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Low comprehension

The Tories swept Britain's elections. They now constitute a formal majority in Parliament.

Brexit finally appears to be imminent unless Parliament continues to delay it. With a new deadline- 1/31/20.

Yeah, I saw that, but why is it so detrimental to autistic people to the point that many are considering suicide?
 
Yeah, I saw that, but why is it so detrimental to autistic people to the point that many are considering suicide?

Excellent question. Though best to ask that in the politics section.

Brexit likely means Britain having to "pull in its belt", not to mention that recession in the future is inevitable. With those on benefits vulnerable to cutbacks and elimination of financial support. Freedom always comes at some kind of cost...
 
Maybe Autistamatic will start a new thread about it and explain what he means.

He's not set up to post there (politics)...maybe sending him a PM might be your best bet.

I do worry for our autistic friends in Britain at the moment. Not sure what holds for them in the near future. But then economic uncertainty will be something for the entire population to ponder, not just those dependent on various types of government support.
 
This sounds like what gets called Poor Executive Function but actually I am not going to call it that, let's say Different Executive Function. Also processing that is slower than the norm, again, slower doesn't have to be a problem, and for us leads to better outcomes when there's enough time and space and awareness from the other, available.

Yes I fairly often experience this, and when I saw the phrase 'return ticket' above, I was unsure what it meant, at first. I find my confusion is often exacerbated by the other person repeating what they said or asked, but louder, and without any further explanation. How is that helpful?
 
Well, technically an inability in starting and maintaining unplanned conversations in real-time may constitute a problem within what is referred to as "flexible thinking". A definite consideration of executive functioning.
 
I froze at the Mexican border: the policey guy dude asked what l had to declare to go back to US. Then my over-active imagination played movies in my head about being thrown in gringo jail forever.

So l said "nothing to declare". He asked me again: exact same line, l faltered one nano second and said "nothing". It was close to a meltdown. Plus they brought out dogs why we were waiting, like some fool was busting through kilos of something. Those dogs were sniffing cars. And a very suspicious looking car got tagged. Plus l remember he made me open the hatchback door, so l was stressed thinking fear and then some more fear.

So bosses, border crossing agents, we freeze, and progess foward. But l like to say : "can l get right back to you on that?" (if l am starting to seriously freeze up)

Haha! This is a funny story, but of course at the time it happens it’s horrifying. How do people just know what stuff like “what do you have to declare to go back into the U.S.” means?! I don’t take things literally, but my mind does tend to go over all of the possible meanings of a sentence, whereas non-autistic people just seem to automatically understand, as though they’re all hooked into a giant motherboard.
 
But this is also what enables us to think outside the box, as it's called. Sometimes it leads to difficulties with travel documents, other times to a great new idea about something. Neurotypicals are just stuck in the box, I think. Poor wee poppets.
 
“what do you have to declare to go back into the U.S.” means?

It's funny really, used to go back and forth between the canadian and US border quite frequently. And each time I was asked: "Anything to declare?" Over the years and each time I came up with different declarations in my mind but never uttered them.
 
I've been thinking since you posted about this Kalinychta, that I experience these complete blank instances as well. That last for seconds or minutes. For me it has something to do with my mind being elsewhere, thinking about something else, or many things at once.

I've been told many times by a therapist that I "live in my head" and that I need to live in the "now" (her words). Yet it seems as if her noticing this, didn't accomplish anything other than awareness that I do this. In reality it changed nothing, as my brain simply spit out her pronouncement and functioned the same as is usual.
 
Maybe it is a multitasking problem. Dealing with a novel question requires several tasks inside you head. Connecting the speech to the symbols for their meaning, formulating a novel response, speaking the response. Here is a kicker, you also have to think about how to express the response. (Which requires correctly divining the questioners intent.)

Meanwhile, if you are ready for the question, all the work has been done already. You know the intent. You know the answer. It is by that time wrote.
 
Yes, sometimes questions can get a blank or very long pause from me, because I'm trying to work out why they are asking it, is there a hidden message, what information are they looking for, etc. Sometimes it's just a simple question, I tend to overthink things.

Sometimes I just don't get something, because I don't have the same information or mental image that the other person wanting to communicate has in their head. I don't know what they mean. Communication is a two way thing relying on both parties communicating effectively, and the onus is on the person sending the message to communicate it in a way that the other person will understand, but people can be poor communicators and fail to do so. In that case, it really isn't my fault that I didn't get it.
 
Watched the clip by the way and although I'm not female I could relate much of what she said to my own experience (and to aspie women I know).
 
