Thread by @autisticats

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.”

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.

From @AnnMemmott,

“Some trials were terminated due to the child’s [utter panic].. and others were excluded... due to parental
noncompliance (i.e. parent interfering with [the experiment to terrifying their child] ..)"

The kids were so distressed that the parents interfered.

And what were the results of the study?

“Compared to typically developing toddlers, toddlers with ASD show diminished attention yet enhanced distress in response to social threat.”

The autistic kids were terrified- maybe traumatized. Where was the ethics committee?

What was the point of all this?

Why would a research team think that intentionally exposing toddlers to frightening stimuli is ethical?

Ah, that’s right: autistic people aren’t seen as fully human.

It can’t be unethical if your subjects don’t have rights! /s

This is the state of autism research in 2020. @YaleCSC, you have some answering to do.

Conducting intentionally frightening experiments on autistic toddlers is inhumane and unnecessary.

Start treating human beings like human beings. Stop traumatizing young autistic people.