neurotypical

Odd Girl Out: An Autistic Woman in a Neurotypical World

by Laura James  · 5 Apr 2017  · 249pp  · 80,762 words

only looked at boys? Also, I found out the life expectancy of an autistic person is between ten and thirty years shorter than for a neurotypical person. I will probably die way before you.’ This is a classic autistic info dump. I have all these thoughts in my head and I

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able to get my hair to flick in the way she did, but I could adopt her inscrutable expression, and power through the pain. Copying neurotypical behaviour is an exceptionally strong coping mechanism in most autistic girls. Unlike boys with autism, who are often happy to strike out on their own

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need to fit in. Mimicking the behaviour, style of speech, interests and social interactions of others provides something akin to a blueprint for life. While neurotypical girls have an innate understanding of how to behave, autistic girls tend to have to learn these behaviours by studying how others do them. In

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biggest challenges? Most of them say managing anxiety and they say it affects their quality of life far more than any other ASD feature. ‘One [neurotypical] approach is to say to the person with Asperger’s that they should just relax. The person with Asperger’s says, I don’t know

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how to relax. Neurotypicals just switch on relax. The person with Asperger’s can’t find the switch. It’s like trying to fall asleep – the more you try

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an open question. One of the gifts of being on the spectrum is that the connections you can make are totally different. If you’re neurotypical and interested, they’re mind-blowing. Often I can’t even see what leaps someone has taken to get to that point. ‘When you look

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trouble.’ I don’t believe autistic girls and women deliberately seek out ‘bad boys’, but I do think we might not be as equipped as neurotypical women when it comes to spotting men who might let us down or reading the signs of a relationship. I asked Tony Attwood. He confirmed

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explored and understood is love,’ he told me. ‘What is it? Do people with Asperger’s understand and express it in the way that neurotypicals expect? Neurotypicals will have an expectation of how love should be expressed and that may be difficult for the person with Asperger’s. I think of it

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, though, subconsciously hungry for more social interaction than I naturally have in my life. It is always at a slightly superficial level. Because I find neurotypical women slightly frightening, most new relationships I form tend to be with men. They are easier to read and more straightforward. They don’t feel

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us. I need to talk, he does not. I guess it’s the classic Mars versus Venus thing, with an added dash of autistic versus neurotypical thrown in for good measure. Typically, I’ll ring him four times during the day. Once to say my train has arrived and I am

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the issue is that often they may feel it too acutely. He told me: ‘Oh yes, absolutely autistic people feel empathy. Too much. More than neurotypicals. I think some of the social withdrawal [typical of those with Asperger’s] may be because of an acute sensitivity to negative emotions in others

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is it wrong that I don’t try, even if it is just for Tim? Sarah Wild believes autistic happiness is different. She says: ‘We neurotypical people have to stop projecting what our concepts of happiness are onto the autistic population because autistic happiness is not the same

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. ‘Neurotypical professionals have ideas about living independently, having a job, being economically viable, having friends. But they’re all neurotypical indexes of happiness and no one has bothered to ask autistic people what makes them happy

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feathers are ruffled. I have always felt unworthy and as if, at any minute, I will be found out. I’ve learned, however, that many neurotypical women feel this way too; it’s not just an issue for autistic women, although we seem to feel it particularly keenly. In part, for

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love the picture. I made it the screensaver on my phone. My experience of motherhood is, I think, in many ways different to that of neurotypical women. As well as not recognizing my own emotions and feeling them at a very muted level, I don’t cope well with the emotions

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, a refresher. It gives you a sense of comfort and enjoyment and it’s what I call an intellectual orgasm. ‘I think in many ways neurotypicals don’t appreciate or need an interest, so they assume an autistic person doesn’t need one. But I have an issue when parents focus

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irrefutable evidence – is not an exclusively autistic trait. Many feel this way, but autistic people tend to try for longer than the vast majority of neurotypical people would. A friend tells me how every year she and her family would visit the same B&B in rural Ireland. The owner’s

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. I just want to know where my autism began, how it has shaped my life and what would have been different had I been born neurotypical. I talk to Steve Silberman. His book, Neurotribes, is the most comprehensive work on the subject. He wrote a piece on autism for Wired magazine

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challenge. People still judge girls by the male criteria, so it feels as if they doubly don’t fit in. They don’t fit into neurotypical norms, but they also don’t fit into everyone else’s construct of what autism is. ‘We place a strong emphasis on staying well, long

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not fit the stereotypical version of autism that society is used to seeing. I mention this to Steve Silberman, who laughs. ‘Oh yeah and, knowing neurotypicals, they’ll say you don’t seem autistic and expect you to take it as a compliment. I don’t mean to equate these things

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to hold a conversation. Since my diagnosis, though, I have encountered hundreds of autistic people and every one is as different as we would expect neurotypical people to be. Before I became interested in the subject, I believed that the spectrum meant that at one end there were the very autistic

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people; at the other the mildly autistic. Many lovely, well-meaning neurotypical people find the idea of autism really tricky to grasp. They think, because of my job, marriage and children, that I am ‘only a little

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, to see you let yourself go and just live in the moment. With your guard down.’ The sentiment is lovely, but it is also quintessentially neurotypical. It is faulty thinking to believe that because he is interested in something, I will be too. This has been happening to me with

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neurotypicals since I was a small child. It began with food. Just try these fish fingers. You’ll like this cheese sandwich. Give this new brand

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whatever is occupying my brain. Most autistic women and girls – whether diagnosed or not – seem naturally and inherently to find a way to copy their neurotypical peers, be they girls in their class, colleagues or even characters in books or on screen. The Newsroom also provides me with a role model

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sleep curled romantically around each other, but it seems to me everyone else is making a pretty big compromise. Just as is the case with neurotypical people, many autistic people want to marry and have a family and lots of us do this entirely successfully. Relationships are hard work, regardless of

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. They don’t know that I cannot find anything good to hang on to anymore. That there is nothing to look forward to. I think neurotypical women insulate themselves against this all-consuming pain through strong female friendships. They will have at least one or two people they know will be

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. It’s another skill, isn’t it? Some people are better than others at picking it up. There’s a spectrum, a dimension of sociability. ‘Neurotypicals don’t have to learn to talk about the weather, or those subtle things about social interaction. It’s wired within us, but for somebody

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. It hits me out of the blue. All this time I have been thinking that the way to make things better is to become as neurotypical as possible. I have been trying to force myself into a hole in which I will never fit. As I fold the towels into a

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not what they expect. I am not what I expect either and still, a year on from my diagnosis, I am fighting to live a neurotypical life. Where did it get me? Nowhere I wanted to be. I was sad, burnt-out, lonely, demoralized and confused. The importance of environment begins

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to someone else or a material item that was somehow out of reach. Now, though, I get it. I was not meant to have a neurotypical life. I have to stop striving for something that isn’t ever going to come my way. I have to stop trying to achieve the

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, I was struggling emotionally. I had all the information I needed, but I wanted now to file it away and get on with living as neurotypical a life as possible. She said: ‘What I always say to people is, go easy on yourself for at least the next six months because

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. It feels strange and lovely to have spoken about such ordinary things – everything and nothing – to someone who understands me. I realize that to most neurotypical people this would sound so strange, but it was such an amazing hour for me. It ends when Rachael needs to go to pick up

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

by Steve Silberman  · 24 Aug 2015  · 786pp  · 195,810 words

of communication. Like any nascent subculture, this emerging community gave birth to its own in-group slang. The most enduring ANI neologism was the term neurotypical, used as a label for nonautistic people for the first time in the group’s newsletter. With its distinctly clinical air, the term (sometimes shortened

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extreme, an autistic woman named Laura Tisoncik launched an official-looking website in 1998 credited to the Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical. “Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity,” the site’s FAQ declared. “There is

