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Trying to Understand Autistic Bias towards Reality

R

Rasputin

ASD / Aspie
V.I.P Member
I recently read an article (Prediction Of Playfulness By Pretend Play, Severity Of Autism Behaviors, And Verbal Comprehension In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder) discussing research that concluded that autistic children have difficulty with fantasy and imagination in playing, and are biased towards fact and reality. I don’t believe this is true, or can be generalized. However, it did make me think about children in my family, about autistic friends, and about myself.

I have a cousin who I suspect is autistic, but is undiagnosed. He did not speak until he was 4, but is highly gifted with an IQ above 145. His son is 8 and is autistic; he has a very active imagination, loves attention from his parents, is very happy acting silly for hours, and engages his parents in his silliness. Dinosaurs and military airplanes are strong special interests, and he sometimes fantasizes about Godzilla fighting King Kong. He can get lost in his make believe world, and clearly has no difficulty imagining or fantasizing.

My wife has a nephew whose son is autistic. He is also interested in dinosaurs and Godzilla, and can get lost in his make believe world playing with toy dinosaurs.

My half brother shares many autistic traits with me, and has a teen aged daughter who is autistic. History is a special interest, and his knowledge of history is astonishing. Last night we were watching a football game which did not go in favor of our team. So he switched the television to HBO and started watching Godzilla vs King Kong as an escape from reality. He is 53 and has no difficulty suspending reality to enjoy a fantasy movie.

My best friend also has autistic traits and has two teen aged autistic sons. Godzilla is a special interest of theirs, snd they have a video library of all of the various Godzilla movies. They are similar to my half brother.

Then there I am, different from all of these people I mentioned. I learned to speak before I was a year old, and read books and learned math before I was 4 years old. I never was interested in Godzilla, but I identified with Spock when Star Trek aired on television. My identification with Spock continued to adulthood, and I like watching science fiction and futuristic shows and movies. I sort of escape reality when watching these shows, as long as I find them remotely plausible. Overall my interests are in math, science and history, and I naturally try to understand my perception of reality. However, I can be imaginative.

My questions after pondering all this are:
(1) are there different manifestations of autism that affects ones ability to imagine and fantasize, (2) why are so many male children drawn to dinosaurs and Godzilla, (3) is there an autistic difference between individuals drawn to Godzilla verses Spock, and (4) is there any validity to assertions by psychologists such as the article I read?
 
Rasputin said:
My questions after pondering all this are:
(1) are there different manifestations of autism that affects ones ability to imagine and fantasize, (2) why are so many male children drawn to dinosaurs and Godzilla, (3) is there an autistic difference between individuals drawn to Godzilla verses Spock, and (4) is there any validity to assertions by psychologists such as the article I read?
Click to expand...

1. "Autism experts" twist things from their perspective that we are a pathology to be eradicated. Take everything they say with a grain of salt
2. Male & female children of all kinds have various interests, many autistic children have quite eclectic interests. But they are often supressed by the 68.2% so they don't seem weird.
3. There are all kinds of autistic differences. We are each unique individuals. The 68.2% lumps us into sterotypes and then think they are "experts"
4. Their interpretations are biased by their outsider perspective that we are a disease. They do immense harm with their "expert" ********.

This assessment actually measures language deficiets. They are just extrapolating with the imagination delusions. That idiot "autism expert", Simon Barron Cohen, for example, used the Puppet test to "prove" that autistics do not have empathy even though we are the one's who experience a profound lack of empathy from the 68.2%. He placed us in danger with this hostile interpretation.

This same test was used to contrast language between two generations of Deaf children. The finding was that it highlighted language deficits that were remedied by increased language skills.

Autistics are always under attack from "normals". Normals are innately uncomfortable with those who do not conform to their reality. They label, gaslight, bully, and worse. They damage our souls.

Our brains provide a different perspective. This autistic perspective has been the catalist for all world-changing discoveries across science, art, and literature. When the 68.2% try to assimilate us as "normal", you rob us of our beautiful minds and kill our souls.

Read "Not Even Wrong". The author is one of the few "normals" that can communicate this well.

Just like the racism, sexism, and intolerance of "others" is systemic in the 68.2%'s desperate attempt to force assimilation, it is also weaponized against autism. It is the pathology of the "normals" and it makes you dangerous to us; to everyone. The COVID pandemic pales to the danger of the most pathologically disturbed "normals" that are currently radicalized to wipe out "different"

Autistic children need experiences to nurture their unique brains rather than trying to make their brains "normal", which is adversive to their development. The children also need your love, acceptance, engagement in their perspectives. They need your respect. Just like "normal" do.
 
