Lots and lots and lots of autistic folk

[MNAus]

Us females often present in "subtler" ways. We are odd, sure, and quite often quiet and working really hard to be "under the radar". It works against us, perhaps, as much as it works for us.
The other factor with "passing" as "not autistic" would be higher IQ (than average) I have a son who is a good "passer", he is incredibly bright and well rounded in his knowledge bases and skill sets, and has psychology as a special interest, and although he is Autie AF, he comes across so polite, articulate and interesting, due to his intellectual prowess and social skills, aquired through intense study (and having an autie mum like me, with intensely worked-at emotional&social intelligence and skill sets), he masks so well, it is problematic for him, and an asset, at the same time.

I've heard this a few times (I have a son and daughter on the spectrum, so you get told that a lot). But for me it has something of the "sugar n spice" about it and the second half of your post alludes to my concern.

The idea that female autistics are now being diagnosed whereas previously they were not is often given as:
- they present differently
- they don't fit autism stereotypes
- they are better at masking

It's a good example of survivorship bias. It was mostly boys getting diagnosed, so that became the understanding of how autism presented. Then someone asked? What of the girls? A smart person that.

The problem with this is that it makes precisely the same assumption about boys as was previously made about girls: that unless you fit that stereotype or you're female and present differently, you aren't autistic. Once again, survivorship bias.

The challenge we should make is: what happens if that assumption is wrong, and there are a lot of boys who present differently, who don't fit autism stereotypes and who are good at masking? We've defined our understanding of the presentation on the basis of who has been diagnosed. And when one of the possibilities is that there are a bunch of males out there who, contrary to the stereotype, are actually very good at masking, it seems irresponsible to have a position of "We accept that girls can present differently, but we've never diagnosed any boys like that so they probably don't exist"

As you say, it's problematic for your son, because, essentially, I would guess people don't even recognise a disability.

 

[Neri]

I've heard this a few times (I have a son and daughter on the spectrum, so you get told that a lot). But for me it has something of the "sugar n spice" about it and the second half of your post alludes to my concern.

The idea that female autistics are now being diagnosed whereas previously they were not is often given as:
- they present differently
- they don't fit autism stereotypes
- they are better at masking

It's a good example of survivorship bias. It was mostly boys getting diagnosed, so that became the understanding of how autism presented. Then someone asked? What of the girls? A smart person that.

The problem with this is that it makes precisely the same assumption about boys as was previously made about girls: that unless you fit that stereotype or you're female and present differently, you aren't autistic. Once again, survivorship bias.

The challenge we should make is: what happens if that assumption is wrong, and there are a lot of boys who present differently, who don't fit autism stereotypes and who are good at masking? We've defined our understanding of the presentation on the basis of who has been diagnosed. And when one of the possibilities is that there are a bunch of males out there who, contrary to the stereotype, are actually very good at masking, it seems irresponsible to have a position of "We accept that girls can present differently, but we've never diagnosed any boys like that so they probably don't exist"

As you say, it's problematic for your son, because, essentially, I would guess people don't even recognise a disability.

Yes. He's struggling with burnout at the moment. He worked so hard to get to Melbourne to do an audio engineering course, but has been too burnt out to get to it, for the most part. He slipped into a job lined up by my Dad, at Woolies, and white knuckled through it. I shudder at the thought of working at Woolies, all those bright lights, and people, people, people, senory nightmare. So he didn't really thrive, retail is definately not his thing. He's surviving by doing quite a lot of music (chip off the ole block that one) at home, but the catch 22 is that he can't keep up the pace, or afford rent. So it's tricky.

I'm so proud of him though. He went to his first concert yesterday and enjoyed himself. This is a kid who's always had a horror of crowds and loud anything. Would barricade himself in his room on his birthday when his older sibs wanted to celebrate with him, growing up. Even sat the whole of christmas lunch in the car when we went to his sister's once (I brought his lunch out to him) , says "I can't talk to people, mum (but he talks to me),was an extreme introvert and suffered suicidality from the age of 7 until 17 (he's nearly 19 now).
He's been going to family dinners with my unc and aunty, my Dad and sister and cousins down there way more than he ever would with his own siblings up here (he's the youngest of 7).

 

[Jonn]

Not to mention I find much harder to process real time speech anyway.

OT, but I do too.
I have never met another person to admit it.

With youtube, I sometimes slow the playing speed down, not that I have to do it all the time.

 

[All-Rounder]

Yep.

We spend our life improving and give our best to our next special person so they should be someone very special to be given all of that. Inside us is a special treasure that offers us all we need and the self love that shows us the way.

 

[Boogs]

OT, but I do too.
I have never met another person to admit it.

With youtube, I sometimes slow the playing speed down, not that I have to do it all the time.

For me it's that I have to process what's said immediately and make a semantic memory of it, as it happens as I forget what was said at the start of the sentence (never mind the previous sentence).
It's not too bad when I already know what's being said, or it's so intellectually trivial it takes little effort, but those tend to be the conversations less worth having (from my p.o.v.) otherwise it's a constant battle to process things while not missing what's being said. My CPU has only one core, no multi-tasking going on here! And the RAM is far too volatile too! And as for my backups - well, don't even ask!

"We accept that girls can present differently, but we've never diagnosed any boys like that so they probably don't exist"

I think this goes back to definitions of autism itself and needs a new look at it from the benefit of hindsight (including gender distortions). We've constructed this thing called autism which isn't a condition but rather a collection of related symptoms apparently caused by certain cognitive conditions and differences, starting with a filtered and biased view (unsurprisingly given the nature of the beast), and built on top of that for decades without knowing about and/or addressing all these misconceptions.