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a map that Leo could then explore by playing the notes. Shannon had never seen anyone “get” Leo so quickly. (Shore confesses that he finds neurotypical kids harder to teach, because he doesn’t understand how their minds work.) By the end of the hourlong lesson, Leo could play a simple

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” brain is easily distractible, is obsessively social, and suffers from a deficit of attention to detail and routine. Thus people on the spectrum experience the neurotypical world as relentlessly unpredictable and chaotic, perpetually turned up too loud, and full of people who have little respect for personal space. The main reason

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Kopp launched the list in 1992: Autism List FAQ. Archived at http://kildall.apana.org.au/autism/autismlistfaq.html neurotypical: “Neural connections in Toronto,” Steve Cousins. Our Voice, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1993. “Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder”: Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical. Muskie, 1998. http://isnt.autistics

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, 339, 348, 363, 395, 441, 467 Kanner and, 157, 193 Meyer and, 154–57, 159 Rimland and, 261, 269 Sacks and, 316–17, 372, 430 neurotypicals (NTs), 441–42, 448, 450, 452, 454, 465 Newton, Isaac, 30, 104–5, 141, 300 New York Psychiatric Institute (NYPI), 171–72, 369 New York

Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

by Devon Price  · 4 Apr 2022  · 456pp  · 101,959 words

, because heterosexuality is normative, and being gay is treated as a rare afterthought or an aberration. Similarly, Autistic people are born with the mask of neurotypicality pressed against our faces. All people are assumed to think, socialize, feel, express emotion, process sensory information, and communicate in more or less the

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Autistic person’s quality of life. Research has repeatedly shown that keeping our true selves locked away is emotionally and physically devastating.[7] Conforming to neurotypical standards can earn us tentative acceptance, but it comes at a heavy existential cost. Masking is an exhausting performance that contributes to physical exhaustion, psychological

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how we process information—more on this later.) Autism is associated with specific and pervasive differences in the brain, which result in us diverging from neurotypical standards, in terms of how our brains filter and make sense of information. Autistic people have differences in the development of their anterior cingulate cortex

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distracted by a small stimulus and miss a large meaningful one. Autistic brains have unique connection patterns that deviate from what is normally observed in neurotypical people. When infants are born, their brains are typically hyperconnected; much of human development is a process of slowly pruning unhelpful connections and becoming

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of Science have found, every Autistic brain exhibits a different connectivity pattern. Our brain wiring appears to actually be more diverse than the wiring of neurotypical brains, which researchers believe have a consistent pruning pattern.[17] The researchers at the Weizmann Institute have theorized that this means Autistic brains respond to

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our environments differently; whereas neurotypical brains are believed to readily adapt to the sensory and social input they receive from the outside world, Autistic brain development and pruning appears to

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whole, for instance.[21] This helps explain why many Autistic people have prosopagnosia (the inability to recognize faces),[22] and experience difficulty reading emotions on neurotypicals’ faces. Together, all of this means that Autistic people tend to have the following qualities: We are hyperreactive to even small stimuli in our environment

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didn’t, fidget spinners wouldn’t have become so popular several years ago), but Autistic people stim more frequently, more repetitively, and more intensely than neurotypicals do. Repetitiveness is a key feature of Autistic behavior, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM). And it is

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Autistic On the Autism spectrum Person with Autism Is Autistic Identifies as having autism Is disabled Has a disability “Special needs” “Differently abled” “Handi-capable” Neurotypical (NT) Allistic Non-Autistic Normal Has high support needs Has low support needs Low functioning High functioning Masked Autism Female Autism Asperger’s High-functioning

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-called standard American English when interacting with white people and institutions. Psychological research shows that code switching requires a ton of cognitive resources even for neurotypical people.[43] One masked Autistic woman I spoke to, Mariah, told me that for many years she thought code switching exhausted her. Eventually, though,

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disorder recognized no matter how much anguish it presents in your life. This dynamic is particularly challenging for people with Autism Spectrum traits, because our neurotype is so multifaceted and so easily mistaken for other conditions. People with post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, can look very similar to Autistic people

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your anxiety. Or the social skills toolkits offered on blogs like RealSocialSkills.org may help you develop greater confidence in interacting with people, disabled and neurotypical alike. It is not cultural appropriation or “faking a disability” to try out these tools. If Autism-friendly resources and adaptations prove helpful to

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masking is said to consist of two classes of behavior:[4] Camouflaging: attempting to hide or obscure Autistic traits in order to “blend in” with neurotypicals. The main goal of camouflage is to avoid detection as disabled. Compensation: using specific strategies to “overcome” challenges and impairments related to disability. The

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the world feeling undernourished and hypervigilant. Though masking is incredibly taxing and causes us a lot of existential turmoil, it’s rewarded and facilitated by neurotypical people. Masking makes Autistic people easier to “deal” with. It renders us compliant and quiet. It also traps us. Once you’ve proven yourself

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more pervasively) than we want to. The Double Bind of Being “Well-Behaved” Psychiatrists and psychologists have always defined Autism by how the disability impacts neurotypical people. A more “severely” Autistic person is not necessarily a person who experiences more interior suffering, but rather someone who suffers in a more disruptive

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sensory pain, or were falling behind academically or socially in significant ways. This carries over to how Autistic adults are perceived, and the expectations that neurotypical institutions place on us to appear “normal.” This desire to make Autistics compliant and nondisruptive is a large part of why the prevailing treatment for

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the depressed person’s boss how they are performing, rather than checking in with the depressed person themselves. Sadly, the comfort and convenience of the neurotypical teachers and parents are prioritized, so ABA remains the one and only “evidence-based” treatment for Autism that most insurance plans will cover. Becoming

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other people. Masked Autistic people fall back on a variety of flawed strategies in order to relax, mute our most disruptive behaviors, or conform with neurotypical standards. Some use compulsive exercise or calorie restriction to make their jittery, unruly Autistic bodies settle down or shrink into a more convenient shape.

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are forever running away from the “asshole genius” trope. In a 2016 survey of college students’ attitudes toward Autistics, psychologists found that people associated the neurotype with introversion, social withdrawal, and having a “difficult” personality.[52] These stereotypes of Autism existed before shows like Big Bang Theory and Rick and Morty

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behavior of a conversation partner, the mimicker actually had a harder time recognizing the emotions of the person they were mimicking.[59] Even though the (neurotypical) participants in the study were successfully imitating the emotional displays of their conversation partners, they were so focused on the performance that they stopped really

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on how my life should be • • • To download this chart, go to http://prhlink.com/9780593235249a005. Quite frequently, the traits that inconvenience or weird out neurotypical people are the very same ones that define who we are and help keep us safe. When we stop taking an outsider’s perspective of

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with subjective well-being.[13] When we get to appreciate our hyperfixations, we feel happier and more satisfied with life. But for a long time, neurotypical researchers viewed special interests as an impediment to having a “regular” life. ABA therapists penalize Autistic children for speaking about them,[14] withdrawing attention and

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focuses on our frustrations and experiences of being excluded and misunderstood. Online, Autistic adults are commonly expected to educate non-Autistic people about what our neurotype really is like, and to debunk all the misinformation allistics have passively absorbed (and projected onto us) all our lives. Jersey created Special Interest

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they were creating a kind of anti-ABA therapy, encouraging neurodiverse people to infodump about our obsessions as loudly as we wanted without worry about neurotypical people’s expectations or needs. I consulted with Jersey when they were developing the prompts for Special Interest Week, as did several other Autistic creators

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for them, as if they were alive. Psychologists call this phenomenon object personification, and Autistics exhibit it at an elevated rate compared to the neurotypical population.[6] We also tend to connect emotionally with animals more readily than people, which can also influence how our home environments should be arranged

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all the effort that maskers put into hiding our neurodiversity, it often blows up in our faces. Inauthenticity and a forced-seeming social performance rubs neurotypicals the wrong way. In a landmark study into the psychology of perceived “creepiness,” psychologists McAndrew and Koehnke (2016) asked 1,341 respondents to answer

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were understanding and appreciative. Additional research shows that the impact of Autistic self-disclosure really varies based on how knowledgeable a person is about the neurotype.[3] When someone’s knowledge of Autism is shallow and stereotypical, they tend to react to self-disclosure in a highly stigmatizing, dehumanizing way.

