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Understanding AUTISM

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UNDERSTANDING AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS

Click on Symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorders to get more information about some of the Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The following is a simplified explanation of autism, followed by more detail.  Near the end, I talk about HOW TO OVERCOME AUTISM. I will also talk about my own personal story of growing up Gay and overcoming much of my Autism.  Just know that I finally got there— I learned how to connect with people and make many friends, to find real love, not just people using me, and to find a measure of joy and happiness in life.

AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS

It used to be that people were diagnosed with a specific Syndrome, like:
    □ Asperger Syndrome
    □ High-Functioning Autism
    □ Sensory Processing Disorder (Sensory Integration Dysfunction)
    □ Developmental Coordination Disorder (Developmental Dyspraxia)
    □ Dysgraphia
    □ Dyscalculia
    □ Etc.
However, the check-off list for each Syndrome greatly overlapped with all the others.  So, doctors simply picked the one with the most check marks.  This is why they have all now been combined together as Autism Spectrum Syndromes.  I will explain some of the Autism Spectrum Syndromes in another paper.

The reality is that we are all a mix of Autism Syndromes, with one or two dominant ones, but with other ones also present. If a doctor tells you that have ASPERGER SYNDROME, this is NOT really correct. Asperger may be your dominant Syndrome, but never the only one. I can use myself as an example:

My Autism Spectrum Disorders are in the following list by degree, strongest to weakest:
  1. High-Functioning Autism
  2. Sensory Processing Disorder (Sensory Integration Dysfunction)
  3. Developmental Coordination Disorder (Developmental Dyspraxia)
  4. Asperger Syndrome
  5. Dysgraphia


WHAT EXACTLY IS AUTISM?

Your brain is made up of GRAY MATTER and WHITE MATTER.

AUTISM happens when there are problems with the WHITE MATTER of the brain.

The Gray Matter in your brain is basically like computer chips, hard drives and memory cards.  Your frontal Cortex is like the Mother Board with the Master Chip, and everything feeds into it, like the video camera, display, microphone, etc, and. The Gray Matter is where your thinking, language, motor skills, memory, and all other brain activities take place.

The White Matter in your brain is like all of the Cables & Wires in your Computer, connecting everything together, and connecting it all to your Frontal Cortex, where all of the executive functions take place.

In Autism many of those Cables & Wires are disconnected, or connected to the wrong place. In areas that are well connected, the brain tries to compensate and use those areas more, which is how Autistic people can get better than others at certain things.  Socializing uses every part of your brain at the same time, using more brain power than anything else you ever will do.  This is why Autistics have so much trouble socializing, connecting to people and understanding people.



OFFICE BUILDING ANALOGY

Think of the normal brain as a big corporate office building.  All the different departments such as legal, accounting, advertising, sales, and management offices, are all scattered across different floors of building and different areas of each floor. All of the offices are connected together by Cables & Wires, allowing communication systems such as e-mail, texting, telephones, and fax machines to function.  You can have a conference call with people from every floor of the building, easily.

Now let's look at an Autistic brain. In an Autistic person's brain, some of Cables & Wires are not connected or care connected the wrong way. Some of the phone lines do not work, email and texting is limited to only a couple of sentences at a time, and faxes are hazy and not clear, and no, there is no wireless service available in the brain.  People on the west-end of the 3rd floor can simply quickly get together and talk.  But communicating with the people on the North end takes much more time.  For a meeting, trying to get people together from all the floors would takes hours.  Sending a message to someone on the top floor or the lobby takes a long time. Worse, the messenger might go to the bathroom and accidentally drop the message in the toilet.



HOW FUNCTIONAL IS YOUR BRAIN

How High Functioning or Low Functioning an Autistic person is depends on how many Cables & Wires are disconnected and misconnected.  The great variability in Autistic symptoms depends on which Cables & Wires are disconnected and misconnected. Poor communication between areas of the brain is the cause of uneven skills. People on the Autism spectrum are often very good at one thing and bad at something else. To use the computer cable analogy, the limited number of good Cables & Wires may connect up one area of the brain and leave the other areas with poor connections.

