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Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths

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Re: Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep referring to the magnitude of the vector itself rather than the magnitude of its components. > Vectors with larger magnitudes have larger magnitudes than vectors with smaller magnitudes do? Vectors with more dimensions have larger magnitudes than vectors with fewer components, for the same average magnitude of the components. The distance between the origin and (1,1) is less than the distance between the ori…

I think their point boils down to the fact that you can require that all vectors have the same magnitude, irrespective of the dimensionality of the space, which is of course true. The next step is them doing a black knight and pretending they didn't put in the requirement by hand.

Here's what you said:

> Your last comment is completely incorrect, [random gibberish]

Here's what you were referring to:

>> If you stick to the first quadrant / octant / whatever n-dimensional division of space where all coordinates are positive... I don't think the number of dimensions makes any difference there either? Any two vectors define a plane (or a line, or, if they're both zero, a point), so two vectors in a 500-dimensional space can't be farther apart from each other than is possible for two vectors in a 2-dimensional space. Those 500-dimensional vectors are already embedded in a 2-dimensional space.

All of those statements are, obviously, true. What did you think was incorrect?

Re: Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths

#92
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate: it is characteristically autistic to have episode names memorised like that, and it sort of is 'blurting out a series of words' if you don't know that's what it is; a more 'normal' answer might be more like a description of the episode or 'the one called [...]'. I think perhaps you can see that in Sam's assistance, he doesn't know the episode names, possibly he knows or expects that is an episode na…

Is that autistic, or is that just normal for someone who cares , and who actually has a favorite episode? I can't imagine not picking up the title after watching an episode a few times.

If you just care, you'd probably say the "the episode called..." and maybe describe it for the person if you interpret their reaction as not understanding or recognizing it.

Edit: why disagree? Not recognizing that someone wants more information, or that your communication doesn't carry enough context for a person to know what you're talking about is classic autism. If you're someone without autism and just care about the subject, you're more likely to recognize the social cues and add more context.

Re: Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths

#93

This is driving me oddly nuts: > "I think there's an understanding that 'My twin isn't quite as capable of communicating in the way that they need to, so I'll help them with that,'" she says. > That description fits Sam and John. > When asked to name his favorite episode of Sesame Street, John blurts out a series of words: "Abby makes the seasons change." Sam understands immediately and quickly steps in to explain. >…

The thing is that for effective communication you need to adjust to the recipient. So even though the answer was correct and concise the communication failed because sufficient context was not provided to the recipient.

The other person also failed in communication by not informing that the title of the episode mentioned was exactly that, while providing the necessary context.

Re: Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths

#94
post #28

Wasn't there a theory that autism was affected by ultrasounds during pregnancy?

Wouldn't everyone be autistic by now?

On the Internet it increasingly feels like that…

(…yeahyeah, selection bias, etc)

Re: Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it obvious they aren’t physically identical? They have the same genes but are not identical!

The term is being used in reference to their genes, not their appearance.

I'll mirror what someone else said, have they actually sequenced them? Clearly a lot of changes happened at a very early state, mutations, so why should we expect their genetic makeup to be identical?

Re: Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths

#96
He spent a month in a hospital as a small child. Of course this impacted his autism. We know that social interaction, play therapy, etc can be effective at reducing the severity and impact of autism and this is the direct opposite. How do you think a small child is going to learn about social interaction if they're stuck in a hospital without as much interaction and with much of the interaction being to the point? They're likely bored and witnessing the dry, clinical interactions of many of the staff. Neither of which are helpful.

Even staying a few days as a toddler is highly impactful on normal kids. They often don't understand why people are hurting them (IV, blood draws, ecg stickers, etc). They hate being stuck in the bed or their room for days with just toys and screens to play with - no running of course. In my experience it seems that fears and nightmares are common. The way the kid interacts can change for a short time after getting home (not as interested in the same type of play as before, happier with screen time, not as trusting of others, etc). Staying in a hospital is rough for someone who is fully developed and knows what's going, it's way more impactful for those who aren't.

Re: Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths

#97
post #2

> identical twins at opposite ends of the autism spectrum. I understand this is just a figure of speech, but this wording suggests that there are "two ends" of the spectrum and (as I understand it) autistic communities are trying to fight that myth.

Yeah, I would read this and assume the 2 ends of the spectrum are "autistic and not-autistic," considering what the word "spectrum" means.

"autistic and not-autistic" is not a spectrum, it can be described as a scalar value. A spectrum appears when you have many values (maybe continuum) with different values. Frequency spectrum is a good example: it shows you a lot of frequencies that intermixed in a signal.

Re: Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that autistic, or is that just normal for someone who cares , and who actually has a favorite episode? I can't imagine not picking up the title after watching an episode a few times.

It's definitely autistic to name drop the title to an audience of adults who likely don't remember anything about Sesame Street and being too literal. It shows the difference in cognitive ability between the brothers pretty well. The brother who seems to be doing better in daily life has a pretty good idea of what kind of answer a random person would expect.

> When asked to name his favorite episode

> It's definitely autistic to name drop the title to an audience of adults who likely don't remember

If someone asks me to name an episode I'll assume they know the show, and that the name is sufficient. Because they asked for only that. Why can questions have an implicit "and tell me about it", but the answers cannot have an implicit "I assume you know which one it is"?

Re: Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths

#99
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate: it is characteristically autistic to have episode names memorised like that, and it sort of is 'blurting out a series of words' if you don't know that's what it is; a more 'normal' answer might be more like a description of the episode or 'the one called [...]'. I think perhaps you can see that in Sam's assistance, he doesn't know the episode names, possibly he knows or expects that is an episode na…

Is that autistic, or is that just normal for someone who cares , and who actually has a favorite episode? I can't imagine not picking up the title after watching an episode a few times.

It's the expectation that that's a sufficient answer to the question I suppose. Yes it literally is, but... that is many people's autism in a nutshell really isn't it.

Even if talking to another fan, a 'less autistic' dialogue might be like:

B: Oh, me too, do you have a favourite episode?

A: Abby Makes the Seasons Change, hands down, do you remember that one?

B: Hmm, I'm not sure..

A: Oh, it's the one where [...]

Re: Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths

#100
post #96

He spent a month in a hospital as a small child. Of course this impacted his autism. We know that social interaction, play therapy, etc can be effective at reducing the severity and impact of autism and this is the direct opposite. How do you think a small child is going to learn about social interaction if they're stuck in a hospital without as much interaction and with much of the interaction being to the point? Th…

The number of words young minds hear during the early stages of development has a great impact on future language skills. The studies I'm aware of mostly focusing on developing reading skills. I find it plausible that spending one's first month in a hospital could have a long term communication development gap.
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