“If autism isn’t caused by environmental factors and is natural why didn’t we ever see it in the past?”
We did, except it wasn’t called autism it was called “Little Jonathan is a r*tarded halfwit who bangs his head on things and can’t speak so we’re taking him into the middle of the cold dark forest and leaving him there to die.”
Or “little Jonathan doesn’t talk but does a good job herding the sheep, contributes to the community in his own way, and is, all around, a decent guy.” That happened a lot, too, especially before the 19th century.
Or, backing up FURTHER
and lots of people think this very likely,
“Oh little Sionnat has obviously been taken by the fairies and they’ve left us a Changeling Child who knows too much, and asks strange questions, and uses words she shouldn’t know, and watches everything with her big dark eyes, clearly a Fairy Child and not a Human Like Us.”
The Myth of the Changeling child, a human baby apparently replaced at a young age by a toddler who “suddenly” acts “strange and fey” is an almost textbook depiction of autistic children.
To this day, “autism warrior mommies” talk about autism “stealing” their “sweet normal child” and have this idea of “getting their real baby back” which (in the face of modern science) indicates how the human psyche actually does deal with finding out their kid acts unlike what they expected.
Given this evidence, and how common we now know autism actually is, the Changeling myth is almost definitely the result of people’s confusion at the development of autistic children.
Weirdly enough, that legend is now comforting to me.
I think it’s worth noting that many like me, who are diagnosed with ASD now, would probably have been seen as just a bit odd in centuries past. I’m only a little bit autistic; I can pass for neurotypical for short periods if I work really hard at it. I have a lack of talent in social situations, and I’m prone to sensory overload or you might notice me stimming.
But here’s the thing: life is louder, brighter and more intense and confusing than it has ever been. I live on the edge of London and I rarely go into the centre of town because it’s too overwhelming. If I went back in time and lived on a farm somewhere, would anyone even notice there was anything odd about me? No police sirens, no crowded streets that go on for miles and miles, no flickery electric lights. Working on a farm has a clear routine. I’d be a badass at spinning cloth or churning butter because I find endless repetition soothing rather than boring.
I’m not trying to romanticise the past because I know it was hard, dirty work with a constant risk of premature death. I don’t actually want to be a 16th century farmer! What I’m saying is that disability exists in the context of the environment. Our environment isn’t making people autistic in the sense of some chemical causing brain damage. But we have created a modern environment which is hostile to autistic people in many ways, which effectively makes us more disabled. When you make people more disabled, you start to see more people struggling, failing at school because they’re overwhelmed, freaking out at the sound of electric hand dryers and so on. And suddenly it looks like there’s millions more autistic people than existed before.
“…disability exists in the context of the environment.”
Reblog for disability commentary.
That last paragraph is absolutely important.
Tag: autism
“If autism isn’t caused by environmental factors and is natural why didn’t we ever see it in the past?”
We did, except it wasn’t called autism it was called “Little Jonathan is a r*tarded halfwit who bangs his head on things and can’t speak so we’re taking him into the middle of the cold dark forest and leaving him there to die.”
Or “little Jonathan doesn’t talk but does a good job herding the sheep, contributes to the community in his own way, and is, all around, a decent guy.” That happened a lot, too, especially before the 19th century.
Or, backing up FURTHER
and lots of people think this very likely,
“Oh little Sionnat has obviously been taken by the fairies and they’ve left us a Changeling Child who knows too much, and asks strange questions, and uses words she shouldn’t know, and watches everything with her big dark eyes, clearly a Fairy Child and not a Human Like Us.”
The Myth of the Changeling child, a human baby apparently replaced at a young age by a toddler who “suddenly” acts “strange and fey” is an almost textbook depiction of autistic children.
To this day, “autism warrior mommies” talk about autism “stealing” their “sweet normal child” and have this idea of “getting their real baby back” which (in the face of modern science) indicates how the human psyche actually does deal with finding out their kid acts unlike what they expected.
Given this evidence, and how common we now know autism actually is, the Changeling myth is almost definitely the result of people’s confusion at the development of autistic children.
Weirdly enough, that legend is now comforting to me.
I think it’s worth noting that many like me, who are diagnosed with ASD now, would probably have been seen as just a bit odd in centuries past. I’m only a little bit autistic; I can pass for neurotypical for short periods if I work really hard at it. I have a lack of talent in social situations, and I’m prone to sensory overload or you might notice me stimming.