The further away the areas of the brain are, the worse the communication. the Front Lobes of your brain may not do well talking with the Rear Lobes of your brain, and the Right Hemisphere of your brain may not talk well with your Left Hemisphere.  Long distances tend to be problematic.

In Autism, your brain can become very well specialized in certain things, and be very weak in other things.  I am excellent at Problem Solving and have solved problems that no other engineer had been able to solve in a decade.  I graduated number one in my class from the Academy, with a degree in Engineering, but I failed First Grade and was declared Mentally Retarded. In 10th grade, my IQ test put me in the bottom end of intelligence. I got a 4 year Engineering Degree in 3 years.

PLEASE NOTE: You will learn that grades in school and test results have nothing to do with how intelligent you really are. All my life I was called idiot, stupid, retard and moron, yet I did so well that I was able to retire for life at age 34.  It took me until around age 22 to finally recognize what my real talent was. Don't ever believe people who tell you that you are stupid, even Teachers, High School Counselors, or Doctors. It only shows their stupidity. Believe in yourself. I proved every single one of those people wrong.

If certain areas of your brain become specialized, you might be better at things like number crunching, spatial reasoning, problem solving, music, art, etc.  Typically the lower functioning your Autism is, the higher your specialized ability, although this is not always true.  This is because the brain is forced to specialize more in its best areas, when it is unable to connect to other areas of the brain.

Whatever MIX of Autism you have will result in you being BETTER at certain things and WORSE at other things.



SOCIAL INTERACTION

Unfortunately, social skills require more parts of your brain, at the same time, than any other function you can do. Social interaction needs most of the parts of your brain. Socializing requires the most inter-brain communication of all functions possible.

Imagine yourself talking to just one person. A neurotypical person (someone with a typical brain) is processing a great deal during a simple conversation, such as:
    □ Listening to the other person,
    □ Observing that person's facial and body language, the subtle tone and inflection changes in the speech,
    □ Then translate it all,
    □ Then interpret it all,
    □ Then process and analyze what it all means, implications, innuendo, double-meanings, subtle hints, conversational undercurrents, possible joke, humor, sarcasm, pun, etc,
    □ Then project current and future consequences and possibilities,
    □ Then factor-in how this relates to you, your knowledge and your experiences about what is being said, cross-referencing everything being said with all of your memories,
    □ Then factor-in your previous history with person, your relationship with that person, and what you know of that person's personality and their typical conversational patterns and quarks,
    □ Then process possible ways you want to respond,
    □ Then consider the possible consequences of each (Filtering), like will I hurt his feeling, will this just generate anger in him and close him down...
    □ Then choosing a response,
    □ Then translating your thoughts into verbal speech, facial and body language.
Autistic people have trouble doing some of these steps and trouble doing them rapidly enough.  Now imagine doing all of that with four people or ten people in a Group-Conversation.  Not only do you have to process all of those steps with one person, you now have to do it with multiple people, multiple personalities, and consider how everyone is reacting with each other, and the connections between various people in the group, like friendships, ex-friendships, lovers and ex-lovers, animosities, resentments, allies, enemies, etc.  It is something that no super-computer has ever been able to do, even to the 1st level.  

It takes almost every part of your brain, working together, to be able to socialize like this.  This is why those of us with Autism Spectrum Disorders have such a hard time learning to socialize, while other people do it naturally at young ages.



LINEAR THINKING vs INTUITIVE THINKING
VERBAL LOGIC THINKERS, MUSIC & MATH THINKERS, & VISUAL THINKERS


Most people are LINEAR THINKERS, where A leads to B, which leads to C, which leads to D…  Linear people have the pieces of the puzzle all carefully lined up, but because of that, they often are not able to see how the entire puzzle can come together, and ultimately may not be able to solve the puzzle.  They are better at dealing with more linear processes.  Naturally, society tests for that in IQ tests and Multiple Choice tests.

