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Autism mutations drive neurodevelopmental pathology

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Re: Autism mutations drive neurodevelopmental pathology

#121

Post by matteoraso »

flatline wrote: post #45
XCSme wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a potential autist, I think everyone is autistic in one way or another (which would make everyone neuroytpical, lol). In the end, maybe we are just all unique individuals with our character sliders set in various forms.

This line of thinking diminishes the real struggles autistic people face. Not everyone is autistic, and it's not just a quirky set of traits. I do believe society could be better arranged for people who for whatever reason don't conform to the overculture norms, so we could talk about disability along the axis of how society privileges or disadvantages certain individuals. The concern is that autism as a rigorous cat…

>The concern is that autism as a rigorous category may be useless, but that doesn't mean that autistic people are suddenly neurotypical

IDK. I'm diagnosed as autistic, but I've become a bit less attached to that label in recent years. Like, I do struggle with eye contact, excessive noise, and social situations. I'm not going to say that I'm just a normal guy, but I do think that there's a wide spectrum here that encompasses everybody. I don't buy the idea that autism is some special category of people that are totally unlike neurotypicals. Instead, it's just one side of the spectrum, with neurotypicals on the other end, and an ambiguous group in the middle[0]. I think that once society becomes more accepting of neurodiversity, we're going to stop getting so hung up on labels like "autistic" and "neurotypical" and accept that there's a lot of nuance in the human condition.

[0] In reality, this spectrum would be multi-dimensional, but I'm choosing to describe it as a 1D line for illustrative purposes.

Re: Autism mutations drive neurodevelopmental pathology

#122

Post by kelseyfrog »

nick__m wrote: post #41
forestrywat wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Have a disability" and "broken" are not synonyms. There's no judgement or moralizing in having a disability. Autism and ADHD like you mentioned are disabilities. But the people who have them are not broken. Having a disability means some part of your life is more difficult. But that's very very different from you as a person are broken. For example, if you can fix the environment and the person can now function equa…

What else but pity should I feel toward non verbal autistic people?

Compassion?

Re: Autism mutations drive neurodevelopmental pathology

#123

Post by 999900000999 »

cuttysnark wrote: post #120
rickydroll wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live with a child who spends entire days with videos on his tablet. We can't take him anywhere because if the trip differs from what we told him (trip duration or locations), we have to abort the trip to prevent a meltdown. His inflexibility means he can't hold a job or go to school or training. He can't do household chores without prompting and handholding. He will never live alone or have anything resembling a fu…

Sounds like your relationship is suffering. If it’s as you describe, in my eyes, that counts as broken. Do you have any biological children? This child is not yours, you made that sufficiently clear.

Not everyone should be a step parent.

GP, you don’t have to do it.

I’d much rather be alone forever than treat another human being as a mere obstacle to my happiness.

Re: Autism mutations drive neurodevelopmental pathology

#124

Post by Alex3917 »

kulahan wrote: post #85
Alex3917 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that autism is already treated by the medical system as many disorders and not as a single thing. The reason they all share a common label is for political reasons, where it makes sense to group them together. But the actual medical system does not treat them as having anything in common, let alone as being homogeneous.

Ah, I can see how that would be the case. But I thought it was moving in the other direction? I am extremely ignorant here, so correct me, but the only example I know of is that they removed Asberger's Syndrome and turned it into generic Autism.

Yes, that was a political decision based on the fact that people with Asperger’s weren’t able to access sufficient social support. But from a medical perspective, the two have basically nothing to do with each other; Asperger’s is primarily about the connectivity between brain regions, whereas (traditional) autism is more about functionality within brain regions. Obviously there is a lot of overlap and this isn’t necessarily the mainstream scientific interpretation, but I think it’s the most parsimonious way to define these terms.

Re: Autism mutations drive neurodevelopmental pathology

#125

Post by rickydroll »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #84
rickydroll wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live with a child who spends entire days with videos on his tablet. We can't take him anywhere because if the trip differs from what we told him (trip duration or locations), we have to abort the trip to prevent a meltdown. His inflexibility means he can't hold a job or go to school or training. He can't do household chores without prompting and handholding. He will never live alone or have anything resembling a fu…

Thank you for sharing your lived experience, it is meaningful. I suspect some who say they like autistic traits, mean "level 1" on the ASD. May I ask if this child is level 2 or level 3 ASD? I'm imagining it is quite a different reality with level 1 vs level 2/3. https://www.autismspeaks.org/levels-of-autism

He's never been classified that way as far as I know. I would say somewhere between level 1 and level 2. He writes very well. But speaking person to person, not so good. And as I described, there's significant rigidity in his behavior. For example, when he cooks, he can't generalize. Cooking is by time, not appearance, food has to come the same packaging etc.

