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Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

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Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#331

Post by asdfman123 »

cja wrote: post #254
asdfman123 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's absolutely not true. Diabetes for instance used to be extremely rare and limited to the elites. And, for instance, ADHD probably isn't a disorder if you live a very simple life and do manual labor all day. No hyperactivity, no DMV appointments, and your life is decided for you. Remember, all the lines are drawn arbitrarily and something is labeled a disorder when it doesn't work with our (very strange) modern…

"ADHD probably isn't a disorder if you live a very simple life and do manual labor all day" Why?

A lot of exercise increases focus and reduces fidgetiness. Also, if there's fewer things to keep track of and less everyday choices to make, it's easier.

I have ADHD bad but it virtually goes away while backpacking for reasons I described.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#333

Post by giantg2 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #325
giantg2 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The easy thing to measure with it is how many accidents are attributed to the person in a given time period. If you have 5 accidents including totalling 3 cars in the last 2 years of high school, you shouldn't be driving.

That doesn't actually tell you anything. Someone who drives 100,000 miles/year at the same level of safety would have 20 times more accidents in the same period of time than someone who drives 5000 miles/year. Certain areas have more traffic or are otherwise more prone to accidents. 5 is not a large enough statistical sample to know if someone is the cause or just unlucky.

Yeah yeah, you have to report mileage for insurance and registration so of course that will be taken into account. Even if you drive 100k miles in 5 years, you should not have 5 accidents that were your fault. That's just insanely unsafe.

The cause isn't determined by luck or number - it's determined by the facts that show you or the other person was at fault (or that nobody was at fault).

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#334

Post by ModernMech »

Perenti wrote: post #265
robocat wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly yes as per other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40329772

But she could talk? And touch another person without screaming? Because _severe_ autism is non-tactile and non-verbal.

Autism is a spectrum disorder, but while you may be picturing it as a continuum from less autistic to severely autistic, with nonverbal autistic people at one end and high functioning autistic people on the other, that is not the reality of autism.

Here is a good blog post written by someone, with a graphic that shows the difference between how people think of autism versus how others experience it.

https://themighty.com/topic/autism-spectrum-disorder/autism-...

As they write, this means some autistic people who are nonverbal can go to college, while the author doesn’t have that capacity despite being verbal.

I’ve seen many times in this thread people pointing toward nonverbal autistic people as a reason we should try to cure autism. But it’s not clear to me that people here even understand autism enough to be forming opinions on what we should do to “fix” it. I think if someone is not autistic they should first try very hard to understand a variety of autistic experiences before forming an opinion on what to do about it.

As for me, to answer the original question my neighbor growing up was nonverbal. We used to play legos together. He could communicate, but he didn’t talk and he didn’t like being touched.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#335

Post by didibus »

immibis wrote: post #317
gizmondo wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The slippery slope scenario you described didn't happen with the Down syndrome for which there is a reliable screening. There are a few people want to ban that screening and they use exactly the same arguments (also it's eugenics!). We're lucky that at least these people are rightfully viewed as insane.

How hasn't it happened? Is there government support for parents of Down syndrome children?

There is Supplemental Security Income in the US. And I think in Canada and Europe there are even more government subsidies available.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#336

Post by Repulsion9513 »

ModernMech wrote: post #183
MajimasEyepatch wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My ability to type this message and read is not a constant. There are times when I am non verbal. There are times when I cannot read because the letters are all jumbled in my head. When I'm able to read and write and speak, society values me. When I'm not, society devalues me. You want to take autism out of the equation so that I can be valuable to society. > What I'm saying is that society needs to be reoriented s…

> If someone can’t communicate, how exactly are they supposed to participate fully in society? It's not that autistic people cannot communicate, it's that we communicate differently. For example, I cannot talk on the phone. I just can't. I could explain all the reasons why, but I feel very dismissed here so I'm not going to be vulnerable anymore, but suffice it to say it's something I cannot do, and a lot of autistic…

It's honestly even more subtle than this. I absolutely agree with you about talking on the phone. I avoid doing things when I know it will mean I have to call ahead - and I would much rather go down there in person and get looked at weird for making an appointment in person.

