[HN Gopher] Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took d...
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Identical twins both grew up with autism, but took different paths
Author : chapulin
Score : 251 points
Date : 2024-04-13 05:00 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| hiciu wrote:
| > identical twins at opposite ends of the autism spectrum.
|
| I understand this is just a figure of speech, but this wording
| suggests that there are "two ends" of the spectrum and (as I
| understand it) autistic communities are trying to fight that
| myth.
| kthartic wrote:
| As a laymen, isn't the spectrum just 'less autistic tendencies'
| and 'more autistic tendencies'? Is this a myth, or does the
| spectrum refer to something else? I was always under the
| impression that some people could be more autistic than others.
| __s wrote:
| There are multiple dimensions
|
| https://getgoally.com/blog/autism-spectrum-wheel
|
| Along with many comorbidities (adhd, ocd, depression, etc)
| which are more likely but not requisite
|
| This leads to the saying "if you've met one person with
| autism, you've met one person with autism"
| posix_compliant wrote:
| Then the spectrum would refer to the magnitude of any
| vector in multidimensional "autism space".
| __s wrote:
| Sure, but saying two people are the same magnitude is
| very different from saying they have the same level of
| touch sensitivity
|
| Two complex numbers can have the same magnitude & be very
| far apart. Assuming we stick to the positive/positive
| quadrant it's not so bad. This metaphor _(which, the
| spectrum itself is a metaphor, making this a metaphor of
| a metaphor)_ is to a 2d space tho, complex numbers are
| much more comparable based on magnitude as a result
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Two complex numbers can have the same magnitude & be
| very far apart.
|
| Only if their magnitude is large; the maximum possible
| distance between two complex numbers of equal magnitude
| is double that magnitude.
|
| And this limit is independent of the number of dimensions
| in the space you're working in; no two equal-magnitude
| vectors are ever farther apart than opposite vectors are.
|
| If you stick to the first quadrant / octant / whatever
| n-dimensional division of space where all coordinates are
| positive... I don't think the number of dimensions makes
| any difference there either? Any two vectors define a
| plane (or a line, or, if they're both zero, a point), so
| two vectors in a 500-dimensional space can't be farther
| apart from each other than is possible for two vectors in
| a 2-dimensional space. Those 500-dimensional vectors are
| already embedded in a 2-dimensional space.
| Tarq0n wrote:
| The question is whether each dimension is equally
| clinically significant, or equally impactful to quality
| of life. Talking about magnitude is definitely taking the
| analogy too far, as temping as it is.
| kenjackson wrote:
| I think the point is that the magnitude being the same
| doesn't necessarily mean their distance is zero. I think
| the rest isn't relevant.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| "very far" is of course relative: if we have tree
| vectors, two of length R and one of length 0.99*R, it's
| not outlandish to call the distance 2R between the two
| vectors of equal magnitude "very large" compared to the
| distance 0.01R between two vectors of dissimilar
| magnitude.
|
| Your last comment is completely incorrect, for a point at
| (1,1,1,....) each extra dimension adds a constant 1 to
| the euclidean distance, so that in 500 dimensions a point
| at (1,1,1,....) is around 22.4 units away from the
| origin, while in two dimensions it is only 1.4 units away
| from the origin.
| __s wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwAD6dRSVyI 3Blue1Brown
| on visualizing higher dimensions explains it well
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Your last comment is completely incorrect
|
| How so? Your followup makes no sense.
|
| > for a point at (1,1,1,....) each extra dimension adds a
| constant 1 to the euclidean distance, so that in 500
| dimensions a point at (1,1,1,....) is around 22.4 units
| away from the origin, while in two dimensions it is only
| 1.4 units away from the origin.
|
| You're comparing vectors of different magnitudes. You
| could equally object that (200, 0) is much farther away
| from the origin than (2, 0) is. That's true, but so what?
| You're still in a two-dimensional space.
|
| Are you under the impression that the "magnitude" of a
| vector and its "distance from the origin" are separate
| concepts? They aren't.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Consider simple two-dimensional space. A point at (1,0)
| is 1 unit away from the origin, as is a point at (0,1).
| But a point at (1,1) is approximately 1.4 away from the
| origin, i.e. sqrt(1^2 + 1^2). See Pythagorean theorem.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Yes, what's your point? Vectors with larger magnitudes
| have larger magnitudes than vectors with smaller
| magnitudes do?
|
| If you're going to defend the idea that something I said
| was incorrect, maybe you should have some idea of what it
| was?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| You keep referring to the magnitude of the vector itself
| rather than the magnitude of its components.
|
| > Vectors with larger magnitudes have larger magnitudes
| than vectors with smaller magnitudes do?
|
| Vectors with more dimensions have larger magnitudes than
| vectors with fewer components, for the same average
| magnitude of the components. The distance between the
| origin and (1,1) is less than the distance between the
| origin and (1,1,1) even though the components in both
| cases all have magnitude 1.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| I think their point boils down to the fact that you can
| _require_ that all vectors have the same magnitude,
| irrespective of the dimensionality of the space, which is
| of course true.
|
| The next step is them doing a black knight and pretending
| they didn't put in the requirement by hand.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Here's what you said:
|
| > Your last comment is completely incorrect, [random
| gibberish]
|
| Here's what you were referring to:
|
| >> If you stick to the first quadrant / octant / whatever
| n-dimensional division of space where all coordinates are
| positive... I don't think the number of dimensions makes
| any difference there either? Any two vectors define a
| plane (or a line, or, if they're both zero, a point), so
| two vectors in a 500-dimensional space can't be farther
| apart from each other than is possible for two vectors in
| a 2-dimensional space. Those 500-dimensional vectors are
| already embedded in a 2-dimensional space.
|
| All of those statements are, obviously, true. What did
| you think was incorrect?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Vectors with more dimensions have larger magnitudes
| than vectors with fewer components, for the same average
| magnitude of the components.
|
| Is this related to something that's been said so far?
|
| >> [sidethread] The next step is them doing a black
| knight and pretending they didn't put in the requirement
| by hand.
|
| Obviously, I didn't. It was already there before I made
| my first comment. Look up:
|
| >>> Two complex numbers can have the same magnitude & be
| very far apart.
|
| The only thing we've ever been discussing is what can
| happen between vectors of the same magnitude. But if you
| want to discuss what can happen between vectors of
| different magnitudes... everything I said is still true!
| It's easy to construct low-dimensional vectors with high
| magnitudes, and in fact the construction that I _already
| gave_ , of interpreting large vectors within a space
| defined partially by themselves, will do the job.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Is this related to something that's been said so far?
|
| Are you considering what all of this is supposed to be an
| analogy for?
