Lower functioning autism

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Do you know anyone with heavier form of autism? I know one guy thats about 35 who isn't high functioning enough to function normally in society but he can talk and I can see hes in a different mindset to other people. I've noticed many people automatically assume this guy is mentally ret*d and some people express their feeling sorry for him. I've noticed people with downsyndrome get the same treatment. This is a stupid assumption in my opinion because they're not taking into consideration how ones ability to perform various tasks depends on the mindset you're in. For example buttoning your shirt, a so called easy task becomes a challenge when you're on mushrooms. Someone on mushrooms is not ret*d, on the contrary there is usually way more going on inside their head than the average person and they are capable of thinking about many things which the sober mind cannot. They can rarely put these things into words though so they can't communicate these things very well if at all. On top of that people on psychedelics perceive more which has been proven in the lab (look up the hollow mask study). Having high functioning autism gives me good insight into this matter because just about everyone underestimates my mental capabilities when they first meet me. They think I'm "simple" but that images is shattered pretty quickly when I talk about science or philosophy or anything that supposedly requires a higher level of intelligence. I think it all boils down to one thing. Mindset. Our beliefs coupled with our neurochemistry is what filters what we perceive and think about and the range of thought someone can communicate is not an indicator of the range of thought they are capable of having.

I work with low functioning autistics, and I thoroughly enjoy it.
I think the difference between me and them lies primarily in sensory processing. There's also the ability to indulge oneself in something other than one's obsession, fascination, special interest, or whatever you choose to call it. While I can do it to a limited extent but find it very stressful, it's even more difficult for them.

Interesting...that's kind of what I already suspected - that the problems and sensory issues we encounter internally are virtually identical, the only real difference lies in the HFA/AS ability to 'feign' neurotypical behaviors for periods of time (although it is exhausting to do so). That is, if I am understanding you correctly.

Most of the auties I've met are low functioning. Many are non-verbal, some can use an aug-com device. I've met most because they're my mom's patients, some through volunteering.

I work with low-functioning autistics, many who are utterly non-verbal, have some degree of mental retardation (usually mild), and rarely interact with people at all. Much more obvious stims, and sensory issues are far greater. More behavior issues or completely passive. Can literally spend all day every day pacing around with an object (I think most who are high-functioning do like to take breaks from their special interest, like watching a tv show). Some have bladder control and can self-dress, others cannot. More oblivious to danger, more strict adherence to routines (I can deal with change if I know about it beforehand but many of the people (16-22 year olds) I work with will get agitated by any change at all and it generally takes them more time to "come down" from this agitation. Again, these are the severely autistic, many of whom it is downright impossible to know if they have MR or not because of their inability to interact with anyone.

Yes, The inability to 'feign' the neurotypical behaviours, I think, is similar to the inability to absorb oneself in anything other than the narrow interests. Those with HFA/AS are more flexible, more able to take in things from the outside environment and be able to incorporate these things into their own thoughts. I think this is the reason why more severe autistics can be very good at something obscure, such as remembering dates - they are more inside their mind, less capable of making sense of things that require adjusting their thoughts to a different frequency. And although this characteristic may be seen as a disability, it is also what gives them the ability to have unique thought and creativity.

Even though people with HFA/AS could have particular skills, too, in more severe autistics, these skills are more specialized.

Yeah, I know a bunch of low functioning/classic autistic people. Regrettably, I don't meet up with them (or my other friends for that matter) as often as I should. I went to school with low functioning autistic people and they were cool. I had a friend in my class who had echolalia (well, kind of like it - he would repeat phrases from songs and expect us to complete the lyric). For example:

Graeme: I was born to make you...?

Me: ...happy.

He was a very happy guy (who went out more than me, incidentally). I don't know what he's doing now, but I think he still plays basket ball. I remember him being very good at it. I was a very competitive child and desperately wanted to beat him but never could.

I look back fondly on the low functioning autistic people that I knew at school and reminisce about all the things we used to get up to. Some of them were very verbal but clearly low functioning and some of them had american accents because they picked up phrases from television shows and movies.

A lot of people also believe that Classic autistics won't attempt to approach people while aspies would. From my experience, that's absolute bull. One of my best asperger friends used to spend playtime sitting alone in the playground, contently thinking to himself while most of the classically autistic people actually attempted to interact with other kids.

Anyway, I don't know how to end this message, so bye.

Last edited by MindBlind on 22 May 2010, 4:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

After I graduated high-school I went to a training center for people with vision problems to learn life-skills & stuff(I have vision problems) & there was a girl there who was severely autistic. She had to have a care-taker worker fallow her around & stuff. She was very repetitive with conversation. She kept asking me if I liked pop music & she mostly knew about Radio Disney. I could not have a deep conversation with her but I could tell she had a lot more going on in her mind than her care-taker & other people who don't know much about autism would believe. She was a very sweet girl & in some ways I felt more comfortable with her than most other people I've met

I have classic autism. I don't see that many differences between it and Asperger's, except for communication, which I seem to struggle with more than most folks with Asperger's.

Sounds like me. Can't function in society, people think I'm slow/ret*d when I speak, so on and so forth.

I have known a whole lot of autistic people. Including people who have been labeled ass low or high functioning, occasionally mid functioning. Including people who have never been given a functioning label.  Including those who have been given several different ones. 