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even realizing it. It bears mentioning here that developmental psychologists define what a secure attachment “looks like” based on how it presents in neurotypical children and adults. Neurotypical children who are securely attached check in with their parents in a very easy to recognize way, using eye contact and vocalizations that many

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many Autistic people do wind up feeling very insecure in our attachments to other people, or having our heartfelt attempts at connection rebuffed or misconstrued. Neurotypical attachment “rules” essentially make it impossible for us to be viewed as suitable for regular, healthy bonds. One way that an insecure attachment style sometimes

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carry over into other relationships, too. Neuroscientists have observed that Autistic brains continue to develop in areas associated with social skills for far longer than neurotypical brains are believed to.[9] One study, conducted by Bastiaansen and colleagues (2011), observed that though young Autistic people experienced far less activity than

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interpreting facial expressions), by age thirty no differences between non-Autistics and Autistic people were evident. In other words, Autistic brains eventually “caught up” to neurotypical brains, in terms of how actively they processed and interpreted facial expressions as social data. Other studies have found that Autistic people over the age

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also feel a lot less socially inept and disempowered. Here’s a table summarizing some common Autistic communication needs. You can share this table with neurotypical people in your life or organizations that are aiming to be more accessible, or simply request some of these specific adjustments for yourself. Common

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much of what researchers consider the “social deficits” of Autism aren’t really deficits at all; they’re just differences in our communication style that neurotypicals don’t adjust to. When neurodiverse people push for more explicit messaging, everybody benefits. Vague, symbolic communication is harder to parse if you’re

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when we contemplate meaningfully including disabled people. Merely observing a disabled person as an outsider or a pitiable curiosity won’t do much to reduce neurotypical people’s biases. Instead, research suggests that collaborative,[19] extended[20] contact shared between equals is what’s necessary to really change attitudes.[21]

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this place requires justice be attained for all marginalized people—it’s not enough for white Autistic people to be treated as equal to white neurotypical coworkers; Black people, women, trans people, immigrants, and other oppressed groups must be at equal footing as well. Expanded Public and Professional Education on

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imperialism throughout history, we should highlight how the oppressed were often branded as hysterical, paranoid, and insane. It’s important that all people—neurodiverse and neurotypical alike—come to realize how narrow definitions of sanity and “functioning” are used to harm and dehumanize. And since mental health concerns are so common

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disorders. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 22(2), 112–124. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 29 Jordan, C. J., & Caldwell-Harris, C. L. (2012). Understanding differences in neurotypical and autism spectrum special interests through internet forums. Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 50(5), 391–402. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 30 Kapp, S. K., Steward

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photo-stories. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 31, 619–629. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16 Jordan, C. J., & Caldwell-Harris, C. L. (2012). Understanding differences in neurotypical and autism spectrum special interests through internet forums. Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 50(5), 391–402. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17 Special Interest Week concept

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-visibility-zine. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 28 Sasson, N. J., Faso, D. J., Nugent, J., Lovell, S., Kennedy, D. P., & Grossman, R. B. (2017). Neurotypical Peers are Less Willing to Interact with Those with Autism Based on Thin Slice Judgments. Scientific Reports, 7, 40700. https://doi.org/​10.1038/​srep40700

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never realised everybody felt as happy as I do when I am around autistic people’: A thematic analysis of autistic adults’ relationships with autistic and neurotypical friends and family. Autism, 24(6), 1438–1448. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 24 Cresswell, L., Hinch, R., & Cage, E. (2019). The experiences of peer

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honestly, 207–13 cultivating unmasked friendships, 200–207 finding and making your community, 218–28 James Finn’s experience, 191–93, 195 letting go of neurotypical expectations, 213–17 Reese Piper’s experience, 213–14, 224–25 self-disclosing, 195–200 standing up for yourself, 190, 191–93 Tisa’s experience

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income, 244–45 unmasking for everyone, 248–50 neurological markers, 20–23 neurons, 21, 31, 114, 115, 125 neuroscience, 20–23, 70, 114, 206–7 neurotypical, use of term, 25, 48 Newman, Carly, 188 Noah, Jersey, 153–55 noise-canceling headphones, 4, 70, 119, 169, 179, 182, 196 noisiness, 10, 

Living Well on the Spectrum

by Valerie L. Gaus  · 4 Feb 2011

the tendency toward having less communication between the thinking and emotional parts of the brain is reconsidered as courage or optimism. The point that “even neurotypicals have stress in their lives” is well taken, as is Dr. Gaus’s realization that people on the autism spectrum often have more stress due

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disorder—not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) „„ High-­functioning autism (HFA): Autistic disorder as seen in a person with average or above intelligence and verbal ability „„ Neurotypical: Typical person or any person who does not have an ASD or related condition To complicate the ongoing debate about diagnostic labels even further, the

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considered a separate species. It is true that brains of people on the spectrum function in unique ways that often make them stand out from neurotypical people, and I will be giving you many examples of that in this book. But we in the autism community, professionals and affected people

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on your energy they can cause. It is, however, just as important not to overstate these differences. Focusing only on how you differ from neurotypical people is what leads to the feeling of being a member of another species expressed by some people on the spectrum, as mentioned in Chapter

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1. Remember that you have many human characteristics in common with neurotypical people. For one thing, neurotypicals do not live completely without 39 40 LIFE ON THE SPECTRUM stress, and life for people on the spectrum is more than unremitting

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and leave you with fewer coping strategies available when you need them. People with ASDs have unique 99 brains that operate differently from those of neurotypical people. The ASD brain is associated with: 99 1. 2. 3. 4. thinking differences social differences emotional differences sensory and movement differences ASD differences

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process information, in unique ways that make it harder for them to adapt comfortably to the things that happen in their lives as compared to neurotypical people. To understand this better, we’ll start by considering how the human brain works in general. Cognitive scientists are the people who study

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are the output is some action that helps more prone to have difficulty with some of a person adapt successfully to a these operations than neurotypical people. situation—sometimes called adaptive Let’s take a closer look at how these thinkbehavior. ing problems interfere.   Thinking Differences as Vulnerabilities The best

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AS or HFA are usually bright, with a high level of intelligence and Notes specific talents or abilities that are superior compared to the average neurotypical perWhen your brain works to manage 99 son. If you continue to imagine the brain as and coordinate multiple pieces an airport, people on

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water that you were boiling for tea. When it comes to attention, you might think of yourself as having only an on/off switch where neurotypical people have a dial. You have no problems paying attention—your “flame” goes on without a hitch—but your ability to regulate your attention

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become negative and unproductive, however, if your brain is using too many shortcuts, leading to interpretation errors. Psychologists call these errors cognitive distortions. Even for neurotypical people, cognitive distortions can lead to problems with anxiety and depression. Negative self-talk could be seen in the dropped key story if we added

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that people on the spectrum are prone to, along with examples of the self-talk associated with each. Interestingly, these distortions are also common in neurotypical people who are suffering from depression or anxiety disorders. All-or-­nothing thinking: There are only two categories for everything. You see things in terms

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period of time. Together the ASD tendencies to focus on and commit details to long-term memory allow a person to be more realistic than neurotypical people in some situations. In my own therapy practice, I have observed that realism—one of the positive psychology strengths—is indeed a common characteristic

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benefit greatly from their keen observation skills, applying it to their homework between sessions. These individuals are often able to be more objective than my neurotypical patients when tackling problems in their lives. Richard, the unemployed 25-year-old you met in Chapter 1, was feeling more hopeful about finding a

