As I posted this at Autism Speaks:
I'm sure I've repeated this question in several of my posts, but I'll go on.
What if the main handicap associated with autism is the misunderstanding between what is unique to one's own person and what is shared with other people?
You can call this "mind blindness", "theory of mind" or even "So and so trying to find an object in someone's box, presuming the one that so and so expected it to be."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
I still sometimes have to mentally correct myself that, even though I know where object x has been hidden, doesn't mean that the person used in the example knows... If I go by reflex without thinking, likely I may still point to the box where the object x really is half the time. But if I allow myself a split second to correct myself before saying it, I can think, "No duh, the correct answer is the other box without object x" and point to the correct answer.
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How is it that I seem to have developed theory of mind (and many other autistics as well?) That's something I still am not 100% sure, but I believe intellect has something to do with it. Someone wanting to run on the track team can't just get up and run without practice.
Like the person training to run on track, I study things, read them and accumulate lots of things. Not to mention years of speech therapy probably helped give me formulas for thinking. It’s like math. Once you learn the formula, you can use it with many different variables.
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The next question: How can we help all autistic people overcome this weakness and use their intellectual ability to compensate?
This one seems to be up in the air... I know what helped me, and Droopy knows what helped her. Jim Sinclair, Temple Grandin, Donna Williams, and many others know what works for them.
This progression seems to be something done on an individual basis. This is not something that a parent can force upon their child or a child upon their parent for that matter.
Now how to get someone started on this who has to work from ground zero? That I don't know. If I did, I'd be a Nobel Prize winner for sure. lol.
This seems to be the ultimate mystery that all sites, including this one are trying to figure out. In the mean time I still believe that things like abusive behavior, poop smearing, and so on will be much simpler issues once the above can be resolved. We still aren't removing the autism with this idea in mind, but what we are doing is giving autistic people the coping abilities to best use their strengths to get to where they want to be.
And now I'm off to bed...
16 Apr 2008, 4:56 am
