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I look back at my Parents and wonder: how did they miss me?
A blog about Autism, Neurodiversity, being Autistic and a parent of Autistic children.
Hyperlexia: Systematic review, neurocognitive modelling, and outcome
Hyperlexia is defined as the co-occurrence of advanced reading skills relative to comprehension skills or general intelligence, the early acquisition …
What interests young autistic children? An exploratory study of object exploration and repetitive behavior
Behaviors characterized as restricted and repetitive (RRBs) in autism manifest in diverse ways, from motor mannerisms to intense interests, and are diagnostically defined as interfering with functioning. A variety of early autism interventions target RRBs as preoccupying young autistic children to the detriment of exploration and learning opportunities. In an exploratory study, we developed a novel stimulating play situation including objects of potential interest to autistic children, then investigated repetitive behaviors and object explorations in 49 autistic and 43 age-matched typical young children (20–69 months). Autistic children displayed significantly increased overall frequency and duration of repetitive behaviors, as well as increased specific repetitive behaviors. However, groups did not significantly differ in frequency and duration of overall object explorations, in number of different objects explored, or in explorations of specific objects. Exploratory analyses found similar or greater exploration of literacy-related objects in autistic compared to typical children. Correlations between repetitive behaviors and object explorations (their frequency and duration) revealed positive, not negative, associations in both groups. Our findings, from a novel situation incorporating potential autistic interests, suggest that RRBs do not necessarily displace exploration and its possibilities for learning in autism.
What Is Hyperlexia?
Hyperlexia is when a child learns to read very early. Learn more about what causes it, what to expect, and more.
Autism, intense interests and support in school: from wasted efforts to shared understandings
Having intense or “special” interests and a tendency to focus in depth to the exclusion of other inputs, is associated with autistic cognition, sometimes framed as “monotropism”. Despite some drawb...
Me and Monotropism: A unified theory of autism
The Why Axis
November 26, 2018 The Why Axis By Alfie Kohn It shouldn't be surprising that progressive teachers are often called upon to defend what they're doing. Sometimes they're asked reasonable questions by open-minded parents who simply
2002 pelletier levesque legault jesp
Mutual (Mis)understanding: Reframing Autistic Pragmatic “Impairments” Using Relevance Theory
A central diagnostic and anecdotal feature of autism is difficulty with social communication. We take the position that communication is a two-way, intersubjective phenomenon—as described by the double empathy problem—and offer up relevance theory (a cognitive account of utterance interpretation) as a means of explaining such communication difficulties. Based on a set of proposed heuristics for successful and rapid interpretation of intended meaning, relevance theory positions communication as contingent on shared—and, importantly, mutually recognized—“relevance.” Given that autistic and non-autistic people may have sometimes markedly different embodied experiences of the world, we argue that what is most salient to each interlocutor may be mismatched. Relevance theory would predict that where this salient information is not (mutually) recognized or adjusted for, mutual understanding may be more effortful to achieve. This paper presents the findings from a small-scale, linguistic ethnographic study of autistic communication featuring eight core autistic participants. Each core autistic participant engaged in three naturalistic conversations around the topic of loneliness with: (1) a familiar, chosen conversation partner; (2) a non-autistic stranger and (3) an autistic stranger. Relevance theory is utilized as a frame for the linguistic analysis of the interactions. Mutual understanding was unexpectedly high across all types of conversation pairings. In conversations involv...
Introduction to Autism, Part 5: Neurodiversity (What is it and why do we care?) | Reframing Autism
Often when we discuss Autism, and a strengths-based approach to Autism, we invoke the term “neurodiversity”. But what is neurodiversity, how is it related to Autism, and what does it mean for the way we think about Autism?
Sex and Gender are Actually the Same Thing (But Bear With Me)
While the idea of treating sex and gender as unrelated factors may result from an attempt to validate and support transgender identities, it actually perpetuates harmful cultural beliefs about the validity of sex assignment and the static nature of biological sex, which remove agency from trans and
Disabled And Here: free stock images (with attribution)
Affect creates media campaigns and resources that amplify multiply-marginalized folx and embody disability justice.
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Default to Open · Issue #1 · Automattic/wp-calypso
The quality of our code and our product depend on the amount of feedback we get and on the amount of people who use them. If we’re developing behind closed doors, we are putting artificial limits t...
Red Hat culture tip: default to open
After 10 years at Red Hat, I'll admit I am a little bit out of touch with what the corporate world looks like everywhere else. But after a recent conversation with someone out there in the non-Red ...
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Work in the open, proactively publish public data online, and collaborate with the community to help make services better for everyone.
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Government can and should work well for everyone. We’re people-centered problem solvers showing that it’s possible.
An Inside View of Autism
IQ and autism:
What do we measure with IQ tests? Measuring non-autistic people by [the autistic] type of development would often find them failing miserably and appearing to be thoroughly ‘subnormal’ by ‘autistic’ standards. (Donna Williams) Before we can discuss IQ tests and the way they are used with autistic population, we have to define what intelligence is. What is intelligence? And here we have a problem: there is no single definition of intelligence that has been universally accepted and we have to deal
IQ scores not a good measure of function in autism | Spectrum | Autism Research News
Most studies define high-functioning children as those with an IQ above 70 or 80, but this is problematic for a number of reasons, say some scientists. The assumption underlying the use of high IQ as a synonym for high functioning is suspect because social and communicative abilities may have a far greater impact on an individual’s daily interactions.
“We couldn’t assess her reading skills in the way you need to do for a study like this, but she was clearly able to read and write.”