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People with ASDs have unique „ of day involve social situations? Remember, brains that operate differently when we focus on social functioning, we from those of neurotypical people. are including any situation in which you must The ASD brain is associated with: „ interact with at least one other person. People often think

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and do, even in brand-new situations? If you’re on the spectrum, you may very well have pondered these questions as you observed your neurotypical family members and friends navigating the social world with apparent ease. But these questions have also been asked for decades in an area of scientific

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Social Cognition by Susan Fiske and Shelley Taylor says it is “the study of how people make sense of other people and themselves.” While your neurotypical counterparts may make social interaction look easy, it really involves a very complex set of operations. Those operations parallel the ones you learned about for

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any previous one in every regard, and in most situations a person is not provided any explicitly stated instructions for what to think and do. Neurotypical people guess correctly most of the time (though not always) because they are using educated guesses. Their decisions are based on information they gather and

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decades tells brain and its differences, we have us that people must make fairly to understand a little about the accurate guesses to be successful neurotypical social brain. in social situations. Let’s look at an example that 9 When human beings process shows how involved the social information about other

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you won’t be seen as empathic unless you can express your empathy. Unfortunately, because people on the spectrum experience and express empathy differently than neurotypical people, they have traditionally been viewed as lacking empathy and feelings for others. Recent research has not supported this idea, however. Researchers have divided empathy

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someone. Interestingly, some recent research has revealed that on tests of cognitive empathy people with ASDs tend to score lower (show less cognitive empathy) than neurotypicals. However, on tests of emotional empathy, people with ASDs scored higher, indicating that people on the spectrum actually feel more intense emotion in the face

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different meanings and feelings. People on the spectrum are less likely to exhibit those speech habits. You may not vary your voice as much as neurotypicals. You may speak in a consistently monotone voice, consistently too loud, low, fast, or slow. The key word here is consistently. All people speak

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perceiving the emotions of other people that may be causing you social problems. But there are also differences between how people on the spectrum and neurotypical people perceive and respond to their own emotions. Jake, the 20-year-old man you met in Chapter 1 who had dropped out of

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to that question is “I’m not sure.” As you will brains that operate differently see in this chapter, the experience of emofrom those of neurotypical people. tion is very subjective and therefore more difficult to describe than some other scien The ASD brain is associated with: tific concepts discussed in

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how the ASD emotional brain is different, however, you need to know how emotions work for everyone. As you try to understand the behavior of neurotypical friends and loved ones, as well as your own unexpected reactions to various situations in your daily life, you may feel like Dr. Spock

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They are joy, sadness, anger, and fear.  Each of the basic emotions serves an important survival purpose for everyone, those with ASDs as well as neurotypical people.  There Notes  Scientists who study human emotion have a long way to go before giving us all the facts. The following three assumptions came

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Basic Human Emotions Human emotion is complicated, and a person’s emotional responses at any given moment can be tough to sort out, even for neurotypical people. So you may be surprised to learn that many scientists and practitioners believe there are only four basic emotions (each with an image

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Self-­Regulation Notes People on the spectrum experience 99 all of the basic emotions plus some complex ones. People on the spectrum differ from 99 neurotypicals in that they have difficulty with the regulation of emotion. The use of strategies to manage 99 emotional arousal is difficult for people with ASD

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order brain (i.e., neocortex) is not communicating very well with the more primitive emotional brain (i.e., limbic system). Where the thinking brain of neurotypical people has the power to influence the emotional brain, such as when thoughts and emotions blend together and interact with each other, there seems to

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. Let’s see how he has difficulty at each of these steps of mutual regulation. Understanding and Interpreting the Emotional States of Other(s) Neurotypical people often rely on cues from other people to help them appraise a situation and manage their own emotional reaction. But if you have the

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when the pleasant emotions are activated: All-or-Nothing Emotions When you engage in an activity you enjoy, you probably have more fun than a neurotypical person would doing the same activity. Because all of your emotions are experienced in an intense way, you get the benefit of extreme joy!

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plants. Less Communication between the Thinking and Emotional Brains When you feel your emotions so intensely, as described above, you are less apt than a neurotypical person to use self-talk to regulate the level of arousal. Because you may not always think about your own reactions to events, your passion

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out to the body. As a person on the spectrum, you’re likely to experience your physical environment and your own bodily sensations differently from neurotypical people. These differences can cause problems like the ones you saw in the lives of some people introduced in Chapter 1. Charles, the high school

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or become less significant in adulthood. 98 99 Sensory and Movement Differences Notes  People with ASDs have unique brains that operate differently from those of neurotypical people.  The ASD brain is associated with: 1. 2. 3. 4. thinking differences social differences emotional differences sensory and movement differences  ASD differences are

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information. Overresponsiveness If any one or more of your senses is overresponsive, or hypersensitive, you may experience certain sensory experiences as more intense than a neurotypical person might. For some people with ASDs, only one sense is affected, while others may have more than one area of hypersensitivity. This may be

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overused by the ASD brain. Underresponsiveness If any of your senses are underresponsive, or hyposensitive, you may be oblivious or numb to sensory experiences that neurotypical people respond to. This may be happening to you if others have told you that you’re failing to notice important things, seem indifferent to

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discussions about attention (Chapter 2) and emotion (Chapter 4), ASD brains tend to be equipped with on/off switches to Notes control different functions, while neurotypical brains have dial knobs that People with ASDs have 99 allow for a more gradated approach to sensory differences that can changing the intensity level

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or-­nothing sensation can be overwhelming at times, but when the sensation is pleasant, you will likely experience things in a much richer way than neurotypical people. In terms of movement issues, there may be some physical tasks that you can perform better than others. Despite the coordination problems mentioned earlier

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This concept of success was meant to refer to human beings in general, but of course it is particularly meaningful for you. Your differences from neurotypical people require you to define success in ways that may not correspond to conventional definitions and to be an active participant in shaping the places

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up with a warm or soothing liquid, which is one common theme in these types of exercises. Pleasant sensations are a highly subjective business. Even neurotypical people differ from one another in the types of sensations they find soothing or pleasing. As a person on the spectrum, your own sensory system

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accepting something means being able to say “It is what it is” and truly believing that. Accepting That the ASD Brain Works Differently from the Neurotypical Brain It’s very common for people on the spectrum to label their ASD characteristics as defects or signs of inferiority. Many have, unfortunately, been

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occur. ACCEPTIng THAT nEgATIVE EMOTIOn IS A nATURAL PART Of LIfE Perhaps the most difficult thing to accept for people on the spectrum (and some neurotypical people, too) is that painful emotions are natural, have a purpose, and cannot be avoided. As illustrated in Chapter 4, getting upset about being

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in relationships because these “rules” and “contracts” are mostly unwritten and unspoken. My patients often say they find this whole business very confusing: how do neurotypical people just seem to know these rules? The fact that the very same behavior can be considered rude with one person and desirable with another

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the universal rules of social conduct, which have traditionally been called “etiquette,” have not caught up to the state of technology. At the moment, many neurotypical people are confused about social skills and what types of behaviors are considered “polite” or “rude” because there are so many more ways we can

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Building Friendships 295 person while chatting at a cocktail party or how to act toward other people while riding in an elevator are things that neurotypical people just seem to know without reading a rule book, but they can cause problems for you if you have social differences because of an

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ASD. Typically, nobody receives formal instruction on these rules, and what is considered appropriate in one setting may be grossly inappropriate in another. Neurotypicals can infer such guidelines by observing others, but you may have difficulty with that. you will never be able to find an absolute answer to

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communicating it effectively to professionals. Here are a few tips to make that part of your life more manageable. Consider sharing these guidelines with the neurotypical people in your life as well, since they have universal value in today’s confusing world of healthcare. • Take a note pad and pen