Maybe a poll re: Spock or King Kong should be given at this site.

I go with Spock. My daughter at an extremely young age was quite fascinated with the Wizard of Oz. She would watch it 20 times straight. Had no flying monkey nightmares. She was about 2 and a half years old. She was big on role playing like being a cowboy or dressing up in fancy dresses. She did like dinosaurs and watched a little bit with her dad.
 
Thats's why I ignore this stuff an have no interest in being officially diagnosed. I am who I am do not want to change.
 
QuestJan said:
1. "Autism experts" twist things from their perspective that we are a pathology to be eradicated. Take everything they say with a grain of salt
2. Male & female children of all kinds have various interests, many autistic children have quite eclectic interests. But they are often supressed by the 68.2% so they don't seem weird.
3. There are all kinds of autistic differences. We are each unique individuals. The 68.2% lumps us into sterotypes and then think they are "experts"
4. Their interpretations are biased by their outsider perspective that we are a disease. They do immense harm with their "expert" ********.

This assessment actually measures language deficiets. They are just extrapolating with the imagination delusions. That idiot "autism expert", Simon Barron Cohen, for example, used the Puppet test to "prove" that autistics do not have empathy even though we are the one's who experience a profound lack of empathy from the 68.2%. He placed us in danger with this hostile interpretation.

This same test was used to contrast language between two generations of Deaf children. The finding was that it highlighted language deficits that were remedied by increased language skills.

Autistics are always under attack from "normals". Normals are innately uncomfortable with those who do not conform to their reality. They label, gaslight, bully, and worse. They damage our souls.

Our brains provide a different perspective. This autistic perspective has been the catalist for all world-changing discoveries across science, art, and literature. When the 68.2% try to assimilate us as "normal", you rob us of our beautiful minds and kill our souls.

Read "Not Even Wrong". The author is one of the few "normals" that can communicate this well.

Just like the racism, sexism, and intolerance of "others" is systemic in the 68.2%'s desperate attempt to force assimilation, it is also weaponized against autism. It is the pathology of the "normals" and it makes you dangerous to us; to everyone. The COVID pandemic pales to the danger of the most pathologically disturbed "normals" that are currently radicalized to wipe out "different"

Autistic children need experiences to nurture their unique brains rather than trying to make their brains "normal", which is adversive to their development. The children also need your love, acceptance, engagement in their perspectives. They need your respect. Just like "normal" do.
Click to expand...

You make a lot of good points. I found the article I posted to be illogical and full of inconsistencies, and I stopped reading. Regarding “normals”, I interpret that to mean they are typical or average at best. No one should be entitled to gaslight anyone, different or not.
 
What does the 68.2% refer to? Citations? Sorry, I am clueless about that term.

I dislike blanket conclusions drawn from testing that is done in a manner that begs the conclusion. Plus I think there is such a diversity among NDs that I would hesitate to describe what is typical for the group.
 
Gerald Wilgus said:
What does the 68.2% refer to? Citations? Sorry, I am clueless about that term.

I dislike blanket conclusions drawn from testing that is done in a manner that begs the conclusion. Plus I think there is such a diversity among NDs that I would hesitate to describe what is typical for the group.
Click to expand...

I think the 68.2% represents neurotypicals; however I don’t know if that is an accurate percentage.
 
I got a tickle at the interest in Godzilla. I often play Godzilla to get my most hated chores done and I love watching Godzilla movies!
That is all I am going to say about that.

I can't comment on research because my knowledge is limited but from what I have seen on this site the very idea of "lack of imagination" or "no empthy" is rediculous.
 
Rasputin said:
I recently read an article (Prediction Of Playfulness By Pretend Play, Severity Of Autism Behaviors, And Verbal Comprehension In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder) discussing research that concluded that autistic children have difficulty with fantasy and imagination in playing, and are biased towards fact and reality. I don’t believe this is true, or can be generalized. However, it did make me think about children in my family, about autistic friends, and about myself.

I have a cousin who I suspect is autistic, but is undiagnosed. He did not speak until he was 4, but is highly gifted with an IQ above 145. His son is 8 and is autistic; he has a very active imagination, loves attention from his parents, is very happy acting silly for hours, and engages his parents in his silliness. Dinosaurs and military airplanes are strong special interests, and he sometimes fantasizes about Godzilla fighting King Kong. He can get lost in his make believe world, and clearly has no difficulty imagining or fantasizing.