Functioning label is given on the basis of a narrow group of abilities compared to all the abilities affected by autism. It is like taking people with a condition that affects 100 different abilities, and then ranking them in a line based on 1-5 of them -- and not even on the abilities themselves, but on the basis of whether they appear to have them. (For instance, I have never seen an autistic person who truly has no social interaction. But I have seen a lot of people professionally and casually described as having no interaction. Why?  Because most people, even some autistics, have bought into a system where only a narrow number of interactions are considered to be true interactions. And because of the way people's brains work, they then blot out all forms of "not real" interaction from their memory.  This even affects scientists, who are far from immune to bias.  As an example, a reporter once described me as unresponsive to her because when she came in I ran the other way and looked out the window. She didn't get that looking out the window was an obvious response to her presence.)

Professionally I have either been labeled LF/severe or not given a label at all. Casually people also have a tendency to label me LF/ret*d/etc. unless they decide my autistic traits are due to a purely physical impairment (which is another way people's brains can explain things away just like with the social situation I described before). Some people casually call me HF based on my writing. But like Danielismyname that isn't generally the direction people go in person.  

I currently (some of my abilities have fluctuated drastically over a lifetime) lack communicative speech, lack typical mannerisms, sometimes have atypical mannerisms (when I don't it's due to a physical impairment), react atypically to sensory input in a very obvious way (react to the sensory features of most objects rather than their uses), think in patterns rather than abstractions, lack daily living skills, rapidly shut down or melt down in unfamiliar situations or surroundings, etc. Those are the handful of things most people judge me on while remaining unaware of the areas where I can match or outdo them (some of those abilities are even results of my difficulties in some of those areas, if people only grasped that).  

Personally I reject functioning labels for me and everyone else because I refuse to categorize people based on the superficial appearance of a tiny handful of traits among the many many traits possibly affected by being autistic. If I want to know about someone's abilities I would rather hear them described individually (and with awareness of the bias and assumptions on the part of the person telling me) than rate an entire person as having a "level of functioning" based on a few of them. Functioning labels say more about the people using them than about the people they are used on.

I don't go in for discussions of what separates "them" from "us" usually either (not least because the person rarely acknowledges that the "them" might be reading along). Because usually those discussions make it sound as if you get called LF with one set of traits and HF with another. Or that people called "LF" must just have (an) "HF" trait(s) except more extreme. There is little acknowledgement of the role the observer plays in classifying the person as LF or HF -- reality is the same person can get definitively called both depending on who is doing the calling, or what time in their life, what time of the day, etc. 

Plus when people assume those of us who get called LF are just them with a trait exaggerated, this can lead to assumptions. So if someone thinks LF means HF but with less social awareness, they may assume an "LF" person is unaware people even exist, when that person may be more socially aware than the person observing is!  And I have had a lot of people assume that what makes me different from them is either "more of one trait" or "comorbids" (can't stand that term). So then they assume that I would lose nothing to become like them. Which is wrong. There are in nearly all such cases qualitative differences between us rather than just intensity of traits. 

The other reason I don't like functioning labels though is that they do something really annoying:  They group together people who have little in common and split apart people who have lots in common. 

So, yes, I have met lots of people who have been labeled lower functioning. Including myself. But do I agree with that label?  Never. It's not accurate and it harms more than it helps.  I also could never come up with any simplified description of what "they" are like because people who get this label vary just as much as people who don't. 

I only know of one person who's low functioning. He's a little boy who's about 11 or 12 years old & is in very bad shape. Honestly, I think he probably has something else wrong with him, like a form of mental retardation or something because he's so bad off. His mother has to keep a helmet on him 24 hours a day because he's constantly bashing his head into things. He also eats everything, especially plastic, so he needs 24 hour supervision. He's completely non-verbal (though he does grunt) & communicates on the level of a 1 1/2 to 2 year old. He can only walk now because of years of therapy & must be fed, bathed, & everything else because he can't do any of those things for himself. I feel really bad for him & for what his future will be like.

There are a lot of other people I hear of being referred to as low functioning, but these people are very high functioning compared to this little boy.

here's the proof:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1uPf5O-on0[/youtube]


what gets me is - why was everyone so shocked that there is a person inside?

I agree. I tend to talk in excess about things and I tend to use a wide vocabulary to explain what I mean (though I monologue and sometimes I don't use words appropriotely) However, I can speak and very fluently, which makes a massive difference.

However, I want to make a further point in saying that I count myself as high functioning based on the fact that I can do things a bit more independentally than other more severely affected people. Maybe it's because I have a good niche or maybe it's just because I'm an aspie. Whatever.

Anyhoo, katzefrau, I agree with you too; I'm very suprised by how people were suprised by her having *gasp* a personality!

I was all like "Yawn - tell me something I don't know". If it was revealed that classic autistic people could shoot lazers from their eyes, then THAT would be something suprising.

One of my brothers has LFA.

i was surprised. i like her very much and i do not want to talk about myself when i am considering her.

pearls that are rolled before swine
are uselessly sniffed
in their snouts and confine,
oxygen meant for their brain.


so many people just splatter a description of themselves like gastric on a toilet bowl, when true and sweet alternative realities are presented to them