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92–95 worksheets regarding, 96 Needs communication techniques and, 159–162, 162f community life and, 257 Neuropsychological evaluations, 355–356. See also Help from others Neurotypical people, 5, 39–40 Night, 15. See also Day in your life Norms, 59–60 Occupational therapists, 357–358, 359. See also Help from others

The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique Perspectives of Autism

by Temple Grandin and Sean Barron  · 30 Sep 2012  · 347pp  · 123,884 words

.” On a logical, intellectual basis we both could agree with the points Wayne was making. We did recognize the value of broadening the understanding that neurotypical people have of people who are on the autism spectrum, especially in reference to how we think and how that affects our social relationships. We

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frustrating months, Sean succinctly summed up the difficulty we were having with defining the unwritten rules of social relationships: “There is the world of the neurotypicals and the world of the person on the autism spectrum. Our perspective and understanding—indeed, our very thinking process—is so very different than yours

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us exceedingly difficult, often depressing and continually anxiety-laden. We offer this book in the hope that people of both cultures—those with autism and neurotypicals alike—can gain a deeper awareness of and appreciation for the other. To do that, we can think of no better way than sharing with

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, offer hundreds of bulleted examples of social behaviors we had learned in a neat and organized manner, but they would have little lasting impression on neurotypical (NT) people until they first understood what it’s like to be “in our heads,” to hear the conversations we have with ourselves about the

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consequence) and times when I wasn’t trying or was simply “being Temple.” I was often a willful child; autism didn’t compromise the very neurotypical way I tested boundaries to see how much I could get away with. One of the reasons she worked so hard on my behavior is

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was the core of my self-motivation was building things. I’ve mentioned it often now, and on purpose, as I don’t think most neurotypicals understand how much fun building things can be, and how many ways it satisfies innate needs of people with ASD. To the logical, thinking-in

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multiple characters is difficult even today, so mystery novels don’t hold as much interest for me as do more factual types of reading material. Neurotypical people have a “social sense” right from the time they’re born. Their learning happens through observation, whereas for children and adults with ASD, learning

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what we do in the world is actually functional, rather than social-emotional, although this analytic approach works well in both realms. I witness many neurotypical people creating unnecessary stress and anxiety for themselves because of the illogical emotions they attach to situations. I often share my perspective with my non

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Simon Baron-Cohen’s book, Mind Blindness, released in 1997. It wasn’t until later in my life that I also learned that for most neurotypical people, information stored in memory has an emotional component; I finally understood why so many people allow emotions to distort facts. My mind doesn’t

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emotions and are tied into my ability to feel love. I experience the emotion of love, but it’s not the same way that most neurotypical people do. Does that mean my love is less valuable than what other people feel? Brain research is uncovering some interesting findings about the connection

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be many AS students in that school. But the conclusion I’m drawing is that more than just AS students need social skills training—the neurotypical “techie” students do too. Interestingly, there is a link between autism and engineering. Research by Simon Baron-Cohen indicated that there were 2.5 times

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as many engineers in the family history of people with autism as in their neurotypical counterparts. It makes sense: the really social people are less likely to be interested in building bridges or designing power plants. Today, teaching manners and

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in life,” and it acts like a filter through which we see the world. It may be a moment of “A-ha!” awareness for some neurotypical readers that in many cases, the people who are guiding the lives of people with ASD do so through a filter of “emotional relatedness,” transferring

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part of the physical make-up of the brain—that may never change. Admitting that their child may never develop the emotional relatedness of a neurotypical person feels more like failure than it does acknowledging simply “another way of being.” Just recently a teacher was discussing her frustration with not being

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-esteem, low motivation and a whole lot of laziness and bitterness. I think people with ASD are more a product of their environment than are neurotypical people. I’ve always said I could have learned how to be a total criminal just as I learned how to be a good person

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pressing need to act out. Nothing else mattered. People with ASD experience the world with literally a different mindset, one that is sometimes difficult for neurotypicals to truly understand. While readers may relate to many of Sean’s thinking patterns, what is enlightening is the extent to which his thinking controlled

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’t imagine that a different way exists. Rigid thinking is not just an autistic trait—apparently it’s hard-wired in all of us. But neurotypical people seem to think and feel that it’s okay to be rigid as long as their ideas are shared by enough people. Imagine if

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can still dress like a slob in my own house, when no one else is around (a trait I’ve learned is shared with many neurotypicals). Finding a way to compromise so that we keep our personal nature, but conform to some of the unspoken “rules” of society, is where our

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everyone except children with ASD, whose neural networks can’t process this information, and often don’t even realize that nonverbal communication is taking place. Neurotypical individuals have an innate sense of these rules and start learning them, largely through observation, starting in the first years of life. Early rules govern

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situation from their own perspective. And it hurts their chances of being successful. That’s why teaching flexible thinking should be such a priority. Most neurotypical people don’t have to stop and think about handling routine day-to-day social situations, or stop to evaluate whether or not a rule

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personal, familial, cultural and social norms. Lack of perspective and lack of experiences robs a child of a frame of reference for understanding emotions. To neurotypicals, the realm of emotions is a richly colored, detailed inner canvas; to the child with ASD, it may be a stark white canvas, devoid of

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equipment, that start-up was actually was going quite well and it was not reasonable to ask for 100% production in the first five minutes. Neurotypical people interject so much psychodrama into their social and professional interactions; they let their emotions take over their intellect. It causes a lot of problems

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is equally important in the grand scheme of life: it’s such a simple statement, one that is so infused into the thinking patterns of neurotypicals that the idea that it may need to be verbalized and even taught can be in itself a revelation. Teaching children and adults to be

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abilities as abhorrent or excellent, their mistakes as nothing other than complete failure. Absent from their thinking is the recognition that comes so easily to neurotypical children: that mistakes fall into different categories of importance, based on the context of the situation. They demand no less than perfection from themselves, but

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unwritten rule of social relationships specifically for people with ASD—I don’t know how much this is actually verbalized to children with ASD because neurotypicals can learn by observation, by reading, through the experiences of others. Not so for the majority of us on the spectrum. When I was young

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possibly sabotaging a project, or a newly-acquainted “friend” is really a friend after all, for Temple, it comes down to an algorithm. Temple explains: Neurotypical people seem to have some inner sense of when people are lying or stretching the truth. Some people are really good at spotting deceit and

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the objective of calculating the best way to achieve success, whether it’s on a project or getting one of my university students graduated. What neurotypical people refer to as “intuition” for me is a picture-based, logic-based mental process. It’s not a feeling; it’s an Internet search

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value in our list of pivotal rules to teach children with ASD. Isn’t it obvious, you may ask? Yes, it probably is to any neurotypical, but believe us that it is anything but simple wisdom to a child or adult with an autism spectrum disorder. Why? We hope by now

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the resultant stress that creates. “Easily” only comes through practice. You expect us to learn how to easily exist within the social framework of the neurotypical world. We ask you to learn to just as easily step into ours. When that happens we’ll all succeed. But it requires practice, practice

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situations and drew conclusions that reflected absolutes rather than acknowledging the emotional complexities inherent in social relationships. Emotions are the back-seat drivers of how neurotypical people act in public settings. Even when boundaries of public versus private behaviors are clear, emotions can throw all of that logical thought into the

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wind. This is far more frequent with neurotypicals than it is for the rule-bound person with autism. However, we mention it to shed light on the difficulty it makes for people with

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of thought one step further, Temple expands upon the role that emotions play in deciphering appropriate public behavior, illuminating the almost unconscious way in which neurotypical people make allowances for emotional swings and know not to interpret literally the behaviors of others. Temple continues: People have a “social face” they put

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their job. But sometimes their personal moods affect whether or not they act friendly—even though their job description requires that “public behavior.” Even though neurotypicals may agree that certain behaviors are “public” and others are “private” they quickly make allowances for others’ behaviors, based on these emotional fluctuations—because they