|
| Suppose autism has different components, something like
| this:
|
| https://getgoally.com/blog/autism-spectrum-wheel/
|
| You rate someone on each factor using the same scale,
| e.g. a real number from 0 to 1, or a scale of 1 to 10.
| The scale is arbitrary but consistent.
|
| Then someone whose "average" rating is 0.5 on a scale of
| 0 to 1 can be farther away from someone else whose
| "average" rating is 0.5 when there are more factors. On a
| linear scale two people both at 0.5 have distance zero.
| On a two dimensional scale, you could have one at (0, 1)
| and one at (1, 0) and then each of their averages is
| still 0.5 but their distance is ~1.4.
|
| That's what we're talking about.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| That name would make for a really interesting bar.
| bitwize wrote:
| Kinda like how color spectra have multiple dimensions as
| well: RGB, HSV, YCbCr, etc.
| card_zero wrote:
| Well color spaces, not spectra, _technically._ Brown isn
| 't in the spectrum.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > "if you've met one person with autism, you've met one
| person with autism"
|
| Isn't this true for just about any condition? It's not like
| people with ADHD or depression all behave exactly the same.
| I understand the urge to avoid categorizing people too
| broadly, but at the same time making the "taxonomy" of a
| condition hyperspecific is contradictory to having the
| label in the first place.
|
| If saying "I have autism" has no descriptive power because
| this could mean a million different things, it seems like
| the term needs to be retired or narrowed to a specific set
| of behaviors/challenges.
| crisply5706 wrote:
| Keep in mind that the current state of our knowledge of
| autism and other neurological conditions is still
| extremely new. Just 30 years ago, you would have been
| told that only young white boys exhibit autism.
|
| There is debate within the autism community about
| ditching the catch-all term "autism", but I don't expect
| it to go anywhere. Broad labels like that are useful. I
| can tell a random person that I'm autistic and they
| generally understand that my "abnormal" behavior is
| innocuous. It's less useful to give a stranger a 30
| minute lecture on my individual needs and challenges.
|
| Read up on the controversy around asperger's and the
| "high/low functioning" dichotomy. These were standard
| measures for a long time and have only been dropped in
| the last ten years or so.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I've heard it used exactly that way for ADHD.
|
| But more widely, there's a bunch of conditions of varying
| severity that might be caused by being in a car crash.
| That doesn't make "I was in a car crash" a bad answer to
| "what happened to your leg/eye/speech", it's just a fact.
| hiciu wrote:
| That's exactly the issue, it is not as simple as "less" or
| "more" "autistic". I don't think I'll be able to explain it
| properly with my own words using english, sorry.
|
| I'll just quote nih.gov:
|
| > Autism is known as a "spectrum" disorder because there is
| wide variation in the type and severity of symptoms people
| experience.
|
| and wikipedia:
|
| > Autism is clinically regarded as a spectrum disorder,
| meaning that it can manifest very differently in each person.
| For example, some are nonspeaking, while others have
| proficient spoken language. Because of this, there is wide
| variation in the support needs of people across the autism
| spectrum.
|
| and maybe take a look at this list:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_disorder#Types_of_spe.
| ..
| kthartic wrote:
| I see, wikipedia's definition is quite informative here.
| Thanks
| astura wrote:
| I mean... that's literally the definition of "spectrum"
|
| From a few random dictionaries:
|
| >2. used to classify something, or suggest that it can be
| classified, in terms of its position on a scale between two
| extreme or opposite points.
|
| >a range of different positions, opinions, etc. between two
| extreme points
|
| ?????
| burkaman wrote:
| That is what spectrum means, and some autistic people say the
| word is not applicable to the concept of autism.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Yes, that's true from the dictionary and the article is one
| place where its use makes sense. However, usually people say
| "on the spectrum" to mean someone is a high functioning
| autistic. That is something that isn't a helpful definition.
| quickslowdown wrote:
| This has always driven me nuts. We're ALL "on the
| spectrum," if you just stop and think for a moment before
| saying it. That's what a spectrum is.
| crisply5706 wrote:
| https://getgoally.com/blog/autism-spectrum-wheel
|
| The naive assumption is the spectrum is a binary more/less
| autistic. It very much is not.
| plorg wrote:
| If you tried to quantify different people's experience of
| autism you could maybe compare people by the amplitude of
| their symptoms (say a maximum or average), but you'd get a
| much better idea of the range of experiences with something
| like a Fourier transform. Imagine different symptoms are
| different wavelengths of light. Different people experience
| certain elements of the constellation of symptoms that we can
| "autism" to different degrees. And the goal is not really to
| get anyone to be "less autistic", but to help them live in
| society (or to build a society that allows them to better
| join in).
| atombender wrote:
| The medical use of the word "spectrum" doesn't always
| describe a continuum, but classification criteria along
| multiple dimensions. Autism is no longer considered a
| "position on a scale".
| quickslowdown wrote:
| Yeah, I would read this and assume the 2 ends of the spectrum
| are "autistic and not-autistic," considering what the word
| "spectrum" means.
| ordu wrote:
| "autistic and not-autistic" is not a spectrum, it can be
| described as a scalar value. A spectrum appears when you have
| many values (maybe continuum) with different values.
| Frequency spectrum is a good example: it shows you a lot of
| frequencies that intermixed in a signal.
| Anotheroneagain wrote:
| Please stop spreading such lies, if anything, they don't like
| being grouped together with obviously disabled people.
| imtringued wrote:
| Have they actually sequenced their genes and compared them? If
| there is a genetic explanation, then any mutations or replication
| errors during pregnancy would end up screaming into your face
| once you do the comparison.
| ipnon wrote:
| They divided from the same oocyte, they have identical genomes.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| Not strictly true. Mutations happen and when they happen
| early, they can affect a large percentage of the cells in the
| body.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| I agree, as an identical twin (partially _inversus situ_ )
| -- some examples: opposite hand-dominance; our optical Rx
| was once _exactly opposite_ ; intro/extro -version;
| engineer/stoner; life outlook/perspective.
|
| We have taken completely different life pathways, and yet
| still enjoy each others' company. Knowing that I will
| precede as "Algernon" from "Flowers for..." makes me
| immensely sad for "Charlie" [Twin].
| drooby wrote:
| This seems to bolster the theory that autism is modulated by the
| gut-brain axis. Being given antibiotics at such an early age will
| probably severely dysregulation gut microbiota. And GABA actually
| does cross the BBB but in small amounts. Perhaps at such an early
| age, dysregulation in GABA produced in the gut has significant
| effects on brain health - over stimulation, learning memory
| issues, etc.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Reading the article, it turns out the one twin who is "more
| autistic" had a hole in his heart that surgery had to correct.
| So I suspect the actual issue here is something simpler like a
| difference in brain development because of the difference in
| the amount of blood flow.
| eutropia wrote:
| Isn't it common to be given a lot of antibiotics when you get
| a surgery?
