NT thinking and us

[Autistamatic]

In reply to the "neurotypical" question...
It's most commonly used simply as a catch all term to mean all people who are not on the spectrum without us having to say "non autistic" all the time.
Is it the most descriptive term? Maybe not. The truth is that there is an infinite variety of ways a brain can be wired, so we are all neurodiverse, on or off the spectrum. It's just that a particular subset of neural characteristics that often occur together have been labelled as "autism" which separates us from the crowd. It's easier to have a term to describe the remaining portion of the population and neurotypical fits well enough rather than using sensitive words like "normal".
Unfortunately some amongst us can be known to use "neurotypical" and "NT" in a derogatory or patronising manner, as if not being on the spectrum makes someone by default inferior or a bad person, but those that do that are thankfully in the minority these days.
For my own part, whilst I cannot claim to be entirely consistent, I try to use the term "NT people" rather than just "NTs" as often as possible to acknowledge that we are all part of the same species and the same societies living the same lives, just with different ways of interpreting and navigating through them.

 

[PATILYN]

Great. Will do. First thing I would ask - when you look at a wall, what do you see and notice? (Wall with shelves, pictures, knick knacks, whatever).

Hmmm ... likely the whole thing ... like the effect ... not the the specifics. If there is nothing really remarkable about the wall probably wouldn’t notice. For example I own my own business and I need others to merchandise for me

 

[Daydreamer]

I didn't really feel like you were cornering me - just I really didn't know how to answer because Nt's used all the time on this site and I'm just assuming who I think it includes.
Interesting about the wall. If I was at a strange place and looked at a wall for 5 minutes and looked away I could only tell you the one thing on the wall I'm actually looking at. There were shower games that things are placed on a tray and left in the room for so many minutes and then removed and people wrote down what they remember being on the tray. I always did so poorly at that game and I never knew why. But now I realize it's because I look at one object at a time - so I didn't have enough time to even look at every object. But there can be advantages to it, too - I see things and people always ask how did I see that? I just don't tell them that may have been the only thing I saw. lol My focus and peripheral vision is fine - I just can't force myself to look at the whole thing.

I also have difficulty with remembering objects on a tray, however in my case it is not because I'm hyper-focusing on one of the items...it's more that my short term memory is a bit flawed. My long term memory is excellent however. This is because it takes a bit longer for me to take in information that I have just witnessed.

Take for example I'm eating with a friend, I may ask them if they have eaten anything yet even though I just saw them eat in front of me because sometimes I forget. However, later on I'd remember everything they ate down to the finest details (Unless it was a food with a strong smell or something, then I'd remember it instantly). My memory is sometimes delayed, but detailed.

One time I took the tray test, and my old teachers gave us a sheet afterwards. Here's how my thought process went:

"Alright, so I gotta remember all these items, I should probably make up a story to connect them all so then I have a better chance of remembering them. *I make up a story and feel hopeful about the task* Cool, I got this". *Items are taken away and we are given sheets*

Sheet:

"How many items were in the box?"

Me: Oh no.

I lack in what it commonly referred to as number sense, which means that a) I'm not good at estimating, and b) grouping dots or the number of objects or people together isn't something that comes naturally to me. Alright, here's an example. Imagine five dots.

Did you think of it like this? ^ If I look at the example above, I think "Oh hey, there's five dots" however...

is where I start to have a problem. ^ The first pattern is how I learned how to group five dots together, back in primary school my teachers caught on to the fact that I struggled to group numerical information, and would give me patterns to practice remembering so then hopefully it would speed up the counting process. Unfortunately, when dots are spread out like this or otherwise in an unfamiliar pattern, I find it harder to group them. If that quickly flashed on a screen I'd probably go "Oh, well that was a group of two, and there was another, plus there's one on its own...2+2= 4...+1= 5. However, most people who look at that would just go "Oh, there was five dots" more quickly than I usually can.

This is quite a common difficulty in dyscalculic individuals, and one of the reasons I suspect that I have it.

So when I was asked "How many items were there in the tray?" my first thought was "I wish I had counted" because I find it hard to estimate such things. Here's a conversation I had that illustrates this issue;

Friend: How many people are in your class?

Me: I've no idea, I've never counted.

Friend: Yeah but, you can just tell can't you?

Me: No.

Friend: It doesn't have to be exact.

Me: Er...twenty, maybe thirty, perhaps fifteen...admittedly I haven't a clue.

If someone asked me how many people were in a room I was stood in and it was either close to double figures, or it was in double figures...I'd have to count everyone individually and I might forget which number I got up to because of my short term memory acting up.

As for what the items were, my mind struggles to be motivated to remember random objects and usually doesn't bother unless they were somehow interesting. Well, that's my selective memory for you.

@Progster, if I was asked that question I'd simply reply "How many of what exactly? Leaves or clovers?".

 

[Ylva]

Great. Will do. First thing I would ask - when you look at a wall, what do you see and notice? (Wall with shelves, pictures, knick knacks, whatever).

If I really look at the wall, instead of just having it in my field of vision, I see a lot of details of the wall, but basically ignore the furniture on in, even if it's in my field of vision.

As for understanding NTs, I read the books they write, watch the movies they make – although I try not to draw conclusions if I am not sure the director/actor in question is NT – I have spent all my schooldays with them and overall been surrounded by NTs my whole life. If I had this much experience with elephants, I'd be a world-class expert, even if I'd never taken a single class on them. Very few NTs have this level of experience with autistics, and almost all of them have other NTs tell them how to interpret their experiences with autistics.

