Autism Thinking - It Goes Like This

This is an example of autism thinking. People on the autism spectrum often process things through concrete thinking, or black and white thinking. This can lead to some surprising revelations when as a parent you assume they know something, only to find out that you didn't know what they didn't know!

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[aphotic_grae]

I'm autistic and I couldn't make it halfway through this video. The sound effects, the different volumes, the interjections that derail the content, the premise that "they" don't understand things the way "we" do... Did it occur to you that autistic people might watch this?

[markdeffebach]

The idea of autistics using black and white thinking is flawed. I am nearly always perplexed by all the possible meanings a neurotypical person may mean when they say something. Some how other neurotypicals see only one possible meaning. I feel like most neurotypicals are grossly ambiguous in their speech. How do I pick the particular shade of gray that a neurotypical intends when speaking as if they were speaking plainly in black and white language? I feel like neurotypicals wear blinders that prevent them from seeing all the shades of gray in what they say, then they ridicule those who point out their imprecise speach by asking for clarification. 😢

[delilahhart]

I wasn't diagnosed with autism until I was an adult. There's something I said when I was a kid that I'm really ashamed of now. When I was 11, my aunt had a baby who only lived for a few hours after he was born. I had an interest in decomposing bodies back then, and one day I told my aunt my little cousin was decomposing in the ground! All of the adults were horrified! I didn't say it out of spite, though. I was merely making an observation that I found interesting. And before anyone calls me a psychopath, I want to mention that I cried when my cousin died! I really was sad, so I'm not some unfeeling monster.

[johnolamide]

I remember when I peed myself in class because the teacher didn't want anybody else going out to ease themselves. I was 6. A lot of students were asking to ease themselves and the teacher started to think they just wanted to escape the class and go play. So she forbade anybody else. I heard that and thought there was no other choice. When she realized, she was like why didn't you tell me. I'm not diagnosed yet, but what baffles me about normies is how they go blaming you for obeying their instructions when it fails instead of acknowledging that it lacked foresight. As to what made me pee on myself- fear, nutured by the previous blames when you tried disobeying.

[drachnae]

This video does a lot of things right, namely by not pathologizing autistic ways of thinking.

However, this video repeatedly frames these differences as a lack of understanding in autistic folks of neurotypical ways of thinking and communicating.

Such framing is an example of neuronormativity, i.e., the centering and normalization of neurotypical ways of being.

For this reason, it would have been better to frame these differences as, well, exactly that: differences.

The misunderstandings that result from communication and thinking differences between autistic and neurotypical folks is a problem that cuts equally in both directions, and should be represented as such.

Thank you for your commitment to spreading awareness about autism. I hope my feedback provides insight that you will find helpful in continuing this important work.

[constancematthews]

I once ate an entire loaf of bread because I wasn't allowed to leave my seat till I finished my homework while I was left home alone. I was awful at math, so couldn't finish without help at 11 or 12 y/o. NO ONE thought to look into why anyone would do that. Over 30 years later, I've only recently been able to self-identify my autism. I still don't think my family fully believes my assessment. I'm just glad I used the bathroom before sitting down!

[GuacamoleKun]

When I was maybe 7, my mom told me "Don't tell your friend Emi she's adopted, she might not know". And I was like why would you think I had that information to begin with? Who would have told me? Years later I understood that Emi was Asian and her parents were white, and that people give birth to children that look like they do. But at 7, I had never had a biology class. Kids don't just know these things! Nothing to do with autism.

[BL-sdqw]

Autistics talk directly without all the mind-games present in pragmatics embedded by hierarchical societies because they cannot encode and decode them instinctively.

Every time mental health professionals talk about getting rid of toxic gender roles, talking honestly and directly, not being passive-aggressive, not labelling people and being driven by judgments, etc. as the best way of communication, they are saying that autistic communication is the best way of communication.

Yet, the western mental health field keeps on insisting that it's a disorder.

Idk. Seems like systemic DARVO to me.

[Cat_theft_auto]

The moment i heard “they” i stopped watching, it makes sense you have it so rigidly wrong and disconnected from what its like to be a person also, i don’t wanna hear someone speak about someone else’s experience, and get it wrong.