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| It is.
| boringg wrote:
| I think blood flow to the brain >> impacts of antibiotics
| is the likely order of magnitude of impact - though tough
| to tell.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| A friend underwent operation of his aorta. Post-surgery
| inflammation is an absolutely common complication and they
| dumped a lot of antibiotics into him precisely to reduce
| the risk. (If I understand correctly, it wouldn't be
| probably fatal, but very, very unpleasant.)
| idontknowifican wrote:
| a lot and a heart artery drip for 30 days are orders of
| magnitude different in quantity
| jejeyyy77 wrote:
| correlation causation
| Retric wrote:
| I had a fairly significant surgery at a premiere US
| hospital including several days of recovery in the hospital
| and didn't get any antibiotics after the fact. They could
| have injected me with something during the actual surgery,
| but it didn't show up on the bill.
|
| I think this may be specific to Heart surgery.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I was given prophylactic antibiotics for prostate
| surgery. It might depend on the surgeon.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Whenever I had (minor) surgery in France, I was given
| antibiotics "as a shield". I obviously do not know if this
| helped or not.
|
| Now, French doctors were always very quick to prescribe
| antibiotics (as a kid I had plenty of them) and it took
| quite a lot of effort to change their(and parent's) mind.
| My children got much less, though they were almost never
| checked for virus vs bacterial infection.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| That's possible but he did get crazy antibiotics as well.
|
| FTA: "The infection was from drug-resistant staph bacteria.
| So John went back to the hospital and spent a month on
| powerful antibiotics pumped directly into a vein near his
| heart."
| scottlamb wrote:
| ...or just being in the hospital environment for a month.
| The older theory they mentioned here:
|
| > "The earliest twin studies really helped to debunk this
| theory that autism was caused by parenting," Morris says.
| Under this theory, moms took the brunt of the blame,
| supposedly for being "cold and distant and detached from
| their child."
|
| ...might not be _entirely_ wrong. They 've since shown
| genetics is a factor, and I'll ignore the institutionalized
| misogyny part, but being in a hospital for a month probably
| did mean having much less parent/care-giver
| interaction/touch during a critical period, and who knows
| how much of an effect that could have.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| This has been studied a lot in child welfare and is not
| currently believed, afaik. The diagnosis of reactive
| attachment disorder is acknowledged to have many
| overlapping symptoms with autism, but expressly
| differentiated as a condition.
| jrsdav wrote:
| > Under this theory, moms took the brunt of the blame,
| supposedly for being "cold and distant and detached from
| their child."
|
| Before the heredity nature of autism was accepted, this
| was the school of thought ("refrigerator mothers"). But
| in truth, it's neurodivergent parents having
| neurodivergent children, and society punishing the
| parents (namely mothers) for their inability at providing
| the "expected" nurturing conditions.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Tied back, atypical behavior.may create neurodivergent
| conditions, but one would expect children of aurististics
| to seek less overall care which doesnt support the
| hypitheses that antibiotics are causing aitism as this
| thrwad started
| crisply5706 wrote:
| My theory is that this causation is flipped. Something about
| whatever the precursor to autism is causes the body to
| experience more physical failures or malformed structures.
|
| Something like whatever mechanisms decode structure from the
| genome are faulty and produce slightly wrong structures
| throughout the brain and body.
|
| Anecdotally, I see a higher rate of general illness and
| physical birth defects in autistic people.
| empressplay wrote:
| There appears to be some correlation between Ehlers-Danlos
| Syndrome and autism
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7711487/
|
| It makes a certain amount of sense that a collagen /
| connective tissue disorder is going to have wide-ranging
| effects, including the nervous system
| ejstronge wrote:
| Another way to think of this is that 'autism' is a broad
| series of disorders where individuals do not follow the
| social-relational cues we expect. There are many ways to
| violate unspoken social expectations, so there should be
| many ways to be autistic.
|
| In this setting, it's not unreasonable that any genetic
| syndrome would be more associated with autism; indeed,
| it's more interesting to find lesions that have a lower
| proportion of autistic carriers compared to the general
| population.
| b800h wrote:
| Wow, I'm hypermobile and my sons have what appears to be
| mild autism (see my other comment above). Yet more to
| unpick!
| notamy wrote:
| There's a correlation between autism and mitochondrial
| dysfunction:
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/mp2010136
|
| > _Most ASD /MD cases (79%) were not associated with
| genetic abnormalities, raising the possibility of secondary
| mitochondrial dysfunction. Treatment studies for ASD/MD
| were limited, although improvements were noted in some
| studies with carnitine, co-enzyme Q10 and B-vitamins. Many
| studies suffered from limitations, including small sample
| sizes, referral or publication biases, and variability in
| protocols for selecting children for MD workup, collecting
| mitochondrial biomarkers and defining MD. Overall, this
| evidence supports the notion that mitochondrial dysfunction
| is associated with ASD. Additional studies are needed to
| further define the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in
| ASD._
| b800h wrote:
| FWIW, I have identical twin sons who probably have mild
| autism. One had an umbilical hernia like the lad in the
| story. They both had a couple of other small developmental
| anomalies. But they were both slightly premature (like most
| twins) and shared a womb. So what's the driver here? One of
| the above, or possibly the hormones which they were
| (incorrectly) given to promote lung function? There's a lot
| to unpick.
| bitwize wrote:
| This is Hackernews, where all major health issues are
| traceable to the gut.
| adolph wrote:
| Does that include mouth/teeth/saliva as part of the
| extended gut or are you talking stomach down?
| verall wrote:
| All of them and also seed oils.
|
| (I hope noone is taking this seriously..)
