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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

#111

Post by OscarCunningham »

scottlamb wrote: post #54

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. >…

This is the genius of the episode naming for 'Friends'. They're each called the thing you would actually say to describe them, like 'The One with All the Cheesecakes'.

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

#112

Post by ycombinete »

p3rls wrote: post #101
giantg2 wrote: 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…

I once was hospitalized for depression and drug use when I was a teenager and my warcraft 3 stats never recovered after that. I always wondered if there were studies on that sorta thing.

My Counterstrike rank was always inversely correlated with my general happiness.

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

#113

Post by [deleted] »

twobitshifter wrote: post #47
drooby wrote: post #39

It's so interesting to see the differences in their faces. I can tell from the folds and wrinkles on Sam's face that he engages in more neurotypical communication.

Sam also now has thinner hair than John. Stress of college, different diet, something else?

[deleted]

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

#114

Post by nickpeterson »

ycombinete wrote: post #112
p3rls wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once was hospitalized for depression and drug use when I was a teenager and my warcraft 3 stats never recovered after that. I always wondered if there were studies on that sorta thing.

My Counterstrike rank was always inversely correlated with my general happiness.

I remember being a young teenager (25 years ago now, yikes) playing counter strike and StarCraft all the time and being pretty good at both. I started playing with others who were in really good leagues (back then it was called cal-i for cs, not sure what exists now), and I realized the level of dedication and time necessary to compete at that level and I basically gave it up. Once you start thinking, “becoming better at this is going to take 6-10 hours of my life everyday” I checked out. In hindsight, I wish I had known it sooner.

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

#115

Post by notahacker »

yterdy wrote: post #106
giantg2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abou…

Because the explicit query was, "What's your favorite episode?". It's frustrating to be accused of disordered thinking on your part when the actual issue is disordered expectations from the other party. What they actually should have asked was, "What happened during your favorite episode?", which might have produced the response given by the sibling. It's not like neurotypical people don't also experience this frustr…

The query explicitly didn't include "Despite asking you about your preferences, I have no interest in why you prefer it so please refrain from commenting on that. Please don't waffle or ask me anything back, simply provide me with the title, and I will have all the information I need", so I don't think it's "disordered expectations" to assume that message wasn't conveyed by the question...

Neurotypical communication 101 is that a casual conversation question about your favourite things is probably a cue for you to be enthusiastic and effusive about things you care about rather than a prompt for you provide names only, especially if the interlocutor is unlikely be evaluating your preferences using their own expert knowledge of the field. Sure, if nobody else steps in to provide further context any [neurotypical] interlocutor ought to be able to continue/rescue the conversation by asking followup questions about what happened in an episode and what is it about that episode that you like, but staccato answers offering a bare minimum of information is a communication preference (occasionally appropriate, more often not) rather than something inherently demanded by the question.

(I'd agree that people probably judge responses slightly differently if they already know the person on the other side of the conversation is autistic, but in a situation like this it can work in their favour, since if I assume the person providing only names, titles and one word answers to my open and friendly questions is neurotypical, I'm going to assume they're subtly signalling that they dislike me...)

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

#116

Post by smogcutter »

nickpeterson wrote: post #114
ycombinete wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Counterstrike rank was always inversely correlated with my general happiness.

I remember being a young teenager (25 years ago now, yikes) playing counter strike and StarCraft all the time and being pretty good at both. I started playing with others who were in really good leagues (back then it was called cal-i for cs, not sure what exists now), and I realized the level of dedication and time necessary to compete at that level and I basically gave it up. Once you start thinking, “becoming bette…

“The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life." - Paul Morphy

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

#117

Post by sctb »

jawns wrote: post #105
swayvil wrote: post #33

The autist focuses. Concentrates. Invests his entire attention in a particular sliver of the experiential buffet. That's autism. If it's a useful sliver then there you go.

That's one type of autism. The reason it's now called Autism Spectrum Disorder is because there are many very different manifestations, not all of which involve hyperfixation.

It's not hyperfixation exactly, but a requirement for an ASD diagnosis is some forms of "Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities" (from the DSM-V).

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

#118

Post by ycombinete »

nickpeterson wrote: post #114
ycombinete wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Counterstrike rank was always inversely correlated with my general happiness.

I remember being a young teenager (25 years ago now, yikes) playing counter strike and StarCraft all the time and being pretty good at both. I started playing with others who were in really good leagues (back then it was called cal-i for cs, not sure what exists now), and I realized the level of dedication and time necessary to compete at that level and I basically gave it up. Once you start thinking, “becoming bette…

I had the exact same experience, when I went to a chess club for the first time. I realised that to keep pace with those guys I’d have to spend more time than I was willing to on getting better.

Especially with MMR based systems. No matter how good you get your win/loss ratio will end up around 50%.

So you have to ask yourself why you need to keep getting better. To me It’s really about finding a level of “good” that you can maintain comfortably, while maintaining interest.

And also realise that games aren’t vocations. It’s fine to play a game until you stop having fun, then stop playing the game.

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

#119

Post by andoryuu »

dmurray wrote: post #102
andoryuu wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"?

You might be more likely to pick up on some context clues that this is an NPR reporter trying to make conversation about the topic she's just been told you're interested in, rather than a fellow obsessive fan of early-2000s children's TV.

I would probably explicitly ask if they want to know what the episode is about. But only after seeing their confused reaction to the silence after the first answer. And that's a maybe.

If you want to know something, ask it. Not everyone wants (or is able) to bother with deciphering what you think internally.

The person in the article has many issues. But I don't consider giving straight answer to a straight question being one of them.

People expecting others to conform to their way of communication without making an effort to meet others halfway are the main issue.

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

#120

Post by scottlamb »

OJFord wrote: post #82
scottlamb wrote: post #54

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. >…

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…

I think you're right in that when the reporter asked "What's your favorite episode?", the more autistic brother interpreted it literally as "What's the name of your favorite episode?" where other people typically re-interpret the question as "Could you describe your favorite episode in a few sentences?"

But the autistic version seems perfectly valid, and shouldn't a reporter recognize a direct answer to his question and ask a follow-up if needed? I get the feeling instead he just stared blankly until someone else translated for him...why blame the autistic person for the reporter's poor communication?

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