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. They form a spot opinion, whereas the autistic person believes it as truth. However—and this is a major point—in the back of their neurotypical minds they have a voice, a “second mind” as it’s referred to, that draws their attention to context and all the other probabilities that

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of social language and social interactions is a very slippery slope, one navigated in a constant state of high anxiety. I don’t think most neurotypical adults appreciate the level of stress kids with ASD live with on a constant basis. Imagine having never skied before, and standing at the top

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analytic observation. My body language doesn’t spontaneously happen through my emotions. There isn’t that connection between thoughts and feelings like there is with neurotypical people. When I was young, I couldn’t interpret others’ language and behaviors and monitor my own because I didn’t have enough experiences to

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the middle of a meeting your express your strong disagreement with a coworker’s suggestion in the form of a comment peppered with foul language. Neurotypicals refer to it as being “clueless” or laugh it off as people who “put their foot in their mouths”— to inadvertently say things that irk

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else they may have done would have been rude or otherwise socially unacceptable. It would be years later before I understood an unwritten rule that neurotypicals learn in early childhood: not all people are interested in the same topics; what’s fascinating to one person may be utterly boring to another

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groups and cliques take on a new level of importance. For the child with ASD, the social chasm widens at this stage of development as neurotypical peers become less forgiving and more prone to alienating children who are odd or don’t fit in. Hormonal changes are sometimes coupled with other

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for. The end is being able to establish positive, vibrant, healthy and long-lasting relationships with people on many levels. Points to Keep in Mind: Neurotypical people often throw out questions as part of “social chit-chat” that they really don’t want the answer to. Be sure to share that

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part of a social group/interaction. Respect the ASD person’s individuality and help him express it within socially accepted boundaries. Changing him into a neurotypical “clone” is not the goal of intervention. What is “humorous” varies from culture to culture, from company to company, teacher to teacher, etc. It’s

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#10 People are Responsible for Their Own Behaviors. Social interaction requires some level of personal responsibility in order for the parties involved to achieve “success.” Neurotypicals naturally understand this and the tides of conversation (talk, listen, silence) or interaction (action, response/no response) ebb and flow between partners as they engage

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” at one point or another. There are two kinds of bad bosses: 1) jerks who most employees hate and 2) bosses who are nice to neurotypicals but don’t like Aspies. Either kind may be impossible to work with, but don’t give up right from the start. People on the

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minute. This is no less true for people with ASD. Watch yourself if you’re expecting them to display an unchanging level of emotional control. Neurotypical people give themselves the right to experience fluctuating emotions; make sure you are extending it also to the person with ASD. Teach emotional problem-solving

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just swing closed again. Teaching and learning goes on and on throughout life—it’s the same for people with autism as it is for neurotypicals. However, I do want to say that medication was one of the things that made success possible for me, because it stopped the debilitating panic

Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

by Elle Reeve  · 9 Jul 2024

society could be either a badge of honor or a shameful confession. The products of obsessive and meticulous internet research were sometimes called “weaponized autism.” Neurotypical people with mainstream politics were called “normies.” I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I couldn’t find mainstream people talking about it

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of them said many of these people were actually depressed. It might be that a huge number of 4chan users really are measurably different from neurotypical people according to rigorous analysis based in science. Or it might be more like astrology, a way to talk about your personality and how you

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vulnerable college self.” Heimbach said he would not make the big public apology he thought was required to reenter society, because it was a stupid “neurotypical” morality play. Only a couple weeks later, Heimbach was fired from McDonald’s after management discovered he’d been a professional racist. He read me

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—beings incapable of human emotion. They blamed it on their Asperger’s, though it is not true that people with autism feel any less than neurotypical people. But Asperger’s was a big part of their relationship. Parrott had maxed out his score on the military entrance exam with a 99

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, 37, 126, 133 subversion of “Tay” on, 120–22 “surf the Kali Yuga,” 4 trolls on, 119, 135 Trump supporters and, 125 users as not neurotypical, 50 Franks, Mary Anne, 108 free speech, 103–17, 180 Berkeley violence and, 142 Brennan as free speech absolutist, 104–7, 109, 214 Charles Martel

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, 236 racism and, 126 Russian social media accounts, trolls, 82, 102 sense of community of extremist websites, 52 terrorism and, 103 users who are not neurotypical, 47–49, 52, 104, 111–17 “weaponized autism” and, 47 white nationalism and, 38 See also alt-right; 8chan; 4chan; incels; QAnon; Wizardchan; specific sites

Spectrum Women: Walking to the Beat of Autism

by Barb Cook and Samantha Craft  · 20 Aug 2018  · 335pp  · 94,578 words

and low functioning. We agreed that the terminology of high and low functioning is an outdated and segregating description of people on the autism spectrum. • Neurotypical (NT) and non-autistic have been used interchangeably to identify persons not on the autism spectrum. We each have our own unique way in which

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reading A–Z reference material just because you want to know everything. Television and videos will be another source manual for “How to be a Neurotypical Human,” so we voraciously watch series, films, and documentaries. We may gravitate to quirky yet heroic characters that remind us of ourselves, such as Sherlock

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and maintain some equilibrium. We don’t give up, resilient queens that we are. We try on different personalities, accents, religions, cultures, the way that neurotypical girls might try on clothes at a department store—which, traditionally, spectrum women hate. It makes sense, as we are doing this every day in

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true to one’s intrinsic nature. As Tony Attwood has famously said, “It is better to be a first-rate aspie than a second-rate neurotypical.” But we can and do expand our talents, including social ones. The mind can and does learn, grow, and adapt. We want to be social

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Gendered Minds” (in reference to Professor Baron-Cohen’s “extreme male brain” theory of autism). To quote one of the speakers: “Gender variation is natural, neurotype is natural…start by seeing us as people, not as weirdly gendered minds and we’ll go from there” (Camneurodiversity, 2017). Back in the 1970s

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Jen Elcheson and Anita Lesko Finding what works for you—Jen Elcheson Friends I think it is safe to assume most human beings of all neurotypes need some kind of connection in life whether through friendships or relationships. Despite having a difficult time making and keeping friends, most of us on

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I know agree that we usually get on better with other autistics. Mind you, we can be friends with people of all neurological variances including neurotypicals, because what matters is the quality of friendship. What is crucial is realizing that it’s all about finding someone you can get along with

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, if it doesn’t work out, we’ll just get divorced!” That’s a sad way to view it. But here’s a big difference: neurotypicals in general have many friendships and relationships. To them, it’s easy to find the next one. For me, as someone on the spectrum who

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the little things that we do each day that make life together grand. We believe our marriage is better and stronger than other couples’, specifically neurotypicals (NTs)! We don’t play “mind games,” the term NTs use. When there’s anything needing discussion, that’s just what we do. Discuss it

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together as a team. We maintain our individuality yet are bonded together as one. For me, I know I could never be married to a neurotypical guy. They wouldn’t understand me, my need for quiet, and my autistic ways. Both Abraham and I have mitochondrial dysfunction. We both understand the

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each other and themselves is a key part of their sense of fulfillment and harmony with each other. When the relationship is between aspie and neurotypical, there are many areas of potential disharmony, analogous to a clash of two different cultures. In my work I have found, as Anita describes (assuming

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was it an act of comradery when a few dates easily convinced me that dates ended with things I never suspected, liked, or wanted. As neurotypical as I’m told I appear, I was indeed the kid, the teen, the young adult, the mom, the neighbor, the relative, the co-worker

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understand autism, before you make an official report. They can then assume the role of translator and help you share your story in ways that neurotypicals can comprehend, while simultaneously helping you deal with the ramifications of the situation. Emotional abuse It is common for people on the autism spectrum to

