How Much Do You REALLY Know About Autism?

Autism Spectrum Disorder is often very misunderstood. What is it, and what causes it?

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[lifenoggin]

Thank you to everyone sharing their stories. Resources are listed in the description if you'd like to learn even more, find help if you need, and donate. Thank you for watching! See you on THURSDAY with a brand new video!

[Burrick]

I always wondered how to put my experience with being Autistic in words. A saint, a real saint of a person on Reddit gave it to all of us:
"It's like being in a play and everyone has the script but you."

[DATA-EXPUNGED]

A very simple comment: As someone who wasn't diagnosed with autism until age 14, living with autism while thinking you're normal is a living hell.

[tsukroffhan]

Whenever people find out I have autism, they always go "Oh, I never would have guessed!" Like, is there a certain look or way to act that will make you know? We're all different!

[Drawmatic]

As a person with Asperger’s Syndrome, I feel like media can really misrepresent Autism. It makes me sad that it’s a word so lightly tossed around.

[cykachu]

A kid in my class has Asperger Syndrome, and I could just say "Russia" and he would blab on about WW2 and the Cold War for *hours*.





And it's goddamn awesome!

[jonathanmounce]

The comments are
50% politically incorrect jokes about autism for the meme
50% people being glad that someone finally explained it all
and 50% non-autistic people being bad at math

[beachballssideaccount]

As an autistic person, I'm sick of the stigma and 'dank memes' about it. We're all just people trying to fit into an overwhelming and confusing world. It's harder for us to cope with stuff, but that's no one's fault.

Also, I'm one of the people who succeed in art, which is pretty cool!

[pizza]

As an autistic person watching this, I feel accepted in this society.
Everyone at my school uses "special ed" or "autistic" as an insult towards each other. They're just neurotypicals and don't understand what autism truly means, it doesn't just mean people are stupid, most autistic people are good at stuff like me.

Most neurotypicals that don't understand autism also shine bright lights or scream at autistic people, not knowing how much harm that can do if the autistic person has SENSORY issues.

[kaiceecrane]

As an autistic person who sees a lot of misinformation about about autism (sadly including this video), I wanted to write a short description of not only what autism is but what it is like to have it. This is based off of my own experiences as well as other autistic people I have talked to.


Autism is a different way the brain can be "wired". Some observations may lead an outside observer to think one way, but without the rest of the context it can be very misleading. People with autism take in more information from their surroundings. While doing some activity the neurotypical person (not autistic) may take some time to process said activity and some of their surroundings, an autistic person takes in everything around them that is going on while doing an activity. Take eating lunch in cafeteria for example; while sitting with their friends a neurotypical person will be eating food, talking with their friends, and listening to what they are saying while an autistic person will be doing the same while taking in every sound difference in their friends voice, eye movement, body language, and doing all of these things with anything they also see and hear. Because of that a delay in time to respond may occur as they are taking in and processing more information before they can respond.

A lot of autistic people also have Sensory Processing Disorder, which is a disorder that manifest itself in such a way that the individual with it processes their senses either more dramatically or less. Let’s use the cafeteria example again: the autistic may be hearing every noise and conversation at once in that room, and while the lights may be fine for some people, they may be so bright for an autistic person it is physically painful. This can get overwhelming as all of this stimulus can be too much.

Stimulus is any information gathered by any of your 7 primary senses: sight, touch, hearing, smell, taste, proprioceptive (sense of where you are in space and movement), and vestibular (sense of balance). While these are external stimuli, internal stimuli can affect an autistic person in the same way; internal stimulus being things such as stress or anxiety to name a few. It is important to let an autistic person know how they live and process information is normal and fine, there is nothing wrong with them. They are perfectly normal people, just with a nerotype that isn't typical.


Too much stimulus can cause a meltdown sometimes, or a shutdown. A shutdown is straightforward as they just shutdown like a computer and need to rebute away from all that stimulus. A meltdown is when the autistic person goes into a fight or flight response, where they will act accordingly as does anyone when their subconscious feels threatened. Keep in mind, too much stimulus is painful, and can be drastically so. You could say that a shutdown is when the fight or flight response goes so extreme they freeze. To combat all of this stimulus an autistic person needs to do one of two things, and may sometimes need help doing them: 1.) Remove the negative stimulus, say like going somewhere darker or quieter 2.) Stim. Stimming can be with any of the 7 primary senses as it replaces bad information, or stimulus, with good. This may be repeating some sound, rocking back or forth, touching some textured object, or hand flapping. These are just a tiny few examples of stimming.

Stimming is good stimulus, so an autistic person may stim sometimes just because it feels good to do so with no other reason or maybe to express themselves as is natural and feels good to them. Sometimes when an autistic person has too much negative stimulus they may become nonverbal, or in other words may not be able to talk or use their words. Sometimes they may still be able to make sounds, write, or communicate in some other alternative fashion. Some autistic people take in more stimulus than other autistic people, and can be prone to experiencing more meltdowns and being nonverbal. Nonverbal occurs when the mind and body has to divert resources to dealing with other tasks. An autistic person may normally not be nonverbal but become so during a meltdown or when overwhelmed. Sometimes instead of being nonverbal, there might be a stutter instead.

An autistic person has a certain amount of “spoons” they have