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Being given antibiotics at such an early age will probably
| severely dysregulation gut microbiota.
|
| It's extremely common for young kids to receive antibiotics. In
| some countries, antibiotics are over the counter and many
| parents will give their kids antibiotics for nearly any
| infection. Antibiotic misuse is rampant in some countries where
| they aren't gated behind prescriptions.
|
| Any such link with autism would therefore be an extremely rare
| side effect. The rate of antibiotic use in children is far
| higher than the rate of autism.
|
| I don't think this case supports the antibiotic theory by
| itself at all. I think it's confirmation bias because
| antibiotics are one of the current trending theories among
| mainstream discussion.
| tomstoms wrote:
| <<So John went back to the hospital and spent a month on
| powerful antibiotics pumped directly into a vein near his
| heart.>>
|
| This is not <<extremely common>>.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Sure, but if you want to water the claim down to the idea
| that only extreme doses of antibiotics have noticeable
| effect sizes then its not a relevant claim to 99.99% of the
| population.
| Aurornis wrote:
| No it is not, but ignoring the part about the severe
| infection require extended hospitalization and trying to
| reduce it all to "antibiotics" is extremely disingenuous.
|
| Given that antibiotics are common but extreme infections
| and extended hospitalizations are not, why would anyone
| focus on the antibiotics as the root cause?
|
| Not all antibiotics are created equal nor do they affect
| gut bacteria the same. There isn't a singular scale for
| antibiotic power. Often, antibiotics are given via vein
| because they aren't absorbed from the gastrointestinal
| tract, for example. This doesn't tell us anything about the
| magnitude of impact on gut bacteria relative to an
| antibiotic that actually starts its journey in your gut.
|
| This is a complicated case. Reducing the entire complicated
| episode to "it was the antibiotics" is extremely
| reductionist.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Antibiotics refer to a group of drugs. Eating food from the
| supermarket will expose a child to antibiotics. Different
| classes of antibiotics have a lifelong effects while common
| ones are quickier to recover from.
| cma wrote:
| Wouldn't we see much lower rates in Christian Scientists?
| brightball wrote:
| Why would that correlate?
| cma wrote:
| > Christian Scientists avoid almost all medical treatment,
| relying instead on Christian Science prayer.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science#Healing_pra
| c...
| adolph wrote:
| Hmm, on the other hand, using religion for medicine might
| also be a confounding factor due to less diagnosis.
| brightball wrote:
| Have literally never heard of that. Is there any area
| where this is prominent?
| j45 wrote:
| It's possible but there was no explicit mention of this other
| than one receiving treatment they couldn't avoid.
| jjallen wrote:
| Isn't autism much older than antibiotics? I mean it couldn't be
| - I haven't actually researched it but I'm pretty sure autism
| is older than antibiotics.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Severity can be modulated by the environment, it's not that
| autism didn't exist it but we can say for sure that
| antibiotics didn't make anyone worse before it was invented.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Pretty sure what is being asserted is that gut bacteria may
| influence brain function and antibiotics can have influence
| on gut bacteria. Those are both complex systems, so there
| could be many other factors as well as wide variations.
| novia wrote:
| The gut microbiota shouldn't be affected by antibiotics
| delivered via IV.
| drooby wrote:
| This source says otherwise:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9896080/
| fellowmartian wrote:
| Persistent neuroinflammation seems to be a more likely cause.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| Not really.
|
| "The infection was from drug-resistant staph bacteria. So John
| went back to the hospital and spent a month on powerful
| antibiotics pumped directly into a vein near his heart."
|
| There are so many confounding factors here. Could be no
| connection to the episode whatever. Could be that the infection
| that required the antibiotics contributed to the autism. Could
| be the antibiotics contributed directly. Could be the overall
| trauma of the surgery, treatment and recovery.
|
| Seems like the gut thing is the least likely culprit and
| requires quite a lot of creativity to even consider it.
| iamleppert wrote:
| They are not identical. Both born with different physical
| problems. How do you call that identical?
| apothegm wrote:
| Twins can be born with the same genes (because they originated
| as a single embryo that split), or with different genes (they
| originated as two separately fertilized embryos). The former
| are considered identical twins even if you can tell them apart.
| They're genetically identical, which scientists find useful in
| teasing out nature vs. nurture hypotheses. They especially like
| to compare them against twins with different genes -- who are
| called fraternal twins even if you can't tell them apart.
| iamleppert wrote:
| Isn't it obvious they aren't physically identical? They have
| the same genes but are not identical!
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| The term is being used in reference to their genes, not
| their appearance.
| INTPenis wrote:
| I'll mirror what someone else said, have they actually
| sequenced them? Clearly a lot of changes happened at a
| very early state, mutations, so why should we expect
| their genetic makeup to be identical?
| adolph wrote:
| Also:
|
| _In animals and human chimeras, this means an individual
| derived from two or more zygotes, which can include
| possessing blood cells of different blood types, and
| subtle variations in form (phenotype)._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics)
|
| _For example, in 2002, news outlets reported the story
| of a woman named Karen Keegan, who needed a kidney
| transplant and underwent genetic testing along with her
| family, to see if a family member could donate one to
| her. But the tests suggested that genetically, Keegan
| could not be the mother of her sons. The mystery was
| solved when doctors discovered that Keegan was a chimera
| --she had a different set of DNA in her blood cells
| compared to the other tissues in her body._
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/3-human-
| chimeras-...
| abejfehr wrote:
| it's almost certainly not identical now, it just used to
| be at conception
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| "Identical twins" is not a description of the twins
| character, specific physical features, behaviour,
| nurturing. Instead, 'identical twins' is a noun-phrase
| meaning two children from a single zygote, ie
| 'monozygotic'.
|
| It does not mean "twins who are literally identical";
| though you could think of it as twins who are genetically
| indistinct.
|
| I'm a physicist with no biology qualifications, but it just
| sounded to me like you may have misunderstood the
| linguistic meaning. Apologies if I was wrong about that.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| identical means genetically identical.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Well, aside from somatic mutations arising during
| development.
| mkl wrote:
| https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_twins
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Wasn't there a theory that autism was affected by ultrasounds
| during pregnancy?
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| Wouldn't everyone be autistic by now?
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Affected by != Cause
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| On the Internet it increasingly feels like that...
|
| (...yeahyeah, selection bias, etc)
| nradov wrote:
| There was never such a _theory_. At one point a few researchers
| had a _hypothesis_ that fetal ultrasounds might cause autism,
| however multiple studies have failed to turn up any causative
| relationship.
|
| https://doi.org/10.1111/ppe.12998
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Thank you for the clarification!
| reilly3000 wrote:
| It's strongly correlated with genetics down to a handful of
| SNPs. There is also a lot of evidence to suggest physiological
| differences in amygdala mass as well as hormone production. No
| exterior factor has been proven. No scapegoat is needed either,
| autists tend to like who they are and have unique and important
| value.
| sentfromrevolut wrote:
| Average age of death for autists is 34 due to 14x suicide
| rate. They tend to like who they are is that right? You are
| talking out of your arse mate. Even a child who has
| researched these numbers for 5 minutes knows its
| environmentally caused i.e a poisoning equivalent and can not
| be explained by genetics.
| swayvil wrote:
| The autist focuses. Concentrates. Invests his entire attention in
| a particular sliver of the experiential buffet. That's autism.
|
| If it's a useful sliver then there you go.
| strogonoff wrote:
| I have not seen a better description of what autism might be
| like at a higher (or lower, depending on whether one's
| metaphysics align with materialism or not) level than
| "investing entire attention in a particular sliver of the
| experiential buffet".