My wife has a nephew whose son is autistic. He is also interested in dinosaurs and Godzilla, and can get lost in his make believe world playing with toy dinosaurs.

My half brother shares many autistic traits with me, and has a teen aged daughter who is autistic. History is a special interest, and his knowledge of history is astonishing. Last night we were watching a football game which did not go in favor of our team. So he switched the television to HBO and started watching Godzilla vs King Kong as an escape from reality. He is 53 and has no difficulty suspending reality to enjoy a fantasy movie.

My best friend also has autistic traits and has two teen aged autistic sons. Godzilla is a special interest of theirs, snd they have a video library of all of the various Godzilla movies. They are similar to my half brother.

Then there I am, different from all of these people I mentioned. I learned to speak before I was a year old, and read books and learned math before I was 4 years old. I never was interested in Godzilla, but I identified with Spock when Star Trek aired on television. My identification with Spock continued to adulthood, and I like watching science fiction and futuristic shows and movies. I sort of escape reality when watching these shows, as long as I find them remotely plausible. Overall my interests are in math, science and history, and I naturally try to understand my perception of reality. However, I can be imaginative.

My questions after pondering all this are:
(1) are there different manifestations of autism that affects ones ability to imagine and fantasize, (2) why are so many male children drawn to dinosaurs and Godzilla, (3) is there an autistic difference between individuals drawn to Godzilla verses Spock, and (4) is there any validity to assertions by psychologists such as the article I read?
Click to expand...
Without reading the study I can't critique it. It is possible to get a skewed result through a lot of different errors. The most common is that people tend to find what they are looking for and there are a million subtle ways to get there. Sample size might have been too small or they may have had a nonrepresentative sample.

Say they didn't include autistics who were high functioning or who masked well. Incredibly easy mistake to make. If you only go with clearly diagnosed autistic children, you will miss those who weren't obvious enough to get a diagnosis. I'm sure as you move down to less functional autistics or maybe autistics with a lower intelligence you might start seeing a lack of imagination.

Or maybe their definition of imagination is skewed.

A scientific study is only useful if efforts are made to confirm and refute it. I don't place confidence in a study just because it has been published in a journal. Journals have their own cognitive biases and peer review only counts as much as the peers cared about what they reviewed.

I had the most vivid imagination as a child. It was how I survived. For me, it was rockets and space exploration. Or sometimes it was adventures fantasy, like spies and detectives. There were a few dinosaurs in there too.



Godzilla and Spock are not mutually exclusive. I suspect it depends on what you are interested in and what is fashionable in the media at the time.
 
I also feel that I had an active imagination as a kid. It seems that at least part of what this study is looking at is a kid's ability to pretend that certain objects are something else. For example, a kid playing with a shoe as if it was a spaceship.

Honestly, I may sometimes lack the ability to imagine using something for anything other than its intended purpose. As a kid, I had a whole world I created in my head. I would have probably preferred to sit around thinking about the imaginary people and places in my head than to pretend random objects in my environment were toys. I don't see this as a good or bad thing. Definitely not something I think needs to be changed.
 
"It seems that at least part of what this study is looking at is a kid's ability to pretend that certain objects are something else. For example, a kid playing with a shoe as if it was a spaceship."

That is a really skewed definition of imagination. Many times my imagination was spinning tales inside my head, no shoe required. Why play with an object when I can visualize it in my mind? Altho, I was big on large cardboard boxes.
 
Some articles about autism really don't have validity to them. I myself am extremely interested in things like fantasy and comics. I also have been told I have an extremely imaginative way of thinking. I did not speak until I was 4 but my intelligence was more normal on those tests because I have an extreme amount of difficulty remembering some people's faces and I have a hard time with some subjects. I'm more interested in Godzilla than Spock, but that's never been one of my more major interests. I never liked imagining things with toys growing up; I read more often. It's hard for me to make up something I've not been through so I'm bad at playing and never was friends with any other kids when I was younger because they could not understand that. I can't do any roleplays from scratch and I never understand any of those threads online.

If you have autistic traits but don't have a diagnosis and understand that you have those traits, that's fine and totally valid. Someone does not need a diagnosis to be autistic. In fact many others I have encountered mask their traits due to how their home environment is. I am glad that yours accepts your symptoms as my mom did take me to a D.A.N. (defeat autism now) doctor when I was younger and she has said anti-autistic things towards me in the past but she got better with that a bit because she realized she could not rid the autism from me or any of my special interests because my parents did not like me reading for hours every single day for a reason I have no clue why but I just nearly got them to not take away all of my books at that time.

