Autistic children don't interact with the environment.

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OK Context:

I work in pediatrics, and my records office is right across the hall from a Nurse Practitioner who can easily be overheard anytime she has a telephone conversation.

She was on the phone this morning with a mom who was concerned about her son't head twitching. ARNP was trying to explain autism, stimming, and why she doesn't think this particular child is on the Spectrum. She explained stimming adequately and talked about the child' social skills being normal. But then she said something that didn't click.

"Autistic children don't interact with the environment."
Wait, I went (internally). What?

Yes, we do. We are keenly aware of the environment; in fact, we have trouble tuning disturbing things out from the environment. That's part of why we stim.

We interact differently with the environment from neurologically typical people. We interact with the environment in a neurodiverse manner.

So.

"Autistic children don't interact with the environment."

Discuss.

^Did you tell her what you thought afterwards?
I personally think that I interact with the environment too much, so then I meltdown and shutdown.

Hmm... I have a few thoughts.

Autistic children (and adults )don't usually interact with the social environment, which means other children; the social part of anything is often the only part that neurotypicals seem to see. They certainly feel it is the most important part of anything.

You hit the nail on the head with the fact that autistic children (and adults ) can have trouble tuning out parts of the environment they don't like, which can either make a child hesitant to try new things or overly interested in some part of the environment they do like, such as lying in the grass. Both of these might look to the outsider as a failure to interact.

In any case, she chose her words poorly, IMO.

I don't consider being affected by the environment the same as interacting with it.

As far as interacting with the environment, that seems kind of vague.
Like did she mean interacting with nature or interacting socially or what?

I remember learning there are those who indeed mostly keep to themselves but also some who interact in an obviously strange manner (active but odd).
I can't imagine people working in the field of pediatrics don't know about this nowadays. Maybe your colleague was just convinced that the boy doesn't have any autism and so wanted to get this idea out of the mother's thoughts by saying this?

Not sure what she means by environment....

He is 11 since yesterday. He was fully interactive above average until onset late.
But what enviornment?
nature?

My son looks up when he says so little day to day and says "Shtahrs!" or "Airopwran!" or "Bwue". Sunsets are "pwetty" sometimes. He can recognize certain constellations and pint at them.
He likes "Taweez", specially deciduous types trees and brush. He likes flowers... likes to eat them.
he likes touching trees and watching the wind move them.

home? He watches the clock when I am cooking what he wants, is focused on that stove, yet if I throw the trash out he is up to get a fresh one and put it in can. He like white noise from selected DVDs. He wanders to my mom's room or mine to interact in that way that cats do.

He loves Christmas and starts hinting for his tree to be set up as soon as the stores start the consumer push.

He reenacts episodes of TMNT with his small figures that he untypically requested. He draws constantly and colors when bored.

Social?
He does not like his peers but definitely notices when they are about to attempt to interact so removes self from occasion. He likes small children and is even slightly protective of them. He prefers ambient company, a person nearby doing something but not next to him or talking to him.
He is afraid of loud sounds. But recognizes some long before the sight of its creator is given.
Signals like certain things I wear = trip out. And he rushes to join me most times.

He doesn't like the dog to get in trouble and wants to comfort her. Or even cover up for her. He will attempt to clean where she caused a mess (usually barfed or tore something).

Interact like in human history studies and geography? Adapting to regional condition? (not much choice in that) Modifying something? (like getting blanket if cold, putting board across mud? building?) Mutuality of depending on local? like argroculture (um ..how many NT do that? 0_0 ).
She is lucky my rude martial self wasn't near

I have respect for front line nurses but a distrust of the type that think they are somehow doctors. Many bad personal experiences as well as anecdotal. Parents KNOW when something is wrong. Even martians like me know when they have a changeling. My son had migraines from age 3mos on, it took horrific filming and not giving relief by OTC meds to show a migraine in all its glory, to be later confirmed with a specialist, a child neurologist. He finally was going to get relief before he became very ill with a fever and spiraled into his onset a mere 2 months later. and after that it took a year to get his odd change catalogued, observed and diagnosed.
It makes me worry that she seems to be pushing so hard for this parent to quit asking for testing or observation of something peculiar. The sooner diagnosis the sooner therapy. It is critical.

The claim that autistic children don't interact with their environment is obviously false,but you need to understand this is identifying autism from a pediatric perspective, not a humanist one. One of the classic symptoms for identifying autism VERY EARLY ON is they appear to not interact with their environment. This doesn't apply to everyone, but it's a common symptom.

I interact with "the environment" and always have. I think she needed to be much more specific in what she meant because really that vague, broad statement could mean anything or nothing at all. It was a really dumb thing to say actually, and nobody knows what she means. But I think you really should have a talk with her about it. As a nurse in a doctor's office, she is speaking to patients and parents from a position of authority and many people will actually believe her because of her position and because they don't know any better. So she has to be careful what she says. She can't just throw out those kind of statements. That kind of remark can actually cause damage. And it's just not true. Reminds me of a conversation I had with a psychiatrist a couple of years ago. I told this person I was Autistic and the person told me I can't be Autistic because Autistic people don't have emotions. Yeah, OK. Just because that statement came out of a doctor's office does not make it true or even intelligent.

Perhaps when she said "environment" she meant herself? Some folks have lousy communication skills, and I guess we all slip up from time to time, especially when we're nervous. But the litmus test would be to look at the kid and see whether it's a complete indweller or not.

I've always interacted with the environment. I played the same games as my sister, cousins and the neighbourhood kids. I took a break from that for a while when I was at home for a year. I interact with the environment now without the need to be a cookie-cutter of my same sex peers.