|
| Amazing at maths but can't keep a conversation, holed up at
| home working out like a maniac all the time, musical genius but
| incapable in daily life[0]--everyone probably knows one or more
| of such people, especially earlier in life. Is that another
| side of the same coin? Is it only when this sliver's
| intersection with the multi-dimensional space of social-
| cultural norms is insufficient that other people tend to get
| weirded out?
|
| [0] These are only some examples, I am sure there are many
| other ways it can manifest that are familiar to us but were not
| really thought of as a byproduct of autism. And, of course,
| some of these can be caused by other factors (e.g., the working
| out example could be a symptom of body dysmorphia).
| jawns wrote:
| That's one type of autism. The reason it's now called Autism
| Spectrum Disorder is because there are many very different
| manifestations, not all of which involve hyperfixation.
| sctb wrote:
| It's not hyperfixation exactly, but a requirement for an ASD
| diagnosis is some forms of "Restricted, repetitive patterns
| of behavior, interests, or activities" (from the DSM-V).
| peterkelly wrote:
| This is one of four criteria listed in section B, which
| only requires two to be present. See
| https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html
|
| So it's still possible to receive a diagnosis if you don't
| have hyperfixation but have two or more of the other
| section B criteria.
| drooby wrote:
| It's so interesting to see the differences in their faces.
|
| I can tell from the folds and wrinkles on Sam's face that he
| engages in more neurotypical communication.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Sam also now has thinner hair than John. Stress of college,
| different diet, something else?
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Autistic individuals often have differences in muscle tone and
| hypermobile joints
| fragmede wrote:
| there's a link to Ehlers-Danlos syndrom (EDS) there as well
| enl
| GordonS wrote:
| I don't know that we can generalise this though - some people
| mask their autism very well, sometimes without even knowing
| that's what they're doing.
| quickslowdown wrote:
| I don't have much on the way of valuable insights or conversation
| starters, I just think this story is sweet and these 2 brothers
| obviously love the hell out of each other, made me happy to read
| :)
| vladgur wrote:
| Thanks for saying that.
|
| Reading your comment made me actually want to read the article
| in question and I am super glad I did.
|
| Emotionally, probably a best reminder of familial love in a
| world filled with indifference and often hate
| scottlamb wrote:
| This is driving me oddly nuts:
|
| > "I think there's an understanding that 'My twin isn't quite as
| capable of communicating in the way that they need to, so I'll
| help them with that,'" she says.
|
| > That description fits Sam and John.
|
| > When asked to name his favorite episode of Sesame Street, John
| blurts out a series of words: "Abby makes the seasons change."
| Sam understands immediately and quickly steps in to explain.
|
| > "There's an episode with Abby Cadabby, Rosita and Zoe, where
| they dance around with the seasons changing," Sam says. "I think
| that's the one he's referring to."
|
| I know that episode. It's actually called "Abby Makes Seasons
| Change", [1] so that "series of words" is the direct answer to
| the question. The point is probably true in general, but the
| example sucks.
|
| [1] https://www.sesamestreetguide.com/2020/02/sesame-street-
| epis...
| 1231232131231 wrote:
| Wow, great find. That's pretty unfair.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Nice. Even without that being the episode name, it's one word
| away from being a more understandable answer - "When Abby makes
| the seasons change". Not exactly word salad.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| How so? It's a perfectly valid and complete English sentence
| either way.
| ejstronge wrote:
| > I know that episode. It's actually called "Abby Makes Season
| Change", [1] so that "series of words" is the direct answer to
| the question. The point is probably true in general, but the
| example sucks.
|
| Are the episode names of Sesame Street displayed in the
| episode?
| scottlamb wrote:
| Not sure, but they're displayed in the episode
| gallery/chooser/menu in the PBS Kids app that a lot of people
| use to watch them.
| gregates wrote:
| My daughter and I happen to have just watched this episode, and
| after reading the article I came back to make this exact same
| comment. You beat me to it!
|
| It's unintentionally a really great example of failure to
| communicate caused by assumptions one makes about the person
| one's talking to.
| OJFord wrote:
| Devil's advocate: it is characteristically autistic to have
| episode names memorised like that, and it sort of is 'blurting
| out a series of words' if you don't know that's what it is; a
| more 'normal' answer might be more like a description of the
| episode or 'the one called [...]'. I think perhaps you can see
| that in Sam's assistance, he doesn't know the episode names,
| possibly he knows or expects that _is_ an episode name, and is
| describing one he remembers that it probably names.
|
| I don't think there were necessarily saying that John just said
| a load of nonsense that didn't answer the question, just that
| it needed a bit of deciphering; that Sam helped explain what he
| meant to a non-fan.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Is that autistic, or is that just normal for someone who
| _cares_ , and who actually _has_ a favorite episode? I can 't
| imagine not picking up the title after watching an episode a
| few times.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| It's definitely autistic to name drop the title to an
| audience of adults who likely don't remember anything about
| Sesame Street and being too literal. It shows the
| difference in cognitive ability between the brothers pretty
| well. The brother who seems to be doing better in daily
| life has a pretty good idea of what kind of answer a random
| person would expect.
| andoryuu wrote:
| > When asked to name his favorite episode
|
| > It's definitely autistic to name drop the title to an
| audience of adults who likely don't remember
|
| If someone asks me to name an episode I'll assume they
| know the show, and that the name is sufficient. Because
| they asked for only that. Why can questions have an
| implicit "and tell me about it", but the answers cannot
| have an implicit "I assume you know which one it is"?
| dmurray wrote:
| You might be more likely to pick up on some context clues
| that this is an NPR reporter trying to make conversation
| about the topic she's just been told you're interested
| in, rather than a fellow obsessive fan of early-2000s
| children's TV.
| andoryuu wrote:
| I would probably explicitly ask if they want to know what
| the episode is about. But only after seeing their
| confused reaction to the silence after the first answer.
| And that's a maybe.
|
| If you want to know something, ask it. Not everyone wants
| (or is able) to bother with deciphering what you think
| internally.
|
| The person in the article has many issues. But I don't
| consider giving straight answer to a straight question
| being one of them.
|
| People expecting others to conform to their way of
| communication without making an effort to meet others
| halfway are the main issue.
| giantg2 wrote:
| If you just care, you'd probably say the "the episode
| called..." and maybe describe it for the person _if you
| interpret their reaction_ as not understanding or
| recognizing it.
|
| Edit: why disagree? Not recognizing that someone wants more
| information, or that your communication doesn't carry
| enough context for a person to know what you're talking
| about is classic autism. If you're someone without autism
| and just care about the subject, you're more likely to
| recognize the social cues and add more context.