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students with disability (1027), including ASD, and without disabilities (11,500), and found that having ASD increased the rate of bullying by 50% compared with neurotypical children. Many adults with Asperger syndrome report that bullying from peers started as early as kindergarten. Unfortunately, this means that being bullied at school is

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journey, plants those miraculous seeds within herself. Dr. Michelle Garnett on parenting Working with many mothers who are themselves on the autism spectrum, parenting both neurotypical and autistic children, I have discovered that having autism brings gifts as well as challenges to the parenting experience, as Samantha beautifully articulates. One of

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employees are great at noticing the things that others miss, be that in proofreading reports, coding, or testing software. Autistic people can often notice things neurotypical people do not. In a work context this is a significant advantage. • An employee who has struggled to find and keep a job is likely

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of reasons • anxiety • discrimination and/or bullying • exclusion or isolation from colleagues • difficulties understanding work hierarchies • sensory issues • difficulties understanding “unwritten rules” and expectations which neurotypical employees seem to know intuitively. Gender differences in employment Some considerations around employment are similar for autistic men and women. However, there are some experiences

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autistic people (adults and children) need to wear ear defenders most of the time because they are unable to filter out all auditory input as neurotypical people tend to be able to do. At times, if I’m hyper-focused on something (e.g. reading, washing dishes, a crochet project, even

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would not change her autism in any way or any form, except to change her sensory processing system. This statement comes as a surprise to neurotypicals who immediately assume that someone on the autism spectrum would prefer to have innately intact social communication neural systems. However, Kate and Barb know differently

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communicate? The answer is no. Without a common system, there can be no exchange of information. If we cannot exchange information, we are not communicating. Neurotypical translator, anyone? Don’t call me, I’ll call you: The shapes and sizes of communication Communication can be broken down into three main categories

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still baffles my brain. We cut to the chase. That is not the common system. Additionally, we use terms and descriptors that are unfamiliar to neurotypicals—words like “stim,” “meltdown,” “fidget,” “sensory overload,” and the list goes on. Our literal language is different from most. If you use those words in

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small lag in our conversations. It represents not only that translation time but all the other processes our different brains go through to become effective neurotypical translators. That lag, however small, can be long enough to be misinterpreted as rudeness, boredom, and not listening. It is the quiet communication killer. I

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around with others, particularly face-to-face. Well, not this female. My spectrumness has often been the issue in many of my social experiences with neurotypical women. People comment on my lack of emotion, my directness, my strong opinions, and, apparently, my desire to be moving while I talk. All of

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and women have the smartest coping mechanisms for their social communication difficulties. These mechanisms include using observation, research, and imitation to be able to emulate neurotypical social communication. A helpful analogy is learning a new language. If one moves to Japan where most people speak Japanese, but one insists on speaking

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English, there are going to be communication problems. To navigate a largely neurotypical community, it makes sense to learn the communication system of that community. It is effortful to do so. Girls and women become exhausted by the

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this basic definition, the first thing I want to point out is its ending: “of another.” As we may notice, it does not say “of neurotypical people” or actually of any specific group or type of person. It just says “another.” Taking that into consideration, we can clearly see that the

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having issues with executive functioning and task inertia. Agony Autie (2017) put it brilliantly: You gotta remember I believed I was neurotypical all my life; I believed I was a failing neurotypical. All my life, I remember thinking, “Why can’t I do this? Why can’t I keep this together?” … You

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’t mean I’m completely incapable. Some days are better than others, and this rings true for all of us—neurodiverse and neurotypical alike. Because I’ve “worn the neurotypical mask” for so long and only since my diagnosis have I acquired the vocabulary to be able to explain why I’m

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’t wash enough, bacteria will quickly accumulate and cause body odor—this can become a sensory nightmare for you and for those around you, both neurotypical and neurodiverse. Dirty skin equals itchy skin; while scratching can feel good, if you scratch too hard, you may break through your skin, which can

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sensory overload and violation, especially if the visit is for embarrassment-provoking reasons such as pap smears and mammograms. I’ve never heard of a neurotypical liking it, so we surely won’t. In addition to the sensory issues, equally important are the communication issues. As a healthcare provider for over

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. It hardly seems fair. It can take so much out of a person to struggle with any one of them, let alone having multiple problems. Neurotypicals (NTs) might look at us as the weakest link. I choose to look at it differently. Instead, we are the stronger ones, for we have

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a Woman with Aspergers Wants Her Partner to Know, Rudy Simone (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2012) A Field Guide to Earthlings: An Autistic/Asperger View of Neurotypical Behaviour, Ian Ford (Ian Ford Software Corporation, 2010) Am I Autistic? A Guide to Autism and Asperger’s Self-Diagnosis for Adults, Lydia Andal (New

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ASD as part of 52–3 fears in 49–50 gender 60–1 growth in 50–1, 52 Michelle Garnett on 53–5 passing as neurotypical 47–9 resilience in 50 in school 46–7 strengths in 51–2 identity-first language 13 independent living 121–9 Michelle Garnett on 129

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Garnett on 160 mitochondrial dysfunction 225–6 Moyes, R. 203 mutism 49–50, 168–9, 175 myths about ASD 24–6 National Autistic Society 222 neurotypical as preferred term 13 wants to pass as 47–9 Nicolaidis, C. 238 non-autistic as preferred term 13 O’Connor, E. 218 Ollendick, T

Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us About Life, Love and Relationships

by Camilla Pang  · 12 Mar 2020  · 256pp  · 67,563 words

a world whose door was otherwise closed to me. And I believe the lessons it has to teach are important for all of us, whether neurotypical or neurodivergent. If we want to understand people better, then we actually need to know how people work: the functioning of the body and the

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syndrome, often referred to as a high-functioning form of autism that makes you too ‘normal’ to be stereotypically autistic, and too weird to be neurotypically normal, I see myself as an interpreter between both worlds in which I have lived. I also know that what changed my life was being

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just not leave the house. But I do think this method has a place when it comes to the more complex decisions – the ones that neurotypical instinct and methods tend to fall down on. While the challenge for my ASD/ADHD brain is not getting paralysed by overthinking, the opposite of

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else around me had. It took me a long time to realize it, but my difference actually held one considerable advantage. Unlike pretty much any neurotypical teenager on the planet, I was immune from peer pressure. (And believe me, I tried not to be.) This wasn’t out of high-minded

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and more accepting of the different roles people play, because of our very different personalities. It’s to curb the basic human (or at least neurotypical) impulse to fit in, and to celebrate our weirdness, recognizing its essential contribution to social cohesion. Proteins teach us that being different helps us to

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. Consider that and then think about the individuals who make up your sample. There will be people of all shapes and sizes, races and genders, neurotypical and neurodivergent, with and without mental and physical health conditions. This slice of average contains all of us – in all our weird and wonderful diversity

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took care of it.’ Not quite ‘getting it’ has been one of the recurring features of my life. As an Aspie in a world of neurotypical half-meanings, ambiguous gestures and untranslatable implications, you are constantly walking through a minefield. Or you’re accidentally sowing mines in their cornfield. Either way

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of the great human fears. I didn’t always know this, but I do now. Saying or doing the wrong thing is something that both neurotypical and neurodiverse people are evidently capable of, but we probably get there via slightly different means. For someone like me, it’s usually through a

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lack of understanding about social norms and failing to take into account the invisible parameters of hierarchy and convention. If you’re neurotypical, you might have suffered the opposite problem: assuming that your knowledge of a certain situation was enough to ‘get it right’, or overreaching because you

Neurodiversity at Work: Drive Innovation, Performance and Productivity With a Neurodiverse Workforce

by Amanda Kirby and Theo Smith  · 2 Aug 2021  · 424pp  · 114,820 words

been thought to have been generated by the neurodiversity movement and initially focused far more on autistic people. It was seen as the opposite to ‘neurotypical’. However, using the term in this way may cause challenges of ‘otherness’ and sets people up as being either