Children like this are unlikely to be included in cognitive and behavioral studies that focus increasingly on ‘high-functioning’ individuals with autism. Most studies define high-functioning children as those with an IQ above 70 or 80, but this is problematic for a number of reasons, say some scientists.
Researchers don’t all use the same test to measure intelligence, for one thing, and even when they do, IQ thresholds often vary among studies.
The assumption underlying the use of high IQ as a synonym for high functioning is also suspect because social and communicative abilities may have a far greater impact on an individual’s daily interactions.
“Crudely taking IQ as a metric to divide up individuals can be misleading, because high-functioning sounds like you are doing really well, when in fact you’re not,” says cognitive psychologist Tony Charman, professor of autism education at the University of London.
Regardless of the test, IQ may not be the best indicator of the ability of a person with autism to navigate the real world. “An individual’s level of functioning can more impacted by co-morbid mental health problems than by IQ — and this is particularly true for adults,” says Peter Szatmari, head of child psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at McMaster University in Ontario.
“There’s so much change that the IQ tests can’t capture the diversity of kids.”
Increased gender variance in autism spectrum disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - PubMed
Evidence suggests over-representation of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and behavioral difficulties among people referred for gender issues, but rates of the wish to be the other gender (gender variance) among different neurodevelopmental disorders are unknown. This chart review study explored rat …
Relative influence of intellectual disabilities and autism on mental and general health in Scotland: a cross-sectional study of a whole country of 5.3 million children and adults
Objectives To determine the relative extent that autism and intellectual disabilities are independently associated with poor mental and general health, in children and adults.
Design Cross-sectional study. For Scotland’s population, logistic regressions investigated odds of intellectual disabilities and autism predicting mental health conditions, and poor general health, adjusted for age and gender.
Participants 1 548 819 children/youth aged 0-24 years, and 3 746 584 adults aged more than 25 years, of whom 9396/1 548 819 children/youth had intellectual disabilities (0.6%), 25 063/1 548 819 children/youth had autism (1.6%); and 16 953/3 746 584 adults had intellectual disabilities (0.5%), 6649/3 746 584 adults had autism (0.2%). These figures are based on self-report.
Main outcome measures Self-reported general health status and mental health.
Results In children/youth, intellectual disabilities (OR 7.04, 95% CI 6.30 to 7.87) and autism (OR 25.08, 95% CI 23.08 to 27.32) both independently predicted mental health conditions. In adults, intellectual disabilities (OR 3.50, 95% CI 3.20 to 3.84) and autism (OR 5.30, 95% CI 4.80 to 5.85) both independently predicted mental health conditions. In children/youth, intellectual disabilities (OR 18.34, 95% CI 17.17 to 19.58) and autism (OR 8.40, 95% CI 8.02 to 8.80) both independently predicted poor general health. In adults, intellectual disabilities (OR 7.54, 95% CI 7.02 to 8.10) and autism (OR 4.46, 95% CI 4.06 to 4.89) both independently predicted poor general health.
Conclusions Both intellectual disabilities and autism independently predict poor health, intellectual disabilities more so for general health and autism more so for mental health. Intellectual disabilities and autism are not uncommon, and due to their associated poor health, sufficient services/supports are needed. This is not just due to coexistence of these conditions or just to having intellectual disabilities, as the population with autism is independently associated with substantial health inequalities compared with the general population, across the entire life course.
Association of Race/Ethnicity and Social Disadvantage With Autism Prevalence in 7 Million School Children in England
This national cohort study evaluates whether socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with autism spectrum disorder prevalence and the likelihood of accessing autism services in racial/ethnic minority groups and disadvantaged groups among school pupils in England.
Are males and females with autism spectrum disorder more similar than we thought? - Joanna L Mussey, Nicole C Ginn, Laura G Klinger, 2017
Differences in behavioral and cognitive profiles have been suggested to potentially impact the presentation of social and communication symptoms in females with...
The Hidden Potential of Autistic Kids
What intelligence tests might be overlooking when it comes to autism
That is because testing for intelligence in autistic people is hard. The average person can sit down and take a verbally administered, timed test without too many problems. But for an autistic person with limited language capability, who might be easily distracted by sensory information, this task is very hard. The most commonly administered intelligence test, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) almost seems designed to flunk an autistic person: it is a completely verbal, timed test that relies heavily on cultural and social knowledge. It asks questions like "What is the thing to do if you find an envelope in the street that is sealed, addressed and has a new stamp on it?" and "What is the thing to do when you cut your finger?"
Many of the conclusions were based on intelligence tests that tend to overestimate disability in autistic people. "Our knowledge is based on pretty bad data," she says.
Why IQ scores are erroneous for autistic people
When it comes to measuring the capabilities and challenges of autistic children and adults, IQ is one of the main measures that is employed....
Another big reason why intelligence tests are inaccurate measures, is that autistic people usually don't test well. These tests require a person to sit in a room for a long period of time and have questions that contain a lot of verbal information. The testing environment may also trigger sensory issues in some autistic individuals. Some also don't have the attention span and cooperation to do the tasks the test examiner wants them to complete . When I first got diagnosed, I took a verbal IQ test in which I did terribly on due to my limited language capacities. The examiner who was a young graduate student mistakenly thought that I had an intellectual disability based of my test results. When my mother talked with the head psychologist, she said I was given the wrong test. This shows how the structure of the tests themselves can not accurately predict the true intelligence levels of autistic people.
One of the reasons, why IQ tests are flawed is that it can underestimate or overestimate the abilities and challenges that autistic people actually have.