| yterdy wrote:
| Because the explicit query was, "What's your favorite
| episode?". It's frustrating to be accused of disordered
| thinking on your part when the actual issue is disordered
| expectations from the other party. What they actually
| should have asked was, "What happened during your
| favorite episode?", which might have produced the
| response given by the sibling.
|
| It's not like neurotypical people don't also experience
| this frustration with having to divine what people
| actually desire in any given quantum of communication. I
| would even offer that people speaking with those on the
| spectrum might be primed to be _less_ generous and
| forgiving with that anticipatory instinct; they jump to,
| "This person is weird," instead of considering the ways
| in which their own communication style is wanting. The
| reason they can get away with it, and autistic people
| can't, is simply a matter of how many people like them
| are around to validate their subjective experience. See
| your given CS department/TTRPG club for the flipside of
| this dynamic.
|
| EDIT: Might also explain the phenomenon of smug, "What
| you ACTUALLY wanted was-" responsed on SO. We've trained
| people with precise thought to assume that anyone coming
| to them with questions doesn't actually know what they're
| trying to accomplish. We've created monsters.
| notahacker wrote:
| The query _explicitly didn 't_ include "Despite asking
| you about your preferences, I have no interest in _why_
| you prefer it so please refrain from commenting on that.
| Please don 't waffle or ask me anything back, simply
| provide me with the title, and I will have all the
| information I need", so I don't think it's "disordered
| expectations" to assume that message wasn't conveyed by
| the question...
|
| Neurotypical communication 101 is that a casual
| conversation question about your _favourite things_ is
| probably a cue for you to be enthusiastic and effusive
| about things you care about rather than a prompt for you
| provide names only, especially if the interlocutor is
| unlikely be evaluating your preferences using their own
| expert knowledge of the field. Sure, if nobody else steps
| in to provide further context any [neurotypical]
| interlocutor ought to be able to continue /rescue the
| conversation by asking followup questions about what
| happened in an episode and what is it about that episode
| that you like, but staccato answers offering a bare
| minimum of information is a communication preference
| (occasionally appropriate, more often not) rather than
| something inherently demanded by the question.
|
| (I'd agree that people probably judge responses slightly
| differently if they already know the person on the other
| side of the conversation is autistic, but in a situation
| like this it can work in their favour, since if I assume
| the person providing only names, titles and one word
| answers to my open and friendly questions is
| neurotypical, I'm going to assume they're subtly
| signalling that they dislike me...)
| yterdy wrote:
| No, I do think this is still an example of disordered
| expectations. What you're pointing out doesn't strike
| that notion as valid; it expands it from "an expectation
| of a response to an entirely different question, " to,
| "an expectation that you will pretend to be and behave as
| a neurotypical person to suit my comfort even though I
| know that you're not."
|
| Which is probably worse.
|
| As the other reply mentioned, there is an empathy (double
| empathy) problem, but the answer is not for one party to
| have to assume responsibility for the other's comfort
| entirely by having to guess all of their unspoken
| emotional desires for the conversation. "The query
| explicitly didn't include [...]" is kind of a ridiculous
| thing to expect someone to respect or even predict.
|
| Also, I don't mean to pick apart your comment, but:
|
| _> Neurotypical communication 101 is that a casual
| conversation question about your favourite things is
| probably a cue for you to be enthusiastic and effusive
| about things you care about rather than a prompt for you
| provide names only_
|
| I don't know that this is true. If anything, doing this
| seems to get on their nerves.
| notahacker wrote:
| > What you're pointing out doesn't strike that notion as
| valid; it expands it from "an expectation of a response
| to an entirely different question, " to, "an expectation
| that you will pretend to be and behave as a neurotypical
| person to suit my comfort even though I know that you're
| not."
|
| No, it changes it from "if you would be interested in
| hearing anything other than the briefest and least
| informative answer, it's your responsibility to
| explicitly state how much information you expect and in
| what form" to "of the vast set of theoretically possible
| answers, those which take into account what will be
| meaningful to the other person are generally better,
| although it's entirely understandable and expected that
| autistic people might not be able to do this".
|
| And the article here wasn't insisting autistic people
| should make conversations flow or that neurotypical
| people shouldn't ever modify their expectations or
| followup questions, it made the simple observation that
| the high-functioning autistic twin has actually learned
| to do this, pattern matching well enough to provide
| additional context on behalf of his brother (who
| apparently regularly struggles to form sentences,
| presumably even when the question explicitly demands it).
| I think the conclusion that this is because one of the
| autistic identical twins has developed better
| communication skills than his brother (who quite possibly
| has other learning difficulties) is correct, and it
| definitely _isn 't_ an example of his brother being
| trapped in a world where all human communication except
| children's TV is just too imprecise for him.
|
| > I don't know that this is true. If anything, doing this
| seems to get on their nerves.
|
| There _is_ a happy medium between staccato answers and
| relating the entire plot of the episode or insisting that
| all other shows pale in comparison with it, and a
| difference between bringing up $nichepursuit _because
| someone asked_ and bringing it up because they were
| talking about something else. And yes, this happy medium
| is going to be more difficult for people on the autistic
| spectrum to recognise. But even excessive enthusiasm
| about something most people find extremely boring is more
| endearing than repeated one or three word responses that
| _technically_ answer the question.
| roywiggins wrote:
| > the actual issue is disordered expectations from the
| other party.
|
| There is something called "double empathy problem",
| referring to the idea that there is a _mutual_ difficulty
| communicating across neurotypes. Neurotypical people
| struggle to understand autistic people because of a sort
| of "language barrier" even without a deficit in
| neurodivergent communication skills per se.
|
| After all, if neurotypical people are universally great
| communicators, they would be better at communicating with
| autistic people than autistic people are, but that's not
| how it works at all.
|
| https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/double-empathy-
| explained/
| yterdy wrote:
| Here is me encountering the pitfalls of speculation as a
| layman: the phenomenon I stumbled upon is already well-
| documented.
|
| Thank you for the link and explanation.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| It _wasn 't_ well-documented until recently: afaik, it's
| largely due to Dr Damian Milton that academia takes this
| idea seriously. Most academic research about abnormal
| people is just the rampant pseudoscientific speculation
| of a respected academic, which has become Accepted Truth
| because it's published in a serious scientific journal.
|
| This has been getting better over the past decade: I
| think increased access to science is making it easier for
| the subjects to learn about the "research" and say "hang
| on, this is nonsense". On the flipside, though, bigots
| have increasingly been picking the worst theories from
| the literature and using them as an excuse to do bigoted
| stuff. (e.g. you still see lots of people claiming that
| autistic people "have no theory of mind", because they
| don't understand that ethics are suspended when nobody's
| looking)
| giantg2 wrote:
| "It's frustrating to be accused of disordered thinking on
| your part when the actual issue is disordered
| expectations from the other party."