But here’s the thing: life is louder, brighter and more intense and confusing than it has ever been. I live on the edge of London and I rarely go into the centre of town because it’s too overwhelming. If I went back in time and lived on a farm somewhere, would anyone even notice there was anything odd about me? No police sirens, no crowded streets that go on for miles and miles, no flickery electric lights. Working on a farm has a clear routine. I’d be a badass at spinning cloth or churning butter because I find endless repetition soothing rather than boring.
I’m not trying to romanticise the past because I know it was hard, dirty work with a constant risk of premature death. I don’t actually want to be a 16th century farmer! What I’m saying is that disability exists in the context of the environment. Our environment isn’t making people autistic in the sense of some chemical causing brain damage. But we have created a modern environment which is hostile to autistic people in many ways, which effectively makes us more disabled. When you make people more disabled, you start to see more people struggling, failing at school because they’re overwhelmed, freaking out at the sound of electric hand dryers and so on. And suddenly it looks like there’s millions more autistic people than existed before.
“…disability exists in the context of the environment.”
Reblog for disability commentary.
Researchers explore why those with autism avoid eye contact
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often find it difficult
to look others in the eyes. This avoidance has typically been
interpreted as a sign of social and personal indifference, but reports
from people with autism suggests otherwise. Many say that looking others
in the eye is uncomfortable or stressful for them – some will even say
that “it burns” – all of which points to a neurological cause. Now, a
team of investigators based at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging
at Massachusetts General Hospital has shed light on the brain
mechanisms involved in this behavior. They reported their findings in a Nature Scientific Reports paper.“The
findings demonstrate that, contrary to what has been thought, the
apparent lack of interpersonal interest among people with autism is not
due to a lack of concern,” says Nouchine Hadjikhani, MD, PhD, director
of neurolimbic research in the Martinos Center and corresponding author
of the new study. “Rather, our results show that this behavior is a way
to decrease an unpleasant excessive arousal stemming from overactivation
in a particular part of the brain.”The key to this research
lies in the brain’s subcortical system, which is responsible for the
natural orientation toward faces seen in newborns and is important later
for emotion perception. The subcortical system can be specifically
activated by eye contact, and previous work by Hadjikhani and colleagues
revealed that, among those with autism, it was oversensitive to effects
elicited by direct gaze and emotional expression. In the present study,
she took that observation further, asking what happens when those with
autism are compelled to look in the eyes of faces conveying different
emotions.Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI),
Hadjikhani and colleagues measured differences in activation within the
face-processing components of the subcortical system in people with
autism and in control participants as they viewed faces either freely or
when constrained to viewing the eye-region. While activation of these
structures was similar for both groups exhibited during free viewing,
overactivation was observed in participants with autism when
concentrating on the eye-region. This was especially true with fearful
faces, though similar effects were observed when viewing happy, angry
and neutral faces.The findings of the study support the
hypothesis of an imbalance between the brain’s excitatory and inhibitory
signaling networks in autism – excitatory refers to neurotransmitters
that stimulate the brain, while inhibitory refers to those that calm it
and provide equilibrium. Such an imbalance, likely the result of diverse
genetic and environmental causes, can strengthen excitatory signaling
in the subcortical circuitry involved in face perception. This in turn
can result in an abnormal reaction to eye contact, an aversion to direct
gaze and consequently abnormal development of the social brain.In
revealing the underlying reasons for eye-avoidance, the study also
suggests more effective ways of engaging individuals with autism. “The
findings indicate that forcing children with autism to look into
someone’s eyes in behavioral therapy may create a lot of anxiety for
them,” says Hadjikhani, an associate professor of Radiology at Harvard
Medical School. “An approach involving slow habituation to eye contact
may help them overcome this overreaction and be able to handle eye
contact in the long run, thereby avoiding the cascading effects that
this eye-avoidance has on the development of the social brain.”The
researchers are already planning to follow up the research. Hadjikhani
is now seeking funding for a study that will use magnetoencephalography
(MEG) together with eye-tracking and other behavioral tests to probe
more deeply the relationship between the subcortical system and eye
contact avoidance in autism.
Loki is the Philosopher King 