Can autistic people develop?

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Supposedly in theory it is a developmental delay...(Or am I wrong in saying this?)

if that's the case then it should be able to be "taught" away but has anyone actually experiences a change in themselves to where they feel more understanding in the social realm?

Doesn't seem like it's something you can teach...if someone has a way of acting and primarily gets the same response from people they aren't going to suddenly change what they are doing because someone says "Hey, this is how you're supposed to do it." When it is such a subjective idea and it depends on your theory of mind. According to the diagnosis theory of mind does not change....least I dont think it does.

I can picture doing something differently but I wouldn't logically do it differently because I have either came to a conclusion on how to do things or my brain just kind of goes on autpilot and creates a reaction in me.

In a message someone told me they were stuck at a certain age- thier lower teens. I would have to say I am stuck in a certain age as well, similarily age 13 probably. I haven't "developed" that I can see in 8 years....This I am assuming is related to the "theory of mind"

Why I would like to know this is I am trying to seek counsel in trying to develop some things socialy but I don't know how to go about this and am having the psych lead this...don't want it to be a waste of time.

I think it's possible, but for me it's taken a long time. Years.

Learning how one should respond isn't the same as responding instinctually. Training is not a cure.

But what do I know? Just my own experience. For me, it's clear that I mostly learned the right things to do to fake it, but never quite integrated them into me; they're still behaviors I learned and taught myself, and they succeed in seeming right to a lot of people, even though underneath I'm still puzzled and alien.

Um... I'm better at socializing than I used to be, but I'm not NT. I don't even do it in an NT way.

I think Autism really is a case of Nature > Nurture

You can't develop "out" of autism, but with age and maturity come coping strategies that can be almost as good as instincts.

Absolutely. I have experienced continuous improvement my whole life.



It is not a waste of time. But my experience is that you have to figure it out for yourself, for the most part. Having a shrink helps, but the shrink is not around enough to do the big jobs. What they can do is to suggest alternatives and to let you know that some things are not productive.

The way that I see it, is that I am missing some things, which means that I cannot learn social skills using the same mechanisms that the NTs use. That doesn't mean that I can't learn them. I just have to learn them using reasoning and observation, which is a lot slower than the NT method.

Why not? If the suggester's suggestion will make things work better, then why wouldn't the suggestee take it?

Autism doesn't mean stasis. Finding something difficult doesn't mean that one can never gain any skill in it.

As for the Theory of Mind: I can't speak for everyone, but I'm well aware that everyone has minds and that they are different from my own; and this is what CAUSES many of my difficulties: I don't have the common assumption that most minds are basically like my own and thus predictable.

I would agree with your last paragraph....the figuring out the other minds is the hard part.

I've developed a fair amount throughout my life, because I've learned to compensate. There were times in my life that I've overcompensated, like in college for example. I was in a work experience programme for special needs adults and I was thinking in my mind, "I'm going to be as different from everybody in this room, as possible." I've masked a lot of problems and extended my hippiehood by 10 months at the same time, which neither was good for me. I should of spruced myself up a lot sooner and showed more of my emotions. Maybe it was a bit of delayed development that caused me to do those things.

The time that I really took off and started to develop, was the late September of 2009 when I've accepted everything about me that was true, to the point of admitting that I grew up to be sensitive and innocent, like an ex member of a band that I like.

For me, I agree and disagree with you. It took me a long time to realize that other people reacted differently to things than I did. So I did have an incomplete theory of mind. But since then, I constantly struggle to figure out how they do think. Is that what it is to be NT? To have an instinctive understanding of the way that other people think? Not full knowledge, but a deeper understanding than Aspies have?

I would think so?

When I was pretty young I thought everyone else must be robots because of how they acted and they must have some how fuzed with real skin becuase I had seen them bleed. (Hadn't seen terminator at the time...not until many years later)

At that time I definately didn't know people thought differently, so I guess I have proved myself wrong and it just takes us longer than normal to develop. Interesting.....

I though exactly the opposite. I thought that people just behaved completely irrationally at times. It too me a long time to realize that they were behaving in a perfectly rational way, but that their perspective was different.

I wasn't saying that my experience was universal, I was just describing how things are for me.

Yes.



Consciously observe yourself in your automatic reactions, and consciously impose more desirable ones.

NTs are prone to this too. Performing unconsciously from already embedded patterns of behaviour. Aspies have the old rigid thinking and love of habits though, which perhaps keeps us locked into our ruts for longer.



If you've been doing the same things for 8 years, then what can change? You need to cause change by doing something differently.



Like I say, become consciously aware of what you are doing (and where/when/why) and think about how you could do things differently. Then do them.

Consider the case of Temple Grandin. She developed quite well.

ruveyn