[theeguy]

even as someone with autism this is pretty informative and useful only thing id change about this is the volume of music at the end its a pretty big change from the rest of the video

[frohnatur]

As a potential (because undiagnosed) autistic, this was hard to watch, not just because of the sped-up/pitch-shifted voices that were really annoying to me, but because I think some aspects of autism were badly represented, and probably misunderstood to some degree.

Autistics are often ESPECIALLY GOOD at abstract thinking, which you said they're incapable of. By that I mean understanding abstract systemized concepts, like molecules, or scientific models in general, because they consist of clear cut rules.

I think autistics are also especially good at thinking of if/when scenarios, as in causality.

What they're not good at, is picking up on unspoken rules, like in your example, realizing that a fire alarm introduces an exception to the very rigidly communicated rule "never get up during an exam". That makes it seem like autistics don't understand such exceptions. They DO understand, however, IF they're told.

What they're also not good at, is guessing from the often complex context which meanings of words the speaker means (literal thinking). Like when somebody asks "are you and your brother close?", it's not necessarily obvious to them that the speaker is talking about a metaphorical emotional distance, rather than a physical one.

The latter example is what many people might call "abstract", but I think that descriptor is potentially misleading (as I've pointed out above), and a better one would be - as I've used it - "metaphorical"

So all in all I think it comes down to
1) autistics being very focused on and usually quite good at understanding rules (not just social, but scientific, mathematical and all kinds of rules), and
2) autistics being bad at recognizing supposedly obvious exceptions to those rules (including multiple meanings of words), because they are rarely explicitly verbally communicated.

[MimiteMarion]

Thank you!! 22 years, diagnosed at 21 and someone finally gets it

[bustedfender]

“Is autistic” rather than “has autism”, please. It’s not like I can leave it home when I want to.

[noonefromnowhere]

I am autistic and don't really care about puzzles or infinity symbols.

My thinking is black and white and sometimes literal understanding can be an issue for me but most of the time it isn't. I had to learn how NTs think and even then it's sometimes not so easy.

[justmyopinion]

I was born in the US, I was 3 days old when my father was stationed, and our entire family was move, to live in another country’s island.

I was 9 or 10, as we were driving home from the city when my dad told us a friend in the US had read in the papers about a,
Colored man who had been swimming when he was suddenly attacked and killed by piranhas.

The second my father said “a colored man”, I immediately stopped listening as I was in absolute stunned AWE by beautiful images conjured up in my mind.

I’d never seen a colored man, nor had I ever heard of the existence of colored man. Wow!

An American man whose skin had every color there was on it. Like a red hand and a green hand, different and many different colors covering his legs, arms, entire body.

After 16 years of living overseas, the mission my dad was working on was successfully achieved and the world celebrated. Soon after we were moved to the US, which I’d never been to before nor did I know anything about America at the time.

I was really mad after, being in the US for 2 to 3 years, my father was talking about his work colleague and I asked who he was because my dad said he worked overseas at the same time dad did.

He’s the gentleman who had a wife from Colombia and they have the daughter who’s a little younger than you. Lenny, you remember he’s a colored man.

I was mad 😡 He’s not a colored man! His skin is brown all over!

After my father explained the words definition to me I was extremely sad and wanted desperately to go back to my island 🏝️.

[CasMcAss]

as an autistic person the audio in this video is hard for me to listen to. The construction noises were painful and the constant pitch shifted voice is extremely distracting and hard to understand

[adolfohernandez]

I was exactly like that as a kid. Im high masking now but it took a brutal process of trial and error.

[Ayverie]

Wow, what a terribly unrelatable video. It's clearly from an outside, non-autistic perspective. Hopefully because it's 6 years old and the creators have learned to get their information from actual autistic people by now.

[nmugzqy]

Autistics don't get "if" conditions.

Autistics are also quite often proficient coders.

And this is no contradiction. The puzzle pieces in the beginning tell you so.

[gotobassmsn]

I did know I had High Functioning Autism till I was in my early 40's. And I never knew how to properly respond to people, for I didn't understand the non verbal social ques.