Chapter 22 Understanding Autism Part 2: Strengths & Challenges
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- Опубликовано: 18 авг 2023
- Chapter 22 recapping my unexpected Autism and ADHD year: this week I talk more about the fantastic online course Understanding Autism run by the University of Kent and available on the FutureLearn platform.
I run through some of the key points raised in the second week of this course around the twin strengths and challenges of being on the autism spectrum through the particular prisms of a) sensory sensitivities and b) repetitive behaviours.
Please do like and share this video and subscribe to my channel if you find any of it useful, or message me to get in touch and connect.
Contact email: amineurodivergent@gmail.com
Some useful links:
Understanding Autism course: www.futurelearn.com/courses/a...
Make It Stop (short National Autistic Society video): • Make it Stop.
AQ Autism Self-Test:
I'm going to keep posting the link to the AQ Self Test for autism every Sunday in case this is the first video in the series people come across. Take the self test (remember it's JUST a self-test) and see how you score. You may have been on the autism spectrum all along and just had no idea, like I was:
psychology-tools.com/test/aut...
ADHD Self-Test:
(with all the same caveats as above) an ADHD self-test. ADHD is even MORE common than autism (and many of us will have both); the vast majority of ADHDers just struggle through from childhood through adulthood having no idea that they even HAVE ADHD, let alone working out strategies to cope and deal with it all better to be happier and less frustrated with ourselves and others.
psychology-tools.com/test/adu...
The first time I noticed the group deafness where I could not understand the words was scarey
Good morning
I have grocery shopped at the same store for 30 years. I moved 22 miles away and I still go to that store. Any other store is too much for me. My ex husband never understood my ways. So painful.
I love the way you describe things; death metal disco barbecues. 😄
This is really positive. I have certain RRBs that are so calming for me: sudoku and solitaire are things I do almost every day. 😊
This is so good, I believe I have autism, but haven't been officially diagnosed. When you said the part about becoming deaf in loud environments...wow...I've always had that and didn't know it could be an autistic trait. Thank you for posting these videos. I'm a new subscriber.
Welcome - glad to have you. Do a bunch of self tests and explore a bunch of folks' lived experiences who are sharing their experiences, to compare and contrast. Sensory processing issues like this don't HAVE to be autism related, but it's a really common issue for a lot of us, it turns out. Good luck on your exploring journey!
You trimmed the marvellous beard
Yeah. Gonna let it grow back a bit though.
Not getting things done due to being stuck in unproductive repetitive loops hit me harder than a ton of bricks. I had to go back and listen to that like five times. In all of the content I've listened to I don't think anything has related to me so much.
Very real video😊😊😊
Thanks for sharing that. It appears I do have some detail related superpowers, specifically around pattern recognition. I also liked the music example and can easily pick out each layer of a tune. How cool! I'll remind myself of that when I miss my mouth for the 100th time while drinking my tea 😂😂😂
Lol - the peaks and troughs of the spiky profile! Really nice to hear from you - I've recently discovered your channel and the content I've watched so far is amazing. It's so nice for me to be hearing more and more voices in this space and yours is a great one. I'm planning to set aside some time to binge watch your content. Cheers!
@amineurodivergent thank you. I agree, it's great to finally feel like there's a place for people like us.
Yes, I think it's getting better and better!@@suddenlyautistic
Thanks for another great video, and for putting me onto the U. Kent course.
One thing in the course that keeps resonating is, I didn't know I wasn't neurotypical, because I didn't know. I've recognized that I was different from my peers in certain areas, such as emphasis on analysis and organization, my experience of sensory input (especially auditory input), and difficulty with social cues (especially with other females), but thought I was simply somewhat of an outlier compared to my peers. I identify also with the "spikey profile," as I'm very articulate and creative, but really poor at mathematics. I didn't realize these things were/are part of a wider profile, that describes these experiences in my life in an integrated way.
On the question of why autistic people behave the way they do, I've also found Prof. Simon Baron Cohen's videos to be interesting. His presentations seem to be quite data-driven, talking about the results of research into neural structures, such as, earlier brain development and neurons having more connections rather than forming neural shortcuts as neurotypicals do. Not a huge surprise to me that I glom onto something data-driven! 😃
Thanks for flagging the Baron Cohen videos - I've added some to my watch list! I felt the same going through the course and gradually slotting so many different things about me I thought were in different boxes into just one big 'Me' box that now made sense as part of a wider profile. There was definitely a pronounced lifting of mental weight and baggage when I first took this course and had everything laid out so clearly and holistically for the first time.
@amineurodivergent Here's a link to one of the Baron Cohen videos that I thought was particularly good - Autism, an Evolutionary Perspective, from 2016. ruclips.net/video/0o1PXeFEcL0/видео.html
@@lynncohen1297 Thank you!
The Baron did an interview with The Thoughty Auti Podcast (on RUclips). That was quite good because he seems to have had to update some of his not so Autistic-friendly views in the light of all the new stuff out there.
