Tony Attwood

[Boogs]

Interesting questions, but for another thread.

'pologies, they were rhetorical questions, I didn't express it well.

 

[Boogs]

If you've met one autistic person you've met one autistic person, but an autistic meltdown is still "an autistic meltdown" by definition, and autistic meltdowns are from an overloaded sensory system.

I might like knowing someone understands or cares, or that they're in the next room holding space for me, but I wouldn't want anyone coming near me until the worst had subsided. It's counterproductive, otherwise.

Given Dr Attwood's years of reserach and accolades in the field of autism research it was odd to me that he didn't seem to know anything about the needs of people with L2-3 autism and severe sensory integration disorder.

To be fair on the doctor, my take is that autism and related conditions is a massive and extremely complex subject, not at all fully understood, and from my take, seem much more symptom oriented currently, because causes are a long way off being discovered and rationalised into the various types of symptom and the classes they form.

So, and as you've rightly pointed out, not to be autistic and be working in the field limits some of the data relevant to the condition. But, personally, I see NT's as also being on the spectrum, they just happen to be those in the main part of the population distribution curve, and being the major group, don't suffer the same problem of misunderstanding other neural types (those being minorities) and all the social/communication issues (I'm not considering the more individual symptoms here, more the most common ones).
It's really hard to discuss this stuff because of the symptomatic approach, and the fact of the huge differences of people who have ASD, so don't take all this as being the be-all and end-all of it - just my own limited view. But an advantage of an NT in the field is they can communicate with other NT's far more effectively than many of us can, can be more consistent within their community, and can spread the good word better, and can see aspects some of us would miss, or over-study at the expense of other parts.
I think there's a part to play for those people in carrying out autism research and medicine, and they have advantages that those who are ND don't, just as ND's have attributes that NT's don't. (sorry for the crude categories, but it's easier to write that way and try to make the point).

So to take meltdowns as an example, I think I personally have no better understanding of the sort of severe meltdowns I read about. I don't appear to get these myself, and if I do suffer them, they are minimalised greatly, short lived mostly, and I can recover from them effectively most at the time, usually with little fallout. So in that way, I doubt I could do any better than Attwood could with what sound like terribly debilitating events to those who get them. But not being able to experience or perceive them, doesn't discount other types of research. Best example comes to mind, is my father who was a consultant psychiatrist in the uk NHS. In the 70's and 80's especially he was doing a great deal of ground breaking research in geriatric psychiatry, one area of which was the use of computers (he had to teach himself to program stats routines etc as there was no help anywhere to do this). The point being that in the end, he came up with some truly helpful publications of the way these patients were being treated, and how often normal medical conditions were masking their mental diagnoses , and visa versa, etc. A great many revelations came out of these statistical results, the use of which actually ended up with a great many improvements in how these patients were treated, and the successful improvements were testament to those insights. But at the same time, he could never have experienced things from their point of view, but it didn't exclude him from providing real benefits to their lives.

I think it's only by deliberate inclusion of all types that we can come to a common understanding of what neuro-variability means, and what we all should be more aware of when it comes to relationships of all sorts with others.
I also think it's by taking advantages of all neuro-types that we'll gain all the more socially speaking, for all of us. The separation of the types has advantages, especially for those unaware of these conditions, because it allows people to understand the differences, but to deliberately move away from other types in a social fashion, while providing relief like masking can, also like masking, can cost a heavy price that makes the advantages less meaningful in the end?