INTUITIVE THINKERS, like me, struggle to grasp A and B, then in a flash, jump to D, then to G…  We can feel confused a lot, because our thoughts are not as ordered as other people.  We have pieces of puzzles floating around, then, suddenly, all of the pieces will come together. Other people may think you are stupid, especially if they never give you the chance to make your Intuitive Jump. At the same time, this has helped me solve problems that no one else could solve, problems of great complexity.



Most people think in a combination of ways, but with one way typically predominates.  Autistic people tend to be more extreme in one way of thinking, to varying degrees.

Brains can be further be specialized in how they think, and this is AMPLIFIED IN AUTISM:

VERBAL LOGIC THINKERS think in word details. They often love history, foreign languages, weather statistics, and stock market reports. As children they often have a vast knowledge of sports scores. They are not visual thinkers and they are often poor at drawing. Children with speech delays are more likely to become visual or music and math thinkers. Many of these individuals had no speech delays, and they became word specialists. These individuals have found successful careers in language translation, journalism, accounting, speech therapy, special education, library work, or financial analysis.

MUSIC & MATH THINKERS think in patterns. These people often excel at math, chess, and computer programming. Some of these individuals see patterns and relationships between patterns and numbers, instead of photographic images. As children, they may play music by ear and be interested in music. Music and math minds often have careers in computer programming, chemistry, statistics, engineering, music, and physics. Written language is not required for pattern thinking. The pre-literate Incas used complex bundles of knotted cords to keep track of taxes, labor, and trading among a thousand people.

[ I tend to be a Pattern oriented person, but not good in music.]

VISUAL THINKERS think in photographically specific images. There are degrees of specificity of visual thinking. They might be able to test-run a machine in their head, with full motion. Non-Autistic visual thinkers can typically only visualize still images. These images may range in specificity from images of specific places to more vague conceptual images. Learning algebra might be extremely difficult, as well as learning a foreign language.

Highly specific visual thinkers may struggle over algebra, but do much better studying more visual forms of math, such as trigonometry or geometry. Children who are visual thinkers will often be good at drawing, other arts, and building things with toy-construction-sets, such as Lego. Many children who are visual thinkers enjoy maps, flags, and photographs. Visual thinkers are well suited to jobs in drafting, graphic design, training animals, auto mechanics, jewelry making, construction, and factory automation.

If you are a visual person, you will probably enjoy this link:
Lord Of The Rings Character Timeline & Star Wars Trilogy simplecomplexity.net/wp-conten…

[ I am more of a visual thinker, allowing me to see mathematical equations into shapes, like a parabola, rotated about an x-axis, then rotated about a y-axis, to produce a donut. Algebra was my most difficult math course, with Trigonometry and Calculus my easiest Math by far. I have a degree in Engineering and had my own Graphic Design Company, and I love building things and crafting things, especially from metal. ]



CONCEPT FORMATION - AUTISTIC CHALLENGE

Autistic People often learn much better when they can see something, or better yet, touch it.  Reading about things is more conceptual, which can be problematic for Autistics.  Instead of reading about how a clock works, we would rather take the  clock apart and see how it works.

All individuals on the Autism Spectrum have difficulties with forming concepts. Example: x = speed of the car, z = unknown.  This is why Algebra was so difficult for me.  Once I grasped that concept, I went from F's & D's, to A's on tests, finishing at a C+, my lowest grade ever in school.  A little help would have had me doing well rapidly.

Conceptual Thinking occurs in the Frontal Cortex of your brain, where 'Executive Functions' take place. Executive Functions cover reasoning, cognitive thought, planning and decision making, projecting future consequences, troubleshooting, impulse control, resisting temptations, overriding automatic responses, error correction, situations requiring sequences of action and non-rehearsed responses, etc.

In normal brains, Computer Cables, from all parts of the brain, converge on the frontal cortex, which is like the Mother Chip of the computer. The frontal cortex integrates information from thinking, emotional, and sensory parts of the brain. For Autistic people, the degree of difficulty in forming concepts is related to the number and type of Computer Cables that are NOT hooked-up.

