Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
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Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#2I am part of the research team that collects and analyses this dataset, although I am not an author on this particular analysis. Feel free to ask me any questions.
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#3> The study also found that IQ had a significant relationship with change in symptom severity. Children with higher IQs were more likely to show a reduction in ASD symptoms.
This is important information. People of higher intelligence would be more likely to learn things, such as how to mask effectively. I learned to mask so well that most people are shocked to learn that I'm autistic. It takes about 6 months of constant exposure for someone to get creeped out and dislike me, to the point that I wonder if I've done myself a disservice with my masking habit.
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#4Study abstract:
> Autism symptom severity change was evaluated during early childhood in 125 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children were assessed at approximately 3 and 6 years of age for autism symptom severity, IQ and adaptive functioning. Each child was assigned a change score, representing the difference between ADOS Calibrated Severity Scores (CSS) at the two ages. A Decreased Severity Group (28.8%) decreased by 2 or more points; a Stable Severity Group (54.4%) changed by 1 point or less; and an Increased Severity Group (16.8%) increased by 2 or more points. Girls tended to decrease in severity more than boys and increase in severity less than boys. There was no clear relationship between intervention history and membership in the groups.
The study can be found at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-020-04526-z
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#5I am part of the research team that collects and analyses this dataset, although I am not an author on this particular analysis. Feel free to ask me any questions.
Thank you for coming on. This quote caught my attention:
>The fact that more of the girls appear to have decreased in autism severity may be due to an increasing number of girls who have learned how to mask their symptoms.
What hypothesis exist to explain this gender disparity?
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#6> The study also found that IQ had a significant relationship with change in symptom severity. Children with higher IQs were more likely to show a reduction in ASD symptoms. This is important information. People of higher intelligence would be more likely to learn things, such as how to mask effectively. I learned to mask so well that most people are shocked to learn that I'm autistic. It takes about 6 months of cons…
Presumably they're creeped out because they believe your emotional responses are simulated and that your engagement in phatic discourse is inauthentic?
But how they can they tell the difference? And even if they can how do they know that this isn't also true of everybody else, only that others are superior fakers?
How can they even know that their own responses are authentic? I ask because I'm really not sure about this in my own mind.
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#7I am part of the research team that collects and analyses this dataset, although I am not an author on this particular analysis. Feel free to ask me any questions.
Out of curiosity, what is the basis for the idea that girls have an ability to camouflage or hide their symptoms better than boys?
While trying to find information about this, I came across this meta-analytic review of gender differences in emotion expression in children[0], but without being in the field it's hard to make a link between emotion expression and ASD symptomatology.
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#8> The study also found that IQ had a significant relationship with change in symptom severity. Children with higher IQs were more likely to show a reduction in ASD symptoms. This is important information. People of higher intelligence would be more likely to learn things, such as how to mask effectively. I learned to mask so well that most people are shocked to learn that I'm autistic. It takes about 6 months of cons…
Presumably they're creeped out because they believe your emotional responses are simulated and that your engagement in phatic discourse is inauthentic? But how they can they tell the difference? And even if they can how do they know that this isn't also true of everybody else, only that others are superior fakers? How can they even know that their own responses are authentic? I ask because I'm really not sure about t…
That might be what creeps out people more so than the apparent inauthenticity: the realization that their own behaviour might be in no way different from what they perceive as constructed. This poses questions about self, "soul", and "what is real".
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#9> The study also found that IQ had a significant relationship with change in symptom severity. Children with higher IQs were more likely to show a reduction in ASD symptoms. This is important information. People of higher intelligence would be more likely to learn things, such as how to mask effectively. I learned to mask so well that most people are shocked to learn that I'm autistic. It takes about 6 months of cons…
Presumably they're creeped out because they believe your emotional responses are simulated and that your engagement in phatic discourse is inauthentic? But how they can they tell the difference? And even if they can how do they know that this isn't also true of everybody else, only that others are superior fakers? How can they even know that their own responses are authentic? I ask because I'm really not sure about t…
In my attempts to discover the secret behind perfect social interaction, people I've spoken to have been unable to explain exactly how they do it. It seems reasonable to assume that the brains of social animals are specially tuned to learn social interaction quickly, as such individuals would more quickly form a cohesive group with better survival potential (historically speaking).
The question of authenticity, though interesting philosophically speaking, I think can be safely downgraded to simply "how it works in practice". Most people seem to do it out of some sort of instinct, and most people really are telegraphing their true feelings and intentions to varying degrees.
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#10I am part of the research team that collects and analyses this dataset, although I am not an author on this particular analysis. Feel free to ask me any questions.
Thank you for coming on. This quote caught my attention: >The fact that more of the girls appear to have decreased in autism severity may be due to an increasing number of girls who have learned how to mask their symptoms. What hypothesis exist to explain this gender disparity?
The gender disparity in autism prevalence is one of the big mysteries of autism since genes associated with autism risk are not generally located on the XY sex chromosome. There are a number of hypotheses out there for the disparity of prevalence.
One hypothesis is that the disparity is more apparent than real: That girls are better at masking/adapting to their symptoms, and thus more frequently escape diagnosis. The first step is to determine the extent to which this is true. If true, the underlying mechanism would need to be understood...some have suggested this could be related to greater inter-hemispheric connectivity in girls.