“what do you have to declare to go back into the U.S.” means?!
I'm terrible at knowing what things like that mean.
I would probably answer something like: " Declare about what?"

And the guy that asks customers if they are busy today?
My reply would be, " No. Why?"

Not only am I a literal thinker, I'm blunt!

This thread came to mind today as I listened to a song on the radio while driving.
The line was..."goodbye stranger, it's been nice. Hope you find your paradise."
Instant thought was "She lost her pair of dice?" :confused:
 
Watched the clip by the way and although I'm not female I could relate much of what she said to my own experience (and to aspie women I know).

I feel like that when I watch lectures about men/boys with autism. It's weird how men and women have the exact same disorder ("disorder") but adapt to it so differently based on social conditioning, expectation, gender roles, etc. I wonder if anyone's ever done a study comparing and contrasting what autism looks like in different countries and cultures.
 
Sorry for the delay in replying. It’s been a difficult few days. In explanation of my last post on this thread – yes it was the election result which caused so much despair, but nothing to do with brexit. This is not the political section so I shan’t discuss it any further.

I’ll start my answer with a reminder that I don’t claim to speak for all autists. Whilst I stick to ideas which I believe are relatable to a great many of us, maybe even a majority, I by no means claim that I speak for all. Some will immediately identify, some may come to agree over time and some others may see no commonality whatsoever.

This is a question of the differences between conventional (neurotypical) Theory of Mind (ToM) and the various different states of autistic ToM. To be autistic is to be always searching for a better way – always on the look out for more data, and it can paralyse us when trying to fulfil the expectations of modern society. We have an atypical need to now “why?” not just “how?”

Conventional ToM is largely a learned series of unspoken rules. Rather than the sixth sense it is purported to be or an ability to project oneself “into another’s shoes” it is simply a common set of learned responses to broad interpretations of social, emotional and moral situations. Person A can predict how person B will react because they’ve learned from the same ephemeral rulebook. Autistic minds don’t work like that. We don’t accept things “just are” often. We question things and we work out our own answers. Problems are rarely as simple as they seem at first glance and we can’t help but factor in things that most people wouldn’t even consider. The more factors we pull into the equation, the longer it takes us to answer, the more we become confused and the higher the chance we’ll become tongue-tied when pressed for an answer.

Think of the classic “Trolleycar Problem”. The simple premise being that you control a speeding trolleycar or tram with no brakes. On one set of rails stand five people, on the other there is one. The trolleycar is travelling at such speed it will kill everyone on whichever track it is travelling. Which track do you choose? The simple, utilitarian solution is – you choose the track where one person stands. Better to sacrifice just one life than many. But then we complicate the issue. What if the five people were all old and sick whilst the one was young and healthy? What if the five people were poets & writers and the one was a physicist? What if the single person held a cure for cancer in their mind but one of the five held a cure for the common cold?

Conventional ToM deals with the initial, simple trolleycar problem very well, yet to the autistic mind it is never that simple. Every decision, every question is akin to a complex, convoluted moral maze. Who to believe, what to put in our sandwich, or how to answer an unexpected question we haven’t previously considered all take on the characteristics of a version of the trolleycar problem with limitless layers of complexity and moral ambiguity.

In summary – we get confused because we DON’T think in “black & white” terms, nor do we see the “shades of grey” in between. We think in Technicolour and cannot help ourselves, even when the question only requires a black & white answer.

There is a great deal more at play than just this though. The autistic mind is a complex system – almost identical to our neurotypical counterparts, yet seemingly so different in ways which impact our social integration to our detriment. When you add in the 50% chance that we may be alexithymic so find expressing emotions difficult or the possibility of intellectual disabilities to the mix, the complications become deeper and less straightforward to explain.
 
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Sorry for the delay in replying. It’s been a difficult few days. In explanation of my last post on this thread – yes it was the election result which caused so much despair, but nothing to do with brexit. This is not the political section so I shan’t discuss it any further.

I’ll start my answer with a reminder that I don’t claim to speak for all autists. Whilst I stick to ideas which I believe are relatable to a great many of us, maybe even a majority, I by no means claim that I speak for all. Some will immediately identify, some may come to agree over time and some others may see no commonality whatsoever.

This is a question of the differences between conventional (neurotypical) Theory of Mind (ToM) and the various different states of autistic ToM. To be autistic is to be always searching for a better way – always on the look out for more data, and it can paralyse us when trying to fulfil the expectations of modern society. We have an atypical need to now “why?” not just “how?”