|
| The expectation isn't disordered, it's carrying with it
| implied social expectations (technically it would need to
| go against these to be disordered). The problem is that
| neurodivergent people tend to not pick up on the implied
| expectations and neurological people don't tend to notice
| that they need to be more explicit with thier
| expectations.
|
| "What they actually should have asked was, "What happened
| during your favorite episode?", which might have produced
| the response given by the sibling."
|
| Why is that what they should have asked? The initial
| exchange is technically correct. The asker should have
| said they didn't know that one and asked a follow-up
| question of what happened in it. Asking what happened in
| their favorite episode as the first question isn't
| necessary and isn't the general social flow of
| conversation.
|
| I do agree on the second paragraph.
| OJFord wrote:
| It's the expectation that that's a sufficient answer to the
| question I suppose. Yes it _literally_ is, but... that is
| many people 's autism in a nutshell really isn't it.
|
| Even if talking to another fan, a 'less autistic' dialogue
| might be like:
|
| B: Oh, me too, do you have a favourite episode?
|
| A: _Abby Makes the Seasons Change_ , hands down, do you
| remember that one?
|
| B: Hmm, I'm not sure..
|
| A: Oh, it's the one where [...]
| tialaramex wrote:
| > it is characteristically autistic to have episode names
| memorised like that
|
| One of my colleagues recommended that our department invite
| somebody from outside to explain to us about "neurotypical"
| people so we can better accommodate their special needs at
| work. We don't seem to have many "neurotypical" people so
| hence the idea to get an outsider to do a talk.
|
| Maybe one of the things it would be good to understand is,
| are there actually lots of these "neurotypical" people or are
| they just bad at counting ?
| scottlamb wrote:
| I think you're right in that when the reporter asked "What's
| your favorite episode?", the more autistic brother
| interpreted it literally as "What's the name of your favorite
| episode?" where other people typically re-interpret the
| question as "Could you describe your favorite episode in a
| few sentences?"
|
| But the autistic version seems perfectly valid, and shouldn't
| a _reporter_ recognize a direct answer to his question and
| ask a follow-up if needed? I get the feeling instead he just
| stared blankly until someone else translated for him...why
| blame the autistic person for the reporter 's poor
| communication?
| spongebobstoes wrote:
| > why blame the autistic person for the reporter's poor
| communication?
|
| this specific sort of difficulty communicating is a daily
| reality for many autistic folks
|
| I believe that communication can often be fixed by either
| party, but is usually fixed by neither
| scotty79 wrote:
| The thing is that for effective communication you need to
| adjust to the recipient. So even though the answer was correct
| and concise the communication failed because sufficient context
| was not provided to the recipient.
|
| The other person also failed in communication by not informing
| that the title of the episode mentioned was exactly that, while
| providing the necessary context.
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| This is the genius of the episode naming for 'Friends'. They're
| each called the thing you would actually say to describe them,
| like 'The One with All the Cheesecakes'.
| impendia wrote:
| Apparently John wasn't even off by a "the":
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8d-SQF-F90
| donalhunt wrote:
| Some autistic people are gestalt language processors so they
| think and use words / sentences in a different manner to the
| general population.
| giantg2 wrote:
| He spent a month in a hospital as a small child. Of course this
| impacted his autism. We know that social interaction, play
| therapy, etc can be effective at reducing the severity and impact
| of autism and this is the direct opposite. How do you think a
| small child is going to learn about social interaction if they're
| stuck in a hospital without as much interaction and with much of
| the interaction being to the point? They're likely bored and
| witnessing the dry, clinical interactions of many of the staff.
| Neither of which are helpful.
|
| Even staying a few days as a toddler is highly impactful on
| normal kids. They often don't understand why people are hurting
| them (IV, blood draws, ecg stickers, etc). They hate being stuck
| in the bed or their room for days with just toys and screens to
| play with - no running of course. In my experience it seems that
| fears and nightmares are common. The way the kid interacts can
| change for a short time after getting home (not as interested in
| the same type of play as before, happier with screen time, not as
| trusting of others, etc). Staying in a hospital is rough for
| someone who is fully developed and knows what's going, it's way
| more impactful for those who aren't.
| detourdog wrote:
| The number of words young minds hear during the early stages of
| development has a great impact on future language skills. The
| studies I'm aware of mostly focusing on developing reading
| skills. I find it plausible that spending one's first month in
| a hospital could have a long term communication development
| gap.
| p3rls wrote:
| I once was hospitalized for depression and drug use when I was
| a teenager and my warcraft 3 stats never recovered after that.
| I always wondered if there were studies on that sorta thing.
| ycombinete wrote:
| My Counterstrike rank was always inversely correlated with my
| general happiness.
| nickpeterson wrote:
| I remember being a young teenager (25 years ago now, yikes)
| playing counter strike and StarCraft all the time and being
| pretty good at both. I started playing with others who were
| in really good leagues (back then it was called cal-i for
| cs, not sure what exists now), and I realized the level of
| dedication and time necessary to compete at that level and
| I basically gave it up. Once you start thinking, "becoming
| better at this is going to take 6-10 hours of my life
| everyday" I checked out. In hindsight, I wish I had known
| it sooner.
| smogcutter wrote:
| "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman.
| The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted
| life." - Paul Morphy
| ycombinete wrote:
| I had the exact same experience, when I went to a chess
| club for the first time. I realised that to keep pace
| with those guys I'd have to spend more time than I was
| willing to on getting better.
|
| Especially with MMR based systems. No matter how good you
| get your win/loss ratio will end up around 50%.
|
| So you have to ask yourself why you need to keep getting
| better. To me It's really about finding a level of "good"
| that you can maintain comfortably, while maintaining
| interest.
|
| And also realise that games aren't vocations. It's fine
| to play a game until you stop having fun, then stop
| playing the game.
| kelipso wrote:
| I play chess at a nearby place and they just split people
| into self selected newbie/intermediate/advanced groups.
| There is just no limit to how much time you can spend
| training in chess is the thing, applied to most games
| really. I used to be more into it during the pandemic but
| now I just play casually without practicing everyday,
| which is fun enough for me.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Those sorts of guys have ruined all the games I grew up
| with. I can't just casually play anymore. It doesn't
| exist. Every lobby left is a sweatfest from people who
| have been playing the game nonstop since it came out
| 10-20 years ago sometimes. You have to swing vine from
| vine to whatever crap game is currently popular to get a
| chance at pwning noobs again.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| There's an easy fix for this one!