I don't have 'autism'. I have a number of cognitive conditions that result in, among other things, the symptoms chosen to indicate autism. In the end though these were simply the symptoms in a previously unrecognised group of people that could be seen to be common to most of them and provided a marker to determine group membership or not. But that rather wobbly marker seems now to be treated as the condition itself, while the actual cognitive conditions that result in these symptoms are treated as co-morbidities, as though they are only incidental to being autistic, while I believe they are what makes us autistic.

I presented as an extremely able masker from a very young age, that got me through 60 years without a clue of it even despite my knowing things were not right, or anyone else realising (even a psychiatrist father or a mother who was a school teacher, presented with an educationally failing yet extremely intelligent (according to tests at the time) son, never even considered I was anything but lazy and demotivated). Subsequently no doctor, psychologist, therapist, whatever picked up on anything beyond anxiety and depression etc.

I suspect females may mask better than males, especially considering social impacts probably tend to be worse for woman than men, so they have even more discrimination to tackle and are more ostracised for not fitting the social ideal for women (I believe this is known as systemic sexism? )

As for why they do, I wouldn't be surprised if high intelligence has a big impact (gives the ability), while I suspect girls at school tend to show more sophisticated social interactions much younger than boys, who seem to lag behind in that aspect (among others like educational attainment).

 

[Jonn]

For me it's that I have to process what's said immediately and make a semantic memory of it, as it happens as I forget what was said at the start of the sentence (never mind the previous sentence).
It's not too bad when I already know what's being said, or it's so intellectually trivial it takes little effort, but those tend to be the conversations less worth having (from my p.o.v.) otherwise it's a constant battle to process things while not missing what's being said. My CPU has only one core, no multi-tasking going on here! And the RAM is far too volatile too! And as for my backups - well, don't even ask!

I hear you, brother...

 

[Au Naturel]

OT, but I do too.
I have never met another person to admit it.

With youtube, I sometimes slow the playing speed down, not that I have to do it all the time.

Funny thing is I usually kick it up to 1.25X because I can't stand the slow rate of information throughput. The information density of most YouTube video is pretty low. Everyone is different

 

[Jonn]

Funny thing is I usually kick it up to 1.25X because I can't stand the slow rate of information throughput. The information density of most YouTube video is pretty low. Everyone is different

When I am playing a game and the youtuber sets the speed to 2X, I sometimes slow it down so I can mirror where he is going.
(I have 2 computers so I can play the game and watch the directions at the same time.)

When I listen to a philosophical or medical youtube video, I may may slow it down, since they are quite information intensive.

 

[Boogs]

I find the variation of the noise to sound ratio too random to be able to speed up or slow down anything. I have to work through it to understand it to then know it was worthless crud, any attempt to speed up past anything but the most obvious waste of space (the 'word about our sponsor' moment in a youtube vid etc) risks losing some small detail that'll make other stuff make sense. Readings so much better, I can stop where I want, look up words I'm unfamiliar with, cross refence something to gain a better picture of a metaphor or comparison.

But there's worse than video, much much worse ...

The thought of yet another online course about Microsoft's latest piece of vileness, spending most of a day just waiting and waiting for something to be actually said that isn't sales talk or some such drivel is enough to drive me to consider thoughts of suicide that the deepest depression never brought on. That stuff can't even be fast forwarded!

 

[Jonn]

Readings so much better, I can stop where I want, look up words I'm unfamiliar with, cross refence something to gain a better picture of a metaphor or comparison.

You can do all that with YouTube videos.

 

[Boogs]

You can do all that with YouTube videos.

Not like I can when I'm reading. Goddess bless the person who thought of the right click 'search in [internet]' option when highlighting a word or phrase in a browser - two single clicks and I have a page full of results in a search engine.
Besides, starting and stopping the video feels unpleasant, I just work much better with writing. Even a lot of films are difficult to watch and I have trouble hearing some characters, so I don't even go for video as entertainment much.
If I wasn't a terribly slow reader too, I'd be much more content!

 

[Jonn]

Not like I can when I'm reading.

I am semi-dyslexic.

 

[thejuice]

i have trouble with processing information, visual and audio

 

[Jonn]

i have trouble with processing information, visual and audio

I think it isn't that uncommon on the autistic spectrum.

 

[thejuice]

yes so i hear as well

 

[Boogs]

Sorry, having trouble understanding - could you write a bit slower and louder please?

 

[Boogs]

I am semi-dyslexic.

Ah! Well that's going to make a difference I guess. But then you may understand part of my vid dislike since I believe I have a condition called phonic dyslexia or APD (Auditory Processing Disorder) which makes it rather hard to make words out when listening (well, my symptoms seem to match the descriptions, but no professional diagnosis to be fair).

If the person has good intonation and no strong accent, the quality is ok (e.g. over a vid or call) and there's isn't too much background noise, I manage ok mostly, but anything to detract that and I often just can't hear anything but a word-mush that's barely understandable at all, just snatches of odd words but no meaning.

 

[Jonn]

Sorry, having trouble understanding - could you write a bit slower and louder please?

I said:

I...am...semi...dyslexic...

 

[Boogs]

I said:

I...am...semi...dyslexic...

Ok ok, no need to shout!

 

[Neri]

I'm another one who has auditory processing issues, I've come to realise, which is kind of hilarious (and sometimes annoying and a wee bit embarrassing)because of my "career" as a musician/vocalist. I guess, sometimes, we gravitate to occupations that help us develop our deficit areas.