Thread by @autisticats

This is a valuable article about autistic strengths that I think everyone should read.

Autistic strengths aren’t limited to those of us who can speak, and some may be stronger in people who can’t.

Regardless of support needs, we all have strong suits.

spectrumnews.org/features/deep-…

Here are a few of those potential strengths, which are named in the article:

- Up to 11% of autistic people have perfect pitch, compared to 0.0001% of non-autistic people

- Autistic people are more likely to reject money that was obtained through immoral means

- Sighted autistic people are better than non-autistic people at quickly spotting and identifying details in the environment

Ex. “42 autistic people were significantly faster than 30 controls at recognizing which of two vertical lines, flashed briefly on a screen, was longer.”

Ex. “24 autistic children were better than 30 non-autistic children at identifying purple letters among black ones, presented sequentially at different speeds.”

The advantage increases with speed, and:

“This strength is also seen in minimally verbal autistic children.”

- Hearing autistic people are more likely to have enhanced auditory perceptual abilities

Ex. “15 autistic children were significantly more accurate than a group of non-autistic children at telling whether a series of notes played on a keyboard were going up or down in pitch.”

- We are better at noticing background information & details, regardless of the amount of information presented

Ex. “increasing the amount of material in a visual display makes finding a specific detail in that scene harder for non-autistic adults but not for autistic ones.”

Ex. of enhanced ability to perceive background information:

Autistic traits can often be strengths or weaknesses depending on the environment.

On a chaotic city street, attention to detail and enhanced perceptual abilities can become debilitating and lead to sensory overload.

But in a forest, those traits can help identify plants.

One of my favorite things to do when I’m outside is find purslane (a wild edible plant).

I can spot it easily, even when the plant is very tiny. People who are with me often say “How did you see that?”

Here’s a photo of a gigantic patch I found yesterday (not hard to spot):

Studies on autistic people routinely overlook these positive traits, or instead frame them as negative.

That refusal to acknowledge strengths contributes to stigma and creates an inaccurate picture.

“Preventing” autism would prevent people with these qualities from existing.