What makes me different than most other autistics in my area is my love of reading. The majority of them are more geared toward sports which I find hard to understand unless they are in anime because anime actually tends to explain sports positions and moves way better than announcers who expect people to already know the terms. I'm more likely to pick up a book than watch a game and my reading speed has been known to freak people out to the point (I absorb information) where it will scare them away from me but if they're not ok with that part about me they probably would not have been ok with other diagnosis I have so I don't mind that.
 
I thought most autistics love reading and learning, but didn't care much for sports.
This has been brought up many times on the forums.
Of course not all have no interest in sports, but, it seems a minority.
Personally I have never cared for sports except for tennis.
I played it with a group and enjoyed it when I was younger.
There is no sport I follow or sports team.

Godzilla or Spock plus dinosaurs for the males.
That is a strange mix and must have a psychological meaning in there somewhere.
I am female and played with toy dinosaurs from baby into childhood.
I had an interest in them and was drawn to learning all I could about them by age four.
Why? I don't know. There was just something about them that drew my interest.
I still like reptiles to this day and have had varied types for pets.

No interest in Godzilla. Preferred King Kong over Godzilla.
These types seemed too fantastic to be enjoyable.
I like sci-fi and fantasy, but, only certain types.
Of course Jurassic Park series is high on my list... I like dinosaurs.

Spock was my instant favourite of all time as soon as Star Trek was introduced.
I admired his logic and found him very appealing in looks.
Like a mentor, in school if I found a problem or ran into difficulty I would think
"What would Spock do?"
No fantasy character will ever be above Spock in my life.

Also, I've read, autistics don't have imaginery friends like most children.
I never had any, so I can't relate.
But, it seems most children do.
 
Something to keep in mind, and what I think a great deal of people dont spot, is that scientists as a whole are NOT as "scientific" in their approach to things as they definitely want you to think. Rather, they absolutely DO have bias, and in plenty of cases can approach things in such a backwards way that I daresay they hit a point of what I'll just refer to as "anti-logic".

Dont get me wrong: Many scientists are incredibly skilled and smart. Yet still, the problem remains.

As an example: Let's say that you were off on a walk or whatever. And you ran into, say, a ghost. A genuine ghost... spirit of the dead. And it made it VERY clear that it was real. Doesnt matter how or what it wanted or anything, those details are irrelevant.

Now, let's say you then go to your friend, who is a very traditionally scientific person... dealing in logic and hard facts. You know the sort I mean. You tell your friend about your experience, you give him plenty of detail.

Chances are... he'll declare it to be a giant pile of nonsense. He wont ACTUALLY approach it in a scientific or even logical way: to do so would be to NOT discard any possibility at all simply because you yourself have never seen one, or because you have never seen "evidence" (which, note, is often collected by equally biased individuals). A real scientist would approach ALL situations with a totally unbiased view... yet your friend there is absolutely not doing so.

For instance, one possibility in that situation is that perhaps one day scientists COULD use various tools and gadgets to truly discover the existence of such things... yet the current level of scientific advancement is simply not close to that yet, and thus cannot. As many supposedly scientific people do though, he has this frankly silly assumption that all that stuff IS already known (despite rather primitive tools not being able to even touch the concept). Challenge that assumption and you will merely be scoffed at. I think many of us here have encountered this.

To quote a character from one of my favorite books: "The last thing the 21st century wants to admit is that it might not know everything". And that's how a lot of "scientific" people really do think.

Now, I used the concept of "ghosts" simply to exaggerate the point and illustrate it better. But take that out and throw autism in there, and indeed, it still works just fine. These researchers are dealing with something that is *barely* understood at all, with tools and techniques that are frankly far too primitive to REALLY approach the problem. Someone like Cohen, though, cant/wont see that. Likely, the guy absolutely believes in his approach just like the guy who scoffs at the ghost does. Challenge that and he'd likely do anything to refute you. He is biased... and that's what creates the problem.

I actually find that the people most likely to avoid this sort of bias are, in fact, on the spectrum. Why exactly this is, I cannot say... that's just what I personally have observed (and note that this is merely an observation, it does not actually prove anything).

Anyway, just wanted to say all that. I find this "scientific bias" to be rather fascinating, in an absolutely baffling way.

I hope I actually made sense here, I'm not sure I did.
 
I definitely have a ton of imagination. Maybe TOO MUCH imagination (maladaptive daydreaming anyone? lol!)
 
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