Conventional ToM is largely a learned series of unspoken rules. Rather than the sixth sense it is purported to be or an ability to project oneself “into another’s shoes” it is simply a common set of learned responses to broad interpretations of social, emotional and moral situations. Person A can predict how person B will react because they’ve learned from the same ephemeral rulebook. Autistic minds don’t work like that. We don’t accept things “just are” often. We question things and we work out our own answers. Problems are rarely as simple as they seem at first glance and we can’t help but factor in things that most people wouldn’t even consider. The more factors we pull into the equation, the longer it takes us to answer, the more we become confused and the higher the chance we’ll become tongue-tied when pressed for an answer.

Think of classic “Trolleycar Problem”. The simple premise being that you control a speeding trolleycar or tram with no brakes. On one set of rails stand five people, on the other there is one. The trolleycar is travelling at such speed it will kill everyone on whichever track it is travelling. Which track do you choose? The simple, utilitarian solution is – you choose the track where one person stands. Better to sacrifice just one life than many. But then we complicate the issue. What if the five people were all old and sick whilst the one was young and healthy? What if the five people were poets & writers and the one was a physicist? What if the single person held a cure for cancer in their mind but one of the five held a cure for the common cold?

Conventional ToM deals with the initial, simple trolleycar problem very well, yet to the autistic mind it is never that simple. Every decision, every question is akin to a complex, convoluted moral maze. Who to believe, what to put in our sandwich, or how to answer an unexpected question we haven’t previously considered all take on the characteristics of a version of the trolleycar problem with limitless layers of complexity and moral ambiguity.

In summary – we get confused because we DON’T think in “black & white” terms, nor do we see the “shades of grey” in between. We think in Technicolour and cannot help ourselves, even when the question only requires a black & white answer.

There is a great deal more at play than just this though. The autistic mind is a complex system – almost identical to our neurotypical counterparts, yet seemingly so different in ways which impact our social integration to our detriment. When you add in the 50% chance that we may be alexithymic so find expressing emotions difficult or the possibility of intellectual disabilities to the mix, the complications become deeper and less straightforward to explain.

There you have it. The entire thread, demystified. This is precisely what Sarah meant by “high or average intelligence, low comprehension,” except high comprehension is more accurate—we comprehend too much. We’re hard-wired to be little philosophers.
 
I agree , we need to dumb down to questions requiring less then 10 words to respond or 10 seconds of thought! The aspie 10/10, it will literally free us from obnoxious people.

But sometimes l trance out because l am quarrying my logistics brain dept about possible outcomes to answers is way too entertaining. I feel so bored that caculating different possibilities is just pure entertainment. I like to ponder solutions, it adds meaning to my soulful existance in this sea of nothingness.

I agree with @Kalinychta and am sending her a virtual thumbs up.
 
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I don’t think I have a logical brain. I’m not solely a just-the-facts-ma’am type of autistic person. I have a heightened sense of affective empathy and a big imagination as well as a logical mind, so I guess I’m a bit of an autistic “mutt” in that sense. But the problem above is about verbal comprehension and the expectation of immediate, articulate responses (as Sarah says in the lecture) to even casual, simple questions. In the video, Sarah gives this example: she was asked to present her return ticket at an airport a few days prior, but she kept handing over her boarding pass instead, because she couldn’t comprehend what “return ticket” meant.

Another example: the other day I went to the post office to mail a package. I was expecting to mail it via Priority, but when I arrived at the counter, the clerk told me about two other mail options. She was very clear, and it was a simple question, but I wasn’t expecting it, so my mind blanked and boggled. I couldn’t “hold” in my mind the details of what was being said, so I ended up completely confused. I asked her to repeat herself three times, but eventually I think she just chose for me.

The autistic people who experience this no doubt know exactly what I mean. It’s so stressful and embarrassing.

I have the same issues that you are describing. I think that it may be contributable to a few possible causes. The first being anxiety about talking to an unfamiliar communication partner especially when you aren't expecting it can throw you off, particularly if your focus was on something else, and now you have to shift your focus to what the person is saying. Another possible cause is a mild auditory processing disorder, while you can hear what the person is saying to you, your brain is either unable to fully process the auditory information or has some level of delay in the processing of the information. Finally, it could be an executive functioning issue, resulting in difficulty planning and organizing the information to be verbalized. Most likely is that it could be a combination of these issues that lead to these "moments of blankness" that we experience at times.
 
I am a "show me, don't TELL me" person. Verbal and often times, written directions can be hard and difficult. What I have found though is that those who comprehend or learn differently are in no way, shape or form, deficient learners, thinkers or doers. We just process, think and learn differently... that is all.
 

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