Categories are the beginning of concept formation. Children with Autism can easily sort objects into categories, such as red or blue, but they have difficulty thinking up new categories for groups of common objects. If you put a variety of common things on a table, such as staplers, pencils, books, an envelope, a clock, hats, golf balls, and a tennis racquet, and asked an individual with autism to pick out objects containing paper, they could do it. However, they often have difficulty when asked to make up new categories. Teachers should work on teaching flexibility of thinking by playing a game where the autistic individual is asked to make up new categories for the objects, like objects containing metal, or objects used in sports. Then the teacher should get the person to explain the reason for putting an object in a specific category.

For those of you with a burning need for the confusing definition of a CONCEPT:
A Concept is a cognitive unit of meaning—an abstract idea or a mental symbol sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other units which act as a concept's characteristics. A concept is typically associated with a corresponding representation in a language or symbology such as a single meaning of a term.
  1. A general notion or idea; conception.
  2. An idea of something formed by mentally combining all its characteristics or particulars; a construct.
  3. A directly conceived  or intuited object of thought.


READING PROBLEMS IN AUTISM

I used to have trouble studying in school.  I would carefully read sentences, but have trouble understanding the meaning.  Normal brains tend to ignore the details, while people on the Autism Spectrum tend to FOCUS ON THE DETAILS instead of LARGER CONCEPTS, like focusing on the words more than the meaning of the entire sentence and paragraph. In High School, I took a special class in Power Reading, which is about improving comprehending what you read, as well as reading faster. It really helped me.

Speed & Power reading involves reading blocks of words at one time and comprehending the meaning of the word group. Think of viewing a digital image. There are millions of pixels that only make sense when they are seen together. In the same way, our brain can comprehend ideas better when it takes in a group of words at one time, rather than one word at a time.

Practice expanding the number of words that you read at a time. You may also find that you can increase the number of words read by holding the text a little further from your eyes. The more words you can read in each block, the faster you will read and more you will comprehend and remember!

With my Autism, I find reading large paragraphs of text extremely difficult.  I have trouble tracking the lines, and keep getting lost, which makes it harder for me comprehend, so I have to break it into manageable chunks. When some young people write to me, it is often in one massive block of text, which I then have to copy-out and then break-up. When I write, I break up my paragraphs frequently, which makes reading easier for everyone. Many people write without thinking of the reader.

If you have difficulty reading, I can send you some hints.



INNOCENCE & NAIVETY IN AUTISM

Most Autistic Kids and Young Adults are much more Innocent and Naive than other people their age.  I was 19 before I even understood what sex was, although I had figured out that I was attracted to boys the way I am supposed to be attracted to girls at ages 11 and 12, and confessed it at age 13.  Even after being raped, I was still was pretty darn innocent and naive, mostly because I did not really fully understand what was happening. I was beaten for 16 years and just assumed it was my fault.

Autistic people can find it hard to understand other people, and often assume others are like them and think as they do.  I assumed everyone else was like me and thought like me.  I would never dream of stealing from someone or lying to someone, and could not understand it when someone did it to me. As a young man, a shipmate accused me of trying to sabotage him, and I could not understand how another person could think such a thing of me, because the thought to do something like that would never occur to me.

I got used and taken advantage of a great deal, but at around age 23, I became determined to understand other people, a journey I am still on. It started to help me in a big way.  But the greater challenge was in understand myself and how Autism was affecting my life, and that it was nothing to be ashamed of.  I hid my Autism for some 40 years of my life. Things are different now.

If you are Autistic, I hope you know there is nothing to feel ashamed of.  We might be challenged in some areas, but we are gifted in other ways. Further, YOU CAN OVERCOME MUCH OF THE NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF YOUR AURISM, as I have.



OVERCOMING AUTISM - NEUROPLASTICITY

The Human Brain has an amazing ability to re-wire itself, as needed.  It is called NEUROPLASTICITY. Basically, if you PUSH your brain again and again to do something, your brain will figure out how to re-wire itself to make it possible.  This is used when a person has had a brain injury.  The brain will form new Neural Pathways and new Neural Connections with repetitive exercise of that function in the brain.