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neurotypical OR neurodivergent, ie either sitting in one camp or another, when in reality people are far more complex and nuanced and cognition is far more

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or labels to determine what’s normal and what’s not! Amanda’s normal is living in a very varied neurodivergent family – this is her neurotypical! In the end we want to have the tools and confidence to empower each of us to be our best selves. Warning: words have different

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say they have found their ‘tribe’. It may be the first time having an explanation of why you were (or are) having challenges in a neurotypical world and it provides the means of articulating this to others in a positive way. However, a ‘tribe’ can be seen by some as separatist

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one for the workplace, as in the past support for people who were autistic was about ‘normalizing’ and teaching someone to communicate in a ‘more neurotypical’ way such as guiding someone to look at someone’s ear if they found looking directly at the person difficult. There is a growing realization

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and see a long list of skills, the assumption is often that they need all of them to apply and so they don’t, when neurotypical (and often more confident) people will have a go even if they don’t have the full set of skills cited. Practical tips Consider and

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successful autistic professional, that combination of experience affords some unique and helpful perspective into what is often an intimidating and nerve-wracking process – even for neurotypicals! As a one-time hiring manager and practised interviewer, here’s my neurodivergent take on the process. From the interviewing standpoint as a hiring manager

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can also provide useful information, but they aren’t nearly as powerful as other tools and often have the problem of being developed on a neurotypical population. There is a challenge also that taking grades and years of education as a metric for skills can exclude those whose education may have

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have not been validated on a wider population, including those who are neurodivergent.5 Hiring diverse talent If using psychometric assessments is the norm for neurotypical people, is this the right thing if you actually want to attract a neurodiverse talent pool? Is there a better approach? If we rely too

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campaign relating to neurodiversity alone, we run a risk of resulting in a ‘them and us’ situation. * Amanda has recently read documentation referring to ‘the neurotypicals’ and ‘the neurodivergents’ as if there are distinct groupings that separate us from them. The positive effects of diversity will be undermined if groups perceive

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students 82–83 what the concept means to different people 16–19 why it is important for organizations 10–19 neurodiversity policy 117 neuroqueer 299 neurotypical 25 NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence), UK 164, 227 non-stimulant medicines 299 Nothing About Us Without Us 239 obsessive-compulsive disorder

The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum

by Temple Grandin and Richard Panek  · 15 Feb 2013

that the brains in a sample of high-functioning autistics and typically developing individuals seemed to respond to eye contact in opposite fashions. In the neurotypical brain, the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) was active to direct gaze, while in the autistic subject, the TPJ was active to averted gaze. Researchers think

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is associated with social tasks that include judgments of others’ mental states. The study found the opposite pattern in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: in neurotypicals, activation to averted gaze; in autistics, activation to direct gaze. So it’s not that autistics don’t respond to eye contact, it’s that

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their response is the opposite of neurotypicals’. “Sensitivity to gaze in dlPFC demonstrates that direct gaze does elicit a specific neural response in participants with autism,” the study said. The problem, however

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, is “that this response may be similar to processing of averted gaze in typically developing participants.” What a neurotypical person feels when someone won’t make eye contact might be what a person with autism feels when someone does make eye contact. And vice

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versa: What a neurotypical feels when someone does make eye contact might be what an autistic feels when someone doesn’t make eye contact. For a person with autism

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who is trying to navigate a social situation, welcoming cues from a neurotypical might be interpreted as aversive cues. Up is down, and down is up. Overconnectivity and underconnectivity. A highly influential paper published in Brain in 2004

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use a whole bunch of normal brains and brains of individuals with autism, and we make a template of each one”—of autistic brain and neurotypical brain—”and we take a new subject in and just ask, ‘Well, which one does it match more?’” The point isn’t to identify this

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brain or that brain as belonging to an autistic person or a neurotypical. It’s to find an aggregate that could help identify areas of potential interest that might be biomarkers. In a major study that Anderson’s

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with results from other research groups. A 2011 MRI study from the University of Louisville found that in a sample of seventeen autistic and seventeen neurotypical subjects, the length of the centerline of the corpus callosum could be used to distinguish between the two types of brains with a level of

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will have to ask themselves whether the removal of data from studies of one group of subjects (like autistics) will skew comparisons with studies of neurotypical subjects. Even if you do manage to hold still, you can still screw up a neuroimaging result—as I know from personal experience. During one

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of studies in the 1990s found that if children with ASDs watched facial expressions displayed slowly on video, they understood them equally as well as neurotypical children of the same developmental age. The “World Changing Too Fast” authors developed software that slowed down the presentation of visual and auditory cues. When

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cortex gets turned down. But a 2012 fMRI study found that when autistics were listening to sound cues, their visual cortices remained more active than neurotypicals’. If that’s the case, then even while they’re straining to process aural cues, they’re being distracted and confused by visual cues. But

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person has an autistic bent. Definitely agreeing with the statement “I find myself drawn more strongly to people than to things” would suggest a more neurotypical person. When Baron-Cohen and his colleagues administered the test in a clinical setting, the average score in the control group was 16.4 out

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’t seen this trait as a strength, they’ve nonetheless noted over the years that people with autism often pay greater attention to details than neurotypicals. Let’s start there and see where it takes us. Bottom-Up Thinking People with autism are really good at seeing details. “When a person

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, like running. Studies have repeatedly shown that people with autism can identify biological motion, but they don’t do so with the same ease as neurotypicals. Nor do they attach emotions and feelings to the motions. What’s more, they use different parts of the brain than

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neurotypicals do. Neurotypicals show a lot of activation in both hemispheres, while autistics show less activation overall. The way the autistic brain engages with biological motion is reminiscent

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recognition: a strength in pure pattern recognition—being really good at seeing the trees. Studies have repeatedly shown that people with autism perform better than neurotypicals on embedded-figure tests—a variation on the old something’s-hidden-in-the-picture game. Several years ago I took a test where I

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the big letter or the little letter. I was faster at identifying the little letters, a result that’s far more common among autistics than neurotypicals. Research has also shown that when performing language tasks, the autistic subject relies on the visual and spatial areas of the brain more heavily than

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the neurotypical subject does, perhaps to compensate for a lack of the kind of semantic knowledge that comes with social interaction. An fMRI study in 2008 showed

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that when the neurotypical brain conducted a visual search, most of the activity was confined to one region of the brain (the occipitotemporal, which is associated with visual processing

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about everything. Perhaps this is why I can immediately spot the paper cup or hanging chain that’s going to spook the cattle, while the neurotypicals all around me don’t even notice it. Researchers have a lovely term for that tendency to see the trees before recognizing the forest: local

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long-term memory was impaired in autistics. Still, whether long-term memory in autistic people tends to be better or worse than it is among neurotypicals is almost beside the point. The fact is, you need memories. You need data. When I was in college looking at my bulletin board, I

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see the forest. Creative Thinking The forest that the autistic brain winds up seeing, however, might not look the same as the forest that the neurotypical brain sees. I recently read a definition of creativity in the journal Science that really made an impression on me: “a sudden, unexpected recognition of

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will be until we arrive there. We expect surprises. Earlier in this chapter, I mentioned that autistic people generally tend to see details better than neurotypicals, and then I said, “Let’s start there and see where it takes us.” It’s taken us here: to a creative leap about creative

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said, but I was right. The musicians all had their own ways of playing, but their instruments were unique, too. The emphasis is mine. The neurotypical response to his insight was to dismiss it. But Robison could hear what other people missed. Actually, he could see it: “I saw the whole

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of facts, and facts are full of words, not pictures. So, okay. People with autism can think in visual terms or verbal terms, just like neurotypicals. That Amazon reviewer was right. But then one day in early 2001 I got an advance copy of a book in the mail, Exiting Nirvana

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