.
They talk lucidly about their thoughts and daily experiences.
Reading their blogs, I'm reminded of a line from their movie, Wretches and Jabberers : "More like you than not". It is so true.
I am sure they are not considered low functioning although they were in the past.
I'm posting a link to their blog because I think they can answer your questions.

Link> Wretches and Jabberers blog

Those are good questions- I'd like to know too.

I have two sons (almost 3 years apart in age). They were both originally diagnosed with severe autism, but my younger son is higher functioning now. They are very different, and the development was different too. I believe my first child showed signs of autism from birth, but certainly by 4 months I knew there was something strange about him. My second child developed normally until around 13 months. He smiled, he made eye contact, he responded to his name, he imitated sounds, etc. Just completely normal. He didn't speak yet, but he wasn't considered speech delayed yet. Then around 13 months, he lost skills, and he "retreated"- he just didn't socialise anymore. He used smile when someone he liked came in the room and to engage with them. He used to play with trains, like pretend they were trains on the track, and he would make a train noise (chugga chugga..), but around 14 months, he just lined them up and spun the wheels. Lots of things like that, he just seemed to lose. He also received a lot more intensive early intervention, because he was diagnosed earlier and we were already in the system (due to my first child) so we bypassed some waiting lists. I believe that early intervention was absolutely critical in his language acquisition (although he was still considered functionally non-verbal until 10, he said his first word at 5). My first didn't receive that much early intervention, due to waiting lists, and he is still completely non-verbal. It's hard to say if my 2nd child's "higher functioning" ability is due to the type of autism he has (later onset) or the early intervention or just chance... I don't know.

I know a few families with multiple children on the spectrum, and I don't see a pattern in birth order and severity at all- it seems pretty random.



I loved that movie, until I looked more into facilitated communication. It's sad but that seems to be a total scam (it's actually the facilitator's thoughts).