After failing First Grade, the state of Maryland classified me as Mentally Retarded (the term they used then) and I was to be placed in a school for that.  My mother pulled me from the Public School system and had me checked-out by a specialist, who found my Sensory Integration Disorder, which means that my brain is unable to integrate and process my senses.  I have trouble telling cold from wet, my skin is too sensitive, my body is very uncoordinated, and each of my eyes was reading ok, but my brain was no putting them together, so I saw double.

Everyday I had to pace back and forth for hours , on a narrow balance beam. Once a week it was raised higher above the ground, so it would hurt more when I fell off (incentive).  Then I had to start reading letters on flash cards being held at each end, and then eventually words on flash cards.  I was put in a private school for one year, then moved to the west coast, where they skipped me ahead a grade.

I could not talk right, so I was in speech therapy up through 6th grade. I especially had trouble with the letter R.  Go ahead, say it out-loud, and notice what your tongue has to do.  I spent countless hours in front of a mirror practicing.

Up to around age 18, I was socially very far behind everyone else, and I was not understanding the behavior of others, I felt afraid, confused and very lonely. I pushed myself incredibly hard, starting around 5th grade.  Every class was difficult.  I had to study so much more than everyone else that I had no other life.  I also have memory problems.  I now know that it is from being abused.  Long-term abuse causes high levels of Cortisol (Stress hormone) in the blood, which suppresses your Hippocampus, your brain's Memory center. Worse, in kids, it can prevent the Hippocampus from developing, causing permanent brain damage to the Hippocampus. Interestingly, it made me more creative, because I had to work around my lack of memory. I could not remember the formula for the volume of a sphere ( 4/3 πr3), so I used calculus to solve for it each time I needed it.

The more people called me a Retard and Spas, the harder I worked, to the point I was obsessive about it.  I was about age 18 before I started to really explode in development, catching up quickly in many areas. Everything I was bad at, I pushed myself hard to overcome.  When I graduated from the Academy, my family was shocked at the change in me.  I had grown so much as a person that I seemed to be a different person.

But I still had really big challenges.  I could not look a person in the eyes. It was extremely hard for me to introduce myself to others. I avoided parties like the plague, places full of strangers. When one of my partners left me, I tried to kill myself.  It was not so much him as how alone I was, even with him, and I had been living through him and his friends.  My world was at sea.  My shipmates were like family.  I could lead them through emergencies, and even socialize with them, but at home it was very different.
I decided to try to overcome what Autism was doing to me, or die.

I found a GLBTQ Ballroom and C&W dance place where everyone looked like they were having a blast, and I wanted that.  But one of my Spectrum disorders is Sensory Integration Disorder which made dancing pretty much impossible.  I tell my left foot to move forward and my right foot will go backward, lol. I could not evener the beat in the music, and how was I going to ask a person to dance?

First, I made a quota for myself to introduce myself to one stranger a night. It took almost a month to do the first one. Then I just kept pushing myself to do it. I started making friends within weeks. It was really hard at first, but I made a deal with myself to be completely open and honest with people, and people responded to it. A year later I was part of a very large social group. 5 years later, in a University of Washington survey of the Seattle Gay male community, I was nominated by over 50 men as their community leader and most trusted person, which was shocking to me.

I made another quota for myself at the beginning, to ask one complete stranger to dance each night.  This was the most difficult thing ever, because I sucked at dancing. But I did it.  The incredible part is that soon people were waiting to dance with me, even though I totally sucked at dancing.

I started taking dance lessons 4 nights a week and went 6 nights a week. It was UGLY, LOL.  I just kept at it, and the other people dancing with me were incredibly patient and forgiving.  Then it all started working out and I got better and better.  I then decided to learn Leading and Following, both positions, since I like to be flexible and I like the challenge. Eventually I became a dance teacher.

My NEUROLOGIST said that it was amazing how my brain had literally rewired itself to allow me to dance. I could not even run fast without my legs getting tangled up. I was doing exhibition dances now.  He is the one who first explained Neuroplasticity to me.



