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Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests

health.ucdavis.edu

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Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests

#101

Post by m463 »

JacksonGariety wrote: post #18

I 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?

> Is there a scientific way to find out?

That's an interesting question.

I'm reminded of the "3 compatibility questions" some university worked out for asking someone you were considering dating:

- Do you like scary movies?

- Have you ever traveled to another country alone?

- Would you like to ditch it all and go live on a sail boat?

I wonder if there are questions that would scientifically predict compatibility with an autistic person.

Personally I have both (extended) family members, some friends and some coworkers who have (or I suspect have) autism or aspergers.

I enjoy the quirkiness, but I also really enjoyed the big bang theory.

Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests

#102

Post by wirrbel »

graeme wrote: post #57
JacksonGariety wrote: post #18

I 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?

Small tip: look for smiles in the corners of the eyes. This happens when laughter is genuine. If you do things that make someone laugh genuinely, they will probably stick around. How to Win Friends and Influence people is also a masterful book for socializing. It basically teaches you what naturals do automatically.

That's how you can spot if someone is smiling who wears a face mask. corner of the eyes. useful Covid-19-pandemic skill

Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests

#103

Post by valuearb »

wirrbel wrote: post #100
valuearb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because that’s not parenting? This may be an unpopular truth in today’s world, but sometimes you need to make your kids do or try things they are resistant to in hopes it gives them skills to better succeed when they are adults.

Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests

#104

Post by _y5hn »

valuearb wrote: post #76
kstenerud wrote: post #36

Earlier 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.…

I've traveled the world, worked abroad, been teaching, had subtle experiences with and without other people. My world is both magical, scientific, and flat. Your hypothesis is interesting, but despite all exposure, a family evening can still tire my mind. Rather than finding a cure, be what you are.

Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests

#105

Post by walleeee »

bsder wrote: post #93
futureshock wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 someth…

I don't think it's really wrong to say most are sensitive to external indications of others' internal experience. Simultaneously, as you point out, we're often pretty bad at inferring intentions from this information. But we have much more than zero idea what's going on, in most cases; the amount we know and our level of certainty could be viewed as a function of cultural context, group cohesion, cooperation/competition under stress, individual differences, power dynamics, social norms, etc.

> It even spawned a saying: "We judge others by what they do; we judge ourselves by what we intend."

There is much evidence for an effect like this in social psychology, commonly called the fundamental attribution error.

Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests

#106

Post by Dumblydorr »

JacksonGariety wrote: post #18

I 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?

Can you delve more into the details-- why does this occur? Maybe you could ask them, "I hope you don't mind my asking, I struggle to make friends and I'm wondering if I did anything off-putting?"

Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests

#108

Post by Dumblydorr »

pgt wrote: post #54

What if all children start off as autistic and gradually develop situational and emotional awareness? Some never do.

The problem with that paradigm is clinicians rely on speech and behavior from ages 1-3, looking for abnormalities. Hard to assess issues before 12 months, most kids don't speak much until after then.

Its prevalence is estimated at 1 in 54, by the way. I doubt researchers and experts are off by a factor of 50.

Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests

#109

Post by _y5hn »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #72
wbhart wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is very likely not a reliable scientific guide to making and keeping friends, because it depends very much on the circumstances and the people involved. Some people have many shallow friendships, others just a few deep ones. Some people extend the hand of friendship early, others take years of persistence to become friends with. Some people value time spent together on shared experiences, others value talking,…

To add to your list: Some people don't have any close friends and don't have any [diagnosed or suspected] neural atypicalcy. Reflecting, I don't require people to have any obligation towards me, and if they don't want to spend time with me that's their call I'm not going to force myself on people, so when people just sort of drift past; that's just what happens. I feel like I could have friends if I was happy to play…

You can find friends doing volunteer work, taking courses that interest you, various meetings and groups. You may need to either find a group that draws you in, or try to genuinely talk to people and get to know them. If your goal isn't to be friendly, nothing much will happen.

Re: Autism severity can change substantially during early childhood, study suggests

#110

Post by conistonwater »

Inu wrote: post #98
TrinaryWorksToo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you're interested in improving your social skills at work, you might also enjoy the book How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk.

Um, seriously, all effective communication techniques are based on basically the same principles; there's a book by a former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss (Never Split the Difference) where he describes hostage negotiations with terrorists, and it all works in the workplace too. These two are significantly better than How to Win Friends and Influence Friends, which is mostly about sales rather than negotiations.

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