Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that is true, it must happen very early. Some two year olds are already extremely non-autistic.
Two years old is well past "very early" development stages.
What constitutes very early? 6 months? 2 months?
Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
91–100 of 188 posts
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty autistic, but the funny thing is I don't keep friendships because I get bored, not them. I was a complete recluse during most of my time at university. I decided I wanted to mate with women when I was about 25 so started to make myself more "marketable". The first stage is being able to make friends. First thing is the way you look. People like you more if you're good looking. First step is to make sure yo…
>You might think this sounds silly // Not wanting to offend but "sociopathic" is the word that comes to mind for me. Like "I'll do this to manipulate people and induce this response". I'm not going to say you won't be successful, just that your approach sounds very clinical and lacking in warmth and personality. You do you, I guess.
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Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It's sort of like telepathy, seriously. On Star Trek, there was Deanna Troi who was empathic, telepathic with emotions only. I actually think it goes even beyond feeling to thought as well. We are extremely sensitive to the inner mental lives of others and respond both consciously and unconsciously. It takes a sociopath or an extremely practiced actor to fool us. For the vast number of people, we can read their inner…
> We are extremely sensitive to the inner mental lives of others and respond both consciously and unconsciously.
This is so wrong it's hilarious.
Humans are terrible at ascribing meaning to what other people do. It even spawned a saying: "We judge others by what they do; we judge ourselves by what we intend."
As such, we, as humans, generally have zero idea what is going on in someone else's brain when they do something unexpected (it is unexpected after all). An individual has to work very hard to "cut others slack" under most conditions.
Unfortunately, there are quite a few bad social actors nowadays who attempt to take advantage of that, and there don't seem to be quite as many people who will take those bad actors on.
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#94I have high-functioning autism. Does anyone have some suggestions for making and keeping friends? When I meet a friend, things seem to go really well at first, and then my friend seems to slowly get bored of the interactions we have, and after a couple months I just don't hear from them again. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Is there a scientific way to find out?
I'm not sure if this helps, but after 45 years as a stranger in a strange land, the only friends I've managed to keep longer than a year have been autistic themselves. My wife is also autistic, and we both marvel over how, for the first time ever in our lives, our home is our sanctuary where we can just relax and be completely ourselves with all the weirdness that entails. All previous romantic relationships were str…
> All previous romantic relationships were stressful and ended badly because it felt like I was walking on eggshells, and couldn't understand why my SO kept getting upset. My wife had similar experiences in past relationships.
Just so you know, this is not an uncommon complaint in any romantic relationship.
Human relationships are hard. Being "neurotypical" doesn't suddenly make them easy.
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
That has been my experience with people I know who exhibit sociopathic tendencies. One of the more interesting tells is a projection onto people who can see that they are pretending.
What do you mean? That they call them psychopaths?
That is an impossible accusation, as you could be wrong (plus too honest for own good), but the person would be masking better than you as well! Anyway, personal traits aren't criminal.
I've heard sociopaths even excuse their "eccentric inattention to others" as possibly having asperger tendencies! Most people still lack experience to even understand they are poles apart.
Regarding projections, burn the "rule book". Setting up "outside" people for failure is common but not enough to distinguish. Bullying, condescending remarks, getting others to chime in. It starts with boasting about the last victim, then you're next.
Only thing that can stop it is people stop tolerating abuse in their environment. USA is now "it".
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
That has been my experience with people I know who exhibit sociopathic tendencies. One of the more interesting tells is a projection onto people who can see that they are pretending.
What do you mean? That they call them psychopaths?
Yes, sometimes in so many words, and sometimes obliquely, but essentially correct. Again, not a doctor, nor do I have a tremendous amount of interaction with known sociopaths.
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well that's why I put a question mark on the end. It was my best guess.
I would not expect it to be authenticity and complicated philosophy or self. It may simply be, that communicating with autistic takes much more effort from neurotypical people, is more frustrating. Eventually they stop trying and putting that effort on. Just as communicating with other is tiring for autistic, except neurotypicals have plenty of neurotypicals around to communicate with. I dont really want to guess, kn…
It can also be a superpower, to raise issues across boundaries that most people give up and submit to silently. If you're wrong, the backlash prevents much damage and everyone learns something "new". In many cases, the boundaries are self-sabotage and immaturity, ie. org silos.
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#98I have high-functioning autism. Does anyone have some suggestions for making and keeping friends? When I meet a friend, things seem to go really well at first, and then my friend seems to slowly get bored of the interactions we have, and after a couple months I just don't hear from them again. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Is there a scientific way to find out?
The closest I've found to making and keeping friends has been the FBI interrogation manual, which explains how police officers who would normally scare a suspect can get them to disclose intimate details of crimes. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/hig-report-august-2016.p... https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/hig-report-interrogation... Obviously you're not entering an interrogation, and you also want to level th…
>The closest I've found to making and keeping friends has been the FBI interrogation manual, which explains how police officers who would normally scare a suspect can get them to disclose intimate details of crimes.
Sorry, but this is the funniest thing I've read on HN in a while.
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean? That they call them psychopaths?
That is an impossible accusation, as you could be wrong (plus too honest for own good), but the person would be masking better than you as well! Anyway, personal traits aren't criminal. I've heard sociopaths even excuse their "eccentric inattention to others" as possibly having asperger tendencies! Most people still lack experience to even understand they are poles apart. Regarding projections, burn the "rule book".…
Agree with this.
I also realize I wasn't clear here, so lets says you have a person A who is a sociopath talk to person B. After that interaction person A comes to person C (me in this example) and says "I don't know, they strike me as a sociopath."
Now in these cases, when I've had enough interaction with Person A in other situations, to feel confident in my understanding of their challenges, and when the feedback on Person B from other sources are not reflective of that perception, and are typically hard over the other way ("this person is so empathic" kinds of things).
I hypothesize that the body language of Person B was signaling to Person A that their masking was not as effective as they would have liked.
The other thing I wanted to be clear about is that it isn't a judgement about them either way, people are who they are. What is important as a manager is understanding the dynamics of your team and how they perceive the world and evaluate it. One has to do that if you have any chance at all of working together effectively.
Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's sort of the problem. I don't have a solid baseline to work against. I observe certain behaviors like facial expressions (smiling convincingly is especially difficult), discussions about irrelevant things (except that they serve a social function), looking into someone's eyes (very difficult), certain postures that have meaning (you're bored, you're angry, you're... something) . It's a lot to keep straight in y…
Eyes! Eyes! Is what I tell my 13 year old daughter. But she is far more comfortable looking away while in conversation. The theory that has resonated most with me is that both facial interpretations and language processing are very cerebral processor intensive. Turning off your facial tracking algorithm by looking away frees more brain nodes to help with processing and thinking about what you are hearing and saying.…
> Or is it just something unique about her I can’t change and I am just causing her unresolvable stress?
Why don't you let her decide?