USE IT OR LOSE IT

The very best time to PUSH your body and brain to do the things you have the most difficulty doing, is when your brain is developing.  Your brain does not finish developing until around age 25.  Also, all through your Teen years and early 20s, the Gray Matter in your brain is being PRUNED, discarded.   It is how your brain tries to increase efficiency.  If you do not use it, it is punned out.  Basically, You Use It Or Lose It.

Recent research has found that the greatest development of the brain's Frontal Cortex actually takes place from around age 18 to age 25.  This is important because it means that final development of all of your higher executive functions finish developing after age 18.  Sleep deprivation is seen as a major detriment to this final development, and it is recommended that you get at least 9 hours of sleep per day during this period, as well as during your teen years. Large amounts of Alcohol inhibits brain development.

Also, the Cerebellum, in the back of the brain, is also finishing development at around age 25.  One analogy that computer people use is that the cerebellum is like a math co-processor. The more complicated the activity, the more we call upon the Cerebellum to help us solve the problem. And so almost anything that one can think of as higher thought—mathematics, music, philosophy, decision making, social skills—seems to draw upon the Cerebellum.



CONCLUSION

Being Aggressive and Pushing Yourself Hard, combined with Patience, can OVERCOME much of Autism's Limitations to your life.

If you want something badly in your life, then GO FOR IT. If you are lonely and want friends, or want to find a partner in life, then push yourself to do it.  I know exactly how hard it can be to go up to a stranger and introduce yourself, especially if he or she is cute.  It is a matter of building your courage, getting determined to do it, then persist at it until you succeed.

Autism can be a Disability, or a GIFT—it is what You make of it. Autism has thrown a lot of challenges my way, but I am glad of it, because I am a much better man for it. Just like I am proud of being Gay, I am also proud to be Autistic, because it is part of who I am, and like being Gay, it has its challenges and its rewards. Being Gay and being Autistic have helped form me into who I am, and I happen to like who I am.  I hope you like who you are too.

Matthew



©Matthew Barry 2011, 2014, 2017

Please be sure to also read: Symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorders


I want you all to know that you can OVERCOME any of your Autistic Challenges (at least mostly). Your brain can rewire itself around the problem areas.


I am an Autistic and Gay Man. I wrote this for those of you who are in the AUTISTIC SPECTRUM to help you understand what Autism Spectrum Disorders are all about, and how all of you can overcome the challenges that come from being Autistic.

I went from being fairly low functioning to a point where no one has ever guessed that I am Autistic. Professionally, I did so well that I was able to retire for life at age 34. I was able to overcome my social problems and become the center of a large social circle with my freinds and going dancing 5 nights a week.

With my kind of Autism, ballroom dancing was supposed to be impossible, and it was a big challenge, but I stuck with it and pushed my brain hard. I had very little progress for many months, then suddenly I started getting better rapidly. I then went on to learn both leading and following of many dances, like Two-step, Waltz, West Coast Swing, Tango, Rhumba, Foxtrot, Swing, Bolero, Mambo, Samba, & Cha-cha. Then I started teaching dance.

My neurologist said that I had literally rewired my brain to be able to dance. This is called NEUROPLASTICITY. I had been doing this all my life, PUSHING myself through my Autistic challenges, of coordination, speech, learning, socializing, dancing and more. When you challenge and push your brain to do a task, and you do so with determination and persistence, your brain responds by either improving neural connections or creating new routs and pathways to make it happen.


If you are both Autistic and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, or Questing, please visit: :iconglbtq-with-autism: GLBTQ-with-Autism Club, which is a DA Club for Autistic Artists at DA, who are Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning.

The 3rd deviation in the series will by my own personal account of growing up Gay and Autistic, then overcoming the challenges they brought as an adult, and overcoming the limitations that Autism had on my life.

I thank the founder of the Club :iconskellingtonghost: for extending himself to found the club and create a place of support and information for those of us who share these common threads.

All The Best...

Matthew
© 2011 - 2024 inspiredcreativity
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Herowebcomics's avatar
This is an insperational story!
...Except for the homosexual parts.