Re: Autism mutations drive neurodevelopmental pathology

#126

Post by rickydroll »

cuttysnark wrote: post #120
rickydroll wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live with a child who spends entire days with videos on his tablet. We can't take him anywhere because if the trip differs from what we told him (trip duration or locations), we have to abort the trip to prevent a meltdown. His inflexibility means he can't hold a job or go to school or training. He can't do household chores without prompting and handholding. He will never live alone or have anything resembling a fu…

Sounds like your relationship is suffering. If it’s as you describe, in my eyes, that counts as broken. Do you have any biological children? This child is not yours, you made that sufficiently clear.

Yeah, it does suffer but we make a conscious effort to find the positive things in our relationship and life.

No, I do not have any children of my own. I am thankful for that because my ex-wife apparently was also autistic but not diagnosed until after divorce. On my maternal side of the family all of us kids inherited some form of severe depression through my brother was schizoaffective. I survived, found good treatment that left me feeling like myself with a clear mind. My brother on the other hand was tortured by his demons and ended up taking his life a couple of years ago.

Not having kids was a conscious decision because I didn't want to take a chance of spreading the family curse to the next generation

Re: Autism mutations drive neurodevelopmental pathology

#127

Post by rickydroll »

999900000999 wrote: post #123
cuttysnark wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like your relationship is suffering. If it’s as you describe, in my eyes, that counts as broken. Do you have any biological children? This child is not yours, you made that sufficiently clear.

Not everyone should be a step parent. GP, you don’t have to do it. I’d much rather be alone forever than treat another human being as a mere obstacle to my happiness.

It's one of those choice not choices. I love my partner a lot. We bought a house together with a great yard with a significant fruit and veggie garden.

Separating would be significantly destructive / damaging on both a personal and financial levels.

That said, I entered this relationship without fully understanding the impact of an autistic child. I would not condemn anyone who refused to be in a relationship if the other person had an autistic child.

Re: Autism mutations drive neurodevelopmental pathology

#128

Post by ahazred8ta »

Gigachad wrote: post #104
coldtea wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On one extreme, we have people thinking they're autistic when they're actually just awkward and inexperienced in life And you know that they're "just" the latter, and not autistic, because? They don't look like the Rain man?

I get the feeling that with a sufficiently advanced understanding of the brain we could attribute every personality trait to a biological explanation, but if someone isn't sufficiently disabled or in need of treatment, is there any benefit to doing so? The person who possibly is on the lightest side of the autism spectrum has so little in common with the other end that it feels incorrect to label them as the same con…

"Did we know the mechanical affections of the particles of rhubarb, hemlock, opium, and a man, as a watchmaker does those of a watch ... we should be able to tell beforehand that rhubarb will purge, hemlock kill, and Opium make a man sleep; as well as a watchmaker can" -- John Locke (1689)

Re: Autism mutations drive neurodevelopmental pathology

#129

Post by EQFitzgerald »

sublinear wrote: post #36
SubiculumCode wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the behaviors by which autism is diagnosed (social communication, repetitive behaviors and restricted interests) are fairly high-level behaviors, dependent on a lot of cognitive/neural machinery beneath it. There is an idea out there that convergent behaviors that allow consistent diagnosis depends on this, as the resulting behaviors might results from differences in many different underlying processes, but…

Is high-level behavior the only criteria for diagnosis? I think the majority of the public would like to better understand how we came into this position. There's nothing wrong with the topic of autism as research, but it's been a political football for so long that there are many reasonable doubts about methodology, diagnosis, and relevance to everyday healthcare. I understand there may be complications with some pa…

On the contrary, autistic people tend to be way too mature for their age, often visibly so. (it used to be called the "little professor syndrome")

It seems to me that's what they actually found - the genes accelerate maturation. Maybe it's just the neoteny fetish of the modern society that makes it feel like a disorder.

Re: Autism mutations drive neurodevelopmental pathology

#130

Post by 999900000999 »

rickydroll wrote: post #127
999900000999 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone should be a step parent. GP, you don’t have to do it. I’d much rather be alone forever than treat another human being as a mere obstacle to my happiness.

It's one of those choice not choices. I love my partner a lot. We bought a house together with a great yard with a significant fruit and veggie garden. Separating would be significantly destructive / damaging on both a personal and financial levels. That said, I entered this relationship without fully understanding the impact of an autistic child. I would not condemn anyone who refused to be in a relationship if the…

> I would not condemn anyone who refused to be in a relationship if the other person had an autistic child.

Let me correct that for you,

> I would not condemn anyone who refused to be in a relationship if the other person had a child.

Being a step parent is one of the most difficult things a person can do.

If you can’t or don’t want to do it that’s fine.

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