My experience still won't get me a pass with most NTs. I can manage the people in my region, though, culture and all, in case anyone wondered why I'm never leaving.

 

[Mary Terry]

I'm NT, too. I have known people on the spectrum for decades - a sister-in-law who is HFA, a nephew who is said to be LFA because he is non-verbal but who has the IQ of a genius, and I have been tutoring young adults on the ASD spectrum for many years to help them obtain GEDs. Ask me anything you want.

In my personal opinion, there are far more commonalities between "NTs" and those with ASD than there are differences. NTs experience social anxieties, depression, social awkwardness and isolation, bullying, mind blindness, learning disabilities, savant characteristics, narrow focuses and obsessions, and probably every other characteristic and/or experience identified by the "experts" as part of autism but I think it is usually to a lesser degree than those on the spectrum. NTs employ coping mechanisms and have reactions to adverse situations different than autistic people. I can emphatically state that I know plenty of NT people who have one or more of the characteristics attributed to autism.

 

[Pats]

If I really look at the wall, instead of just having it in my field of vision, I see a lot of details of the wall, but basically ignore the furniture on in, even if it's in my field of vision.

As for understanding NTs, I read the books they write, watch the movies they make – although I try not to draw conclusions if I am not sure the director/actor in question is NT – I have spent all my schooldays with them and overall been surrounded by NTs my whole life. If I had this much experience with elephants, I'd be a world-class expert, even if I'd never taken a single class on them. Very few NTs have this level of experience with autistics, and almost all of them have other NTs tell them how to interpret their experiences with autistics.

My experience still won't get me a pass with most NTs. I can manage the people in my region, though, culture and all, in case anyone wondered why I'm never leaving.

I suppose that an 'NT person' is around a HF autistic person who never tells anyone they are autistic, they're not going to be able to use that as an experience to understand autism either. Makes sense.

 

[Pats]

I'm NT, too. I have known people on the spectrum for decades - a sister-in-law who is HFA, a nephew who is said to be LFA because he is non-verbal but who has the IQ of a genius, and I have been tutoring young adults on the ASD spectrum for many years to help them obtain GEDs. Ask me anything you want.

In my personal opinion, there are far more commonalities between "NTs" and those with ASD than there are differences. NTs experience social anxieties, depression, social awkwardness and isolation, bullying, mind blindness, learning disabilities, savant characteristics, narrow focuses and obsessions, and probably every other characteristic and/or experience identified by the "experts" as part of autism but I think it is usually to a lesser degree than those on the spectrum. NTs employ coping mechanisms and have reactions to adverse situations different than autistic people. I can emphatically state that I know plenty of NT people who have one or more of the characteristics attributed to autism.

Very true and glad you mentioned the degree of these things because that's one of the most frustrating things when you try to get someone NT to understand what you are going through. They think you're a little anxious and they think they can relate because they're the same way. But it's not to a crippling degree as it can be for some of us. Yes, you have anxiety giving a lecture. I get A nX I E Ty. Thanks for bringing that up.

 

[Pats]

One time I took the tray test, and my old teachers gave us a sheet afterwards. Here's how my thought process went:

"Alright, so I gotta remember all these items, I should probably make up a story to connect them all so then I have a better chance of remembering them. *I make up a story and feel hopeful about the task* Cool, I got this". *Items are taken away and we are given sheets*

Sheet:

"How many items were in the box?"

Me: Oh no.

Thanks - I bout rolled out of my chair laughing so hard when I read this.
(And yes, my numbers are grouped like those on a dice).

 

[Pats]

When I look at a wall, I look only at one thing too, I look at one picture on the wall first, then I might move on to something else, another picture, going round the wall until I've seen everything on it. This is assuming I have time to look and no other distractions. I look at details first and build up a picture of the things as a whole. I don't think it's physically possible to see the whole wall at once; your eye can only focus on one narrow spot at once and everything else is peripheral. Your brain relies on your short term memory to build up a picture of the wall as a whole. It also makes a generalisation of what you see, 'this is a wall', rather than 'this is a collection of bricks'. I think that where we might differ from most NTS is that the NTs will see the wall first from the general shape, outline and context, and then hone in on the details of the wall, like individual bricks or pictures on the wall, whereas we will start with the details and then build up a picture, then conclude that it is a wall.
To illustrate this point, in a lesson with an NT student, we had a picture simular to this to practice numbers

View attachment 48722 :

The question was simply: how many?

My answer was 4.
The student's answer was one.

very interesting.
I know after my neck surgery and I had to wear a hard collar for months after, going to the grocery store was nearly impossible because I do have to look at everything individually and it was hard when I had to check the lower and upper shelves. It hurt.

 

[FayetheAspie]

When I look at a wall, I look only at one thing too, I look at one picture on the wall first, then I might move on to something else, another picture, going round the wall until I've seen everything on it. This is assuming I have time to look and no other distractions. I look at details first and build up a picture of the things as a whole. I don't think it's physically possible to see the whole wall at once; your eye can only focus on one narrow spot at once and everything else is peripheral. Your brain relies on your short term memory to build up a picture of the wall as a whole. It also makes a generalisation of what you see, 'this is a wall', rather than 'this is a collection of bricks'. I think that where we might differ from most NTS is that the NTs will see the wall first from the general shape, outline and context, and then hone in on the details of the wall, like individual bricks or pictures on the wall, whereas we will start with the details and then build up a picture, then conclude that it is a wall.
To illustrate this point, in a lesson with an NT student, we had a picture simular to this to practice numbers

View attachment 48722 :

The question was simply: how many?

My answer was 4.
The student's answer was one.

Highly relatable.