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The Autisticats

27 Nov, 10 tweets, 3 min read

So-called “communicative deficits” in autism are often just the result of cross-neurotype interaction.

For those who want to learn more about autistic communication styles, I’ve compiled several studies that I’m going summarize.

Hopefully this will teach you a thing or two.

“Autistic peer-to-peer information transfer is highly effective” (2020)

Demonstrates that while NTs and autistics often experience communication breakdown, autistic people can convey and transfer information effectively among ourselves.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

A 2019 study demonstrated something similar:

Autistic people (generally) prefer to interact with other autistic people, and experience a greater feeling of connection with each other as compared to NTs. So, we’re capable of establishing social rapport.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

A 2014 study of verbal creativity in autistic people found that we’re capable of comprehending metaphors to the same extent that NTs are, but that we tend to come up with more novel metaphors.

“The study points to unique verbal creativity in ASD.”

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Another 2014 study found that autistic people tend to prefer nonsense/absurdist humor and wordplay, to a greater degree than NTs do.

These different preferences may explain why NTs often perceive autistic people as “lacking humor.”

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Here’s a 2007 paper (relevant to autism) about humor in a cross-cultural context, which demonstrates that misunderstanding and a so-called “lack of humor” is often the result of different cultural expectations.

I’ll quote the paper in the next slide.

degruyter.com/view/journals/…

“Maori participants regularly mentioned that Pakeha humor was different and that Pakeha did not understand Maori jokes...

The reverse was not found, because Pakeha, as the dominant group, did not need to adjust to Maori norms, which thus went unnoticed.”

(Bell, 2007)

The power dynamic at play in who decides what is funny & what isn’t, is extremely relevant to studies on autism.

Just because NTs don’t always perceive us as funny, doesn’t mean we aren’t.

It means they’re the dominant cultural group, and we approach humor differently.

And here’s a 2008 paper about autistic culture and communication.

It discusses how the creation of the internet has served as a communicative equalizer for autistic people, as well as a platform for the development of our culture.

researchgate.net/publication/24…

Autistic people, like Deaf people, are a sociolinguistic group with our own culture and norms of communication.

The communicative burden in conversation between autistic people and NTs should not fall solely on autistic people.

Communication requires effort on all sides.

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More from @autisticats

The Autisticats

@autisticats

29 Dec

We’ve gained thousands of followers in the past few months, many of whom may not be well-versed on what autism actually is.

So, here’s a basic run-down of how autistic people’s brains work, with links to sources where you can learn more.

Let’s begin!

Neurotypical brains are organized so that higher-order concepts affect the perception of low-level sensory stimuli.

Meaning, NTs have a hard time seeing “trees” when they know (or think) they’re looking at a “forest.”

This isn’t the case for autistic people.

Autistic people can accurately perceive low-level stimuli without being thrown off by higher-level (global) cognitive processes.

This is referred to as “reduced global to local interference.”

It means we can see the “trees” despite knowing that we’re looking at a “forest.”

Read 4 tweets

The Autisticats

@autisticats

28 Dec

SPOILER WARNING for Soul.

I watched the Pixar movie Soul with my family last night, and I really enjoyed it.

I think one of the reasons I loved it so much, was that 22’s experience of life in Joe’s body was so reminiscent of autistic people’s experience of life every day.

22 has never experienced life before, so she comes into every situation as an outsider.

She’s not aware of social rules, so she does things that Joe would never do, or that seem “odd.”

She’s never had a body before, so her senses are extremely heightened.

Because everything is new to her, 22 is very sensitive and easily overwhelmed by sensory stimuli.

She gets frightened by crowds of people, sirens, loud noises, etc. in NYC and then ends up running away due to sensory overload (which could be viewed as elopement).

Read 9 tweets

The Autisticats

@autisticats

15 Dec

Autistic people tend to take things literally, even in situations where it doesn’t make sense.

In my case (and for many autistic people) this is because I’m a visual thinker. Every word someone says provokes an image in my brain.

Those images are tied directly to the words.

One example of this in my life happened the other day in a text conversation with Abby.

She said “vacuumed” but what she really meant was “devoured.”

When she said that, I immediately pictured her vacuuming up the food (peanut butter cups).

I was going to respond in confusion, but then I realized that I was confused because I had probably misinterpreted her.

I thought about the context a little more, and figured it out.

Read 7 tweets

The Autisticats

@autisticats

14 Dec

On December 6th, 2020, a paper was published in the Official Journal of the International Society for Autism Research.

It’s called “Attend Less, Fear More: Elevated Distress to Social Threat in Toddlers With Autism Spectrum Disorder.”

europepmc.org/article/med/33…

The three authors are from Yale University. A “prestigious” institution.

In this study, autistic toddlers and neurotypical controls were repeatedly exposed to terrifying, psychologically damaging stimuli.

Mechanical spiders and red-eyed dinosaurs. “Grotesque masks.”

@AnnMemmott

This screenshot is from @AnnMemmott, who I first learned about this study from. She has a thread of her own about it.

This is a description of how the toddlers’ distress was recorded.

Read 7 tweets

The Autisticats

@autisticats

14 Oct

When autistic people are overstimulated/overwhelmed for any reason, it’s very common for us to lose the ability to speak.

Many of us become completely physically incapable of it. For others, it’s possible to speak, but very difficult and distressing.

This often goes along with a shutdown, which is an “internal” meltdown. In those situations our motor control may be impacted too.

But sometimes, it just happens randomly. We might be okay emotionally and able to type or gesture, but still unable to speak.

Some autistic people never speak, some of us speak only in echolalia, some of us are semi-speaking, and some of us are usually able to speak in the ways NTs do.

There’s a very wide variety of speaking ability in autistic people, and it often changes in each person over time.

Read 8 tweets

The Autisticats

@autisticats

12 Oct

Autistic people may do socially “inappropriate” things because we’re not aware of how our actions/motivations will be perceived by others.

We might be perceived as rude, deviant, or disobedient at times when we’re just oblivious to how our actions will be interpreted.

To illustrate this, here’s a story from my childhood:

One day after school when I was 6 years old, I was using the school bathroom.

A girl had walked in ahead of me, and I thought I recognized her but I wasn’t sure, and I wanted to see her face just to check if I knew her.

She was in the stall next to mine. I leaned down and stuck my head underneath the divider between our stalls, trying to see her face.

I wasn’t conscious of how this behavior would be perceived. My intention was to see her face, so other motivations didn’t occur to me.

Read 9 tweets

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