Yet I've worked 4 different call center jobs and had absolutely no issue talking to people on the phone there. (Probably largely because the "small-talk" in such a scenario is absolutely rote and mundane...)

Fast-forward to my current job (IT) and I hate answering the phone (or joining a meeting) again.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#337

Post by Repulsion9513 »

MajimasEyepatch wrote: post #236
ModernMech wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone can’t communicate, how exactly are they supposed to participate fully in society? It's not that autistic people cannot communicate, it's that we communicate differently. For example, I cannot talk on the phone. I just can't. I could explain all the reasons why, but I feel very dismissed here so I'm not going to be vulnerable anymore, but suffice it to say it's something I cannot do, and a lot of autistic…

Thank you for sharing that. I’m not going to address every example in your comment, and I agree that there are many ways society could be more accommodating. But I also think that not every difference can be accommodated in every situation, even if disability advocates don’t always want to admit it. Some jobs require you to talk on the phone, just like some jobs require you to lift heavy boxes. Not everyone can do th…

> not every difference can be accommodated in every situation, even if disability advocates don’t always want to admit it

That's why labor law generally has the concept of "reasonable accommodations" and core parts of the job. I don't think anyone is seriously saying that every disabled person can do any job.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#338

Post by [deleted] »

squigz wrote: post #330
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… Yeah, I see how you could take that away from it. Thanks for explaining. There are treatments for specific issues associated with autism (e.g. ADHD medication, noise-filtering headphones, AAC tools), but autism is a form of human polymorphism. Like allism and situs inversus, it's a developmental condition, so any research programmes with the capacity to "cure" autism are eugenics research programmes. That's a liter…

I'm also extremely visually impaired, so I'm curious: does advocating for "curing" blindness also mean advocating for eugenics?

[deleted]

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#339

Post by robocat »

ModernMech wrote: post #334
Perenti wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But she could talk? And touch another person without screaming? Because _severe_ autism is non-tactile and non-verbal.

Autism is a spectrum disorder, but while you may be picturing it as a continuum from less autistic to severely autistic, with nonverbal autistic people at one end and high functioning autistic people on the other, that is not the reality of autism. Here is a good blog post written by someone, with a graphic that shows the difference between how people think of autism versus how others experience it. https://themighty…

Thank you for your candid comment. It is frustrating to engage via comments and I have learned something from your comments.

All labels including "autistic" are usually very misunderstood - often even amongst people with the same label. Hopefully commenters here are more understanding - given that if you work in the software field you very often deal with people with mild traits of autism.

All the best.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#340

Post by faeriechangling »

Perenti wrote: post #264
faeriechangling wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was diagnosed at 4, I have legal paperwork proving I permanently cannot live independently, as such paperwork is necessary for impoverished families and adults to access certain social and financial benefits. I currently live independently. Despite me being in this category you describe, I do not believe I have a condition that should be prevented if possible. I see researchers like FTA as having a conflict of inte…

The level of severity being discussed here is non-verbal, screaming all the time, just in a state of abject terror. These people have _severe_ ASD.

No, the discussion here was about the 5 year olds diagnosed with autism in the study.

The severity of their autism was then argued based on how few of children with autism diagnosed by age 5 were able to live independently - and I directly questioned the validity of these statistics by pointing out the ulterior motives people have for making such a declaration, and how this isn't actually based on subjective opinions and not empirical measurements.

You respond to my criticism by proclaiming that we're talking about severely autistic children who are non-verbal and screaming all the time.

The average age of diagnosis is between 4-5, around half of the current autistic population were diagnosed by 5, most autism diagnosis in the modern day is for "mild autism", even for early diagnosis. Don't forget that the ever loosening autism diagnostic criteria, half of those diagnosed today would have never been diagnosed in 2014, how mild the autism is of who we're talking about is milder than what most people are familiar with in their past experiences with autistic people.

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