What is an NT?

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Well, what exactly qualifies as ASD people to be the only atypical people?

absolutely nothing

Well that is all just B.S that bitter people with an us vs. them mindset say, its not true....Most people I know are neurotypical and i would not describe them that way.

Everybody else who has a cognitive disability or a mental health disorder. I also feel that there is no such thing as normal.

Neurotypical is a person who doesn't have:-

Dementia (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's)
ADHD
Mental retardation (developmental defecits, very low IQ)
Autism (Asperger's, Kanner's)
Fragile-X Syndrome
Soto's Syndrome
Down's Syndrome
Bipolar
William's Syndrome
Schitzephrenia
Tourette's Syndrome
Epilepsy

Conditions that may or may not make a person neurotypical depending on severity:-
Dyslexia
Dyspraxia
Anxiety disorders (if a stable person has always suffered crippling anxiety)
Mild learning difficulties

Conditions that are neurotypical but just caused by environmental factors:-

Depression
Anxiety
PTSDs
Effects from poor upbringing
Anger
Drug/alcohol addictions
Phobias (phobias can be caused by environmental factors OR just be a part of an individual which is very normal, so phobias do not make a person non-NT).

Some conditions are overlapped, or put into more than one category, for example, strokes, effects of a brain tumour, or phychopathy. Murderers who aren't on drugs? I don't know.
Some disorders can come later in a person's life, so an NT can become a non-NT, just like an able-bodied person can become disabled.

The reason why I find the "99% of the population are NTs" theory irksome is because I used to volunteer at a club for teenagers with neurological disabilities, and they weren't all Aspies, but they still had challenges and different brain wiring and social and emotional deficits and immaturity.

Also people with Fragile-X aren't NTs. They can typically exhibit autistic behaviours such as lack of eye contact, social awkwardness and hand flapping, but not actually have autism alongside it.

NT means someone who has a typical neurological system. Our brains and neurology are different and that is what makes us Autisitic or Aspergian. People who are NT are born with what is considered a normally developed brain and neurological system. So even though NT is commonly used to distinguish Autistic people from the general population, other people who have neurological differences other than Autistic people are also not NT. So it's not technically only Autistic or NT, anyone who has a different brain wiring or neurology technically won't be NT even if that person is not Autistic. But in colloquial or every day language, we usually use the term to distinguish Autistics from everyone else.

Last edited by skibum on 02 Nov 2016, 4:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ezra do you watch tv or movies at all? I don't have a tv and I know people who can't watch tv or movies because they are too overstimulting so before anyone jumps all over me for asking a silly question, it is a very legitimate question.

If you watch tv or movies, most characters portrayed in the shows will be NT. Some NTs are wonderful, loving, genuine fabulous people, some are not. It's just like Autistics or any other group. Having a certain neurology does not make someone have good or bad character. People are good if they are good and bad if they are bad. It has nothing to do with whether or not they are NT. Now some people do have frontal lobe damage and that can affect if they are good or bad but that's rare. So for everyone else, being good or bad is just about how they were brought up and/or decisions they made.

If you watch TV you will see that most characters are really good at having relationships and having conversations with each other. They seem to just kind of do that naturally. They also don't fixate for days on special interests. They are also very affected by trends and fashions and things like that. They socialize all the time. It does not seem to exhaust them like it does us. They don't have the sensory sensitivities that we have. They don't feel the super intense emotions the way that we do all the time. They tend to be able to hold jobs and do a lot better at executive functioning tasks. They are even in their areas of development. Like they are not chronologically 50 but have emotional capacities of 7 year olds like I do. Their emotional capacities match their intellectual and mental capacities unlike me and many others here.

So for an HFA to pass for an NT, we have to be able to do all these types of things and many more things like that as easily and as often as they do. That is why if we try to pass for NT for a while, we self destruct. Our brains and bodies can't handle it. It's way too exhausting and demanding for us.

I hope this helps you understand. I can try to explain more if you want. That is a really good question by the way.

Last edited by skibum on 02 Nov 2016, 4:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with every single word with what you have wrote, Skibum.

Thank you Joe. And it's really nice to see you again.

I have noticed that people are very quick and spontaneous when replying to others.
Watching TV or movies I've noticed people always know when to tell someone off, when to be angry, or when to be nice.
Reaction to each other goes back and forth like a ping pong ball.
Eye contact lasts very long.
They do things with their faces like twist their mouth to the side or pucker their lips, though maybe it's just an acting technique.

Know where and when to enter a conversation, know what to say and what not to say, have something to say.
Be aware of your body posture and movements.
de-sensitize yourself so as to relax and be comfortable.
Understand there is a social world where you can fit in, if you can fit in, if you want to fit in.

React to other people with your emotions on your face.
React to other people.
Learn how to act and appear normal.
learn how to do reputation management because other people are actually thinking about you.
That's at least 10 things.

I think for an autistic person to act NT would be like a blind person pretending to see.

Marybird, TV and movies aren't a very good indicator of normal human behavior. Acting is a lot different. Still, a lot of what you say is right. One thing I'd note though... people often aren't thinking about you. It's just important that you have a good reputation for the occasions when they are.

That's brilliant. I love that analogy.

That analogy isn't accurate for me though. There are some social skills that I find natural, and I can learn to mask some of the social awkwardness. I'm good at observing NT behaviour and picking up on subtle social cues.

That doesn't mean I don't have ASD though...unfortunately.

The reason I love the analogy is because blind people are not helpless. They just can't see. There are many things that many blind people do much better than seeing people and many of then are perfectly capable of living their lives in a very productive way, much more capable than I can in many ways. Blind does not mean stuck in a corner not being able to do anything, it just means not being able to see. That is why I love the analogy. As Spectrumites, we are capable of huge amounts of stuff and some things we do a lot better than people who are not on the Spetrum and like you said, Joe, some of it comes very naturally to us. But we still lack the ability to "see" many things so to speak. I don't mean literally see but seeing like figuratively. So we are very much like blind people pretending to see when we try to pretend we are NTs.

it's not accurate for me either. i feel more like it's as if i had an extra sense but no more brain capacity than other people to process all the input combined. so it's too much input instead of too little, and i generally feel like people can't see what i can see just as much as i can't see what they can see, and it's not so much a matter of inherent ability or lack thereof as it is a matter of simultaneous ability or lack thereof

I find this way of explaining it so interesting. I admit that I will have to read it a few times to really understand it but it really makes me see a different perspective that I had not thought of. Thank you for posting this.