When I want calming informative information, I click on your videos to listen and absorb. One thing you mentioned here was about flow, and I remember years ago reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and thinking well yes, isn't it easy for everyone. As you point out NTs use books and apps to find this. And here we are as NDs holding the holy Grail 😊 I thought the part in the course about shortcuts in processing was interesting too. It may also help explain the capacity we reach as older adults desperate for a solution or reason why life seems so much more difficult.
I could have sworn when I first saw your comment last night you mentioned the Fisher King?? Tell me I'm not going crazy. It sent me off down a pleasing rabbit hole digging out my copy of The Waste Land and looking up clips of the Terry Gilliam film online. "A Fool asks the King why he suffers, and when the King says he is thirsty, the Fool gives him a cup of water to drink. The King realizes the cup is the Grail and asks, 'How did you find what my brightest and bravest could not?' The Fool said 'I don't know. I only knew that you were thirsty.'" 💙
@@amineurodivergent Haha yes I did! I always seem to edit comments though to keep them from becoming dissertations. And yes, exactly that reference ☺️
@@roxanes43 Phew, thought I was losing the plot!
@@amineurodivergent LOL I feel that way often 🙃
hey another well explained video, im really enjoying your channel
Thanks Gemma!
Howdy. Again, thank you for the video. Might I check out the course? I wonder. I love practicing the DBT How Skill, Nonjudgmentally. The unique use of language with specificity brings a reliable sense of trustworthy calmness. I'm finding practicing the How Skills in general is experienced like opening a window and feeling a fresh breeze. I learned an NLP hack years ago to feel good about noticing unwanted stimuli to facilitate acceptance of the matter thus allowing the door of change to open. Enjoying listening to these audio notes. Thank you. Have a good week. Looking forward to the next chapter.
Thank you. I just wanted to say I love the way you express yourself, I've noticed it in previous comments too. The linear journey and observational nature of your reactions, considerations and reflections is calming to read. It's very intentional and pleasant. Hope you have a good week too!
@@amineurodivergent thank you.
High highs and low lows lots of extreems any wonder we are miss diagnosed
Nope. Misdiagnoses left right and centre for thousands upon thousands upon thousands of us.
I love all of your videos and I am learning a lot. May I ask, what are hobby lists?
🤣- oh sorry, hobby lists are a 'me' thing in terms of repetitive behaviours, I list the same things out over and over again or in slightly different ways - stats and 'best of all time' lists using overly detailed grading criteria I've devised and try to perfect (best albums, best films, best F1 driver, best tennis player, etc, etc). It's a coping mechanism, I guess, or a method of exerting control over things when I feel overwhelmed. I got angry with myself for years for feeling such a compulsion to do it (the lists can get very time consuming and take up whole days) but I always would feel calm and soothed when doing them.
@@amineurodivergent thank you! I thought maybe it was a British thing, lol. I even googled it. I can relate. I’m a big list maker myself and my morning routine includes coffee and delving into whatever special interest I have at the moment as well as making detailed lists of things I’m passionate about or- less interestingly, my schedule for the day broken down by the half hour 😂. This routine really centers me and brings me a great deal of happiness. I do it every day, even when I’m traveling.
I would have never said I had synesthesia, but I started a medication last year and it had an odd side-effect-- one which has persisted, even after discontinuing the drug: I feel certain sounds as motion or vibration. Like, the sound of my air conditioner feels like I'm lying on a soft plastic cover over a bubbling fountain. Other sounds feel like I'm on a speedboat or an airplane.
It's a real shit superpower.
Lol, sorry to laugh but you describe that brilliantly. A Real Shit Superpower is a great title for a book or blog, if nothing else... Have you mentioned the side-effects to whomever prescribed the medication (assuming it wasn't some dodgy geezer with shrooms in the park)??
I did a (very quick) bit of research and apparently while synesthesia is generally present from birth, it CAN on rare occasions develop in adulthood, which is interesting. Wow.
@@amineurodivergent I did mention the side effect, only after thinking one side of my house was sinking, and going through a CT scan because I thought, certainly, it was finally brain cancer. Anyway, when I discontinued the medication, and the effect still existed, I just went back on the medication because it was helpful.
I certainly wouldn't call it full synesthesia, because now it seems that I mostly will only feel it when I am high. And that, thanks to California, does not require a dodgy geezer in the park.
At the height of the effect, I would feel, on the floor where my feet were resting, as though someone were walking right nearby on the floor, when I would hear footsteps above me. This, of course, made me think the house was somehow coming apart.
@@Kauffy901 That's so interesting. Must be mega frustrating and freak you out though, sorry you got sideswiped with that.
@@amineurodivergent it's not as bad as all of that. In the grand scheme of things, and even in the context of my own life, it's actually something funny.
Things like this and even more magnitudinous things have probably been the reason that I have not been diagnosed as autistic, though I've suspected it for many years, and now I'm 100% convinced, but won't have my assessment for another month or two.
This course sounds wonderful but being in Australia can I access it and if so how much is it?
Presume so - it's free online if you can do it in 4 weeks, but costs a bit of money for unlimited access. You can find the details here: www.futurelearn.com/courses/autism
@@amineurodivergent week one completed thanks looking forward to week 2-3-and 4 thanks heaps