|
| AI literally made game hacks undetectable. It's never
| been easier to cheat on videogames in a way that poses
| literally zero risk of getting banned.
|
| Here's an example of a tool that has made my "The Finals"
| experience about 10000% better:
| https://github.com/Babyhamsta/Aimmy
|
| I'm having fun with my buddies, leasiurly talking on
| discord while yet another diamond sweat-lord who tries to
| gank me gets destroyed.
|
| Also related, but botting on games like runescape has
| made my desire to play MMORPG's go way up too. Now I too
| can play the fun end game content without wasting my damn
| life on it.
| jdhendrickson wrote:
| you shouldn't be proud of this. people like you ruin
| games.
| dgfitz wrote:
| The most fun I had playing video games in the past 10
| years was when the PokemonGo api wasn't locked down.
| kelipso wrote:
| Chess is super old but reason it's fun is because of the
| rating system that matches equal-ish players against each
| other. I'm guessing these games don't have that, I
| thought Starcraft had something like that but it's been a
| while since I played it.
| Anotheroneagain wrote:
| One possibility (strongly supported by cases like this one) is
| that "severe" autism is caused by severe neglect, when the child
| gets essentially abandoned once labelled as "autistic". Has
| anyone tried to expose John to anything else than his "favorite"
| show? Was he even exposed to enough language?
| djhope99 wrote:
| My 8 yr old identical twin daughter's have severe autism but one
| is definitely worse than the other, one of them can use some
| words but the other is completely unable to communicate.
|
| I have absolutely no explanation for this, I cannot think of
| anything different that happened to them. They didn't have
| antibiotics or surgery at a young age like in this story either.
| burnte wrote:
| There's genetics, but then there's gene expression which is
| affected by the world, so they clearly grew differently.
| djhope99 wrote:
| Thank you this is helpful. The genetic part makes sense to
| me, my wife has PCOS and they have a history of ovarian
| problems in their family. There are studies linking PCOS and
| autism and to high levels of testosterone.
|
| The mystery to me was why they are so different.
| burnte wrote:
| Yep, for decades thought genes were everything, then we
| started to realize epigenetics and proteomics are even more
| important. DNA is the code, and as we all know code can run
| differently in different environments.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Those studies were designed to confirm Professor Sir Simon
| Baron-Cohen's "extreme male brain" theory (which, by the
| way, is a crock of shit). High androgen levels _and_ high
| oestrogen levels are associated with autism (ref:
| https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-019-0454-9) and there's no
| reason to believe the arrow of causality points in any
| particular direction.
|
| I recommend you not focus overmuch on _why_ your kids are
| autistic. (The most likely reason is that one or both of
| the biological parents are autistic.) Disabilities are
| contextual, and autism can be a significant disability if
| you want to "live a normal life", so the best approach is
| not to impose arbitrary constraints and unrealistic
| expectations on them. (And really, who _wants_ to keep up
| with the Joneses, anyway? https://xkcd.com/308/)
|
| If you're interested in the topic generally, by all means
| learn about it, but none of this will help your daughters.
| There's no way to "cure" autism, because there's nothing
| _to_ cure: it 's just a way to describe a way that some
| people _are_. (Though some associated conditions, such as
| difficulty focusing can be treated with medication (I 'd
| recommend not putting kids on ADHD drugs, because it's hard
| to distinguish between a genuine problem with cognition and
| mere excitable boredom from the outside.), others (e.g.
| hypermobility, coordination issues) can be mitigated with
| physiotherapy, and yet others (e.g. social anxiety,
| miscalibrated hunger / thirst detectors) can be alleviated
| with explanation, strategies, and practice.)
|
| A good part of the differences in "severity" of their
| "autism symptoms" will be the extent to which they grok the
| things in question. For example, if you're not interested
| in verbal communication, you're not going to study it
| intensely to pick up on how other people instinctively
| behave, so you won't learn to imitate it. No amount of
| wanting what verbal communication can _get_ you will give
| you the _intrinsic_ motivation you need for (years of)
| extended, generalisable study - at least, not unless you
| happen to be good at long-chain motivation. If, however,
| there 's a fun game you like, and playing that game
| involves developing proficiency in the (inherently boring)
| skill... well, there's a reason so many kids learn English
| by playing competitive video games.
| djhope99 wrote:
| Thanks for taking the time to write this. I appreciate
| it, I read it to my wife and she agrees we should stop
| thinking about the why.
|
| It's not so much that we want them to be normal or are
| particularly worried about that, we are very anxious
| though about what happens to them when we die and what
| abuse they might face.
| abj wrote:
| Some papers on a possible explanation.
|
| https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/thimer...
| tail_exchange wrote:
| As a word of caution to the readers: the Children's Health
| Defense is a group known for antivax, water fluoridation, and
| 5g disinformation.
| ChiperSoft wrote:
| This article annoys me to all ends. It started out badly by
| referring to autism as a disability, but it got worse in the fact
| that they're assuming all of John's symptoms are because he's
| autistic. All of his disabilities can much easier be ascribed to
| brain damage post-partum. That hole in his heart meant he was
| getting less blood flow and less oxygen at a critical time in his
| brain development.
|
| The fact that both twins are autistic has nothing to do with it!
| genericresponse wrote:
| Definitionally, at least in the US, Autism is a disability.
| It's a qualifier for the Americans with Disabilities Act.
|
| The specific definition: "A disability is a physical or mental
| impairment that makes it harder for a person to perform certain
| activities or interact with the world around them." For many
| ASD makes it harder to interact with the world around them,
| whether that's overstimulation, communication challenges, or
| something else.
|
| It's reasonable to wonder if the disabilities were caused by
| brain damage post-partum or are symptomatic of his autism. At
| the same time we shouldn't forget the many others with ASD and
| similar disabilities who lack another explanation. Some of the
| population with ASD have limited communication skills and
| cannot pass as neurotypical.
| rpmisms wrote:
| That's an over-broad definition. I really hate ASD as a
| monolith, because there's a harsh difference between brain
| damage and brain misconfiguration.
| tomasGiden wrote:
| One of my sons had a heart defect needing open heart surgery when
| he was 5 days old (it went fine!). In connection to that he was
| enrolled in a scientific study. Apparently when you are in a
| heart and lung machine as an infant (<1 month old) the pressure
| in the machine is so great compare to the normal pressure that
| the blood cells break creating free radicals. These free radicals
| can in turn create damage in the brain which can later on cause
| problems with executive functions and complex reasoning. Autistic
| people also have problems with executive functions (my other son
| has Asperger's). Now I'm not saying that free radicals cause
| autism but maybe they modulate it when the same parts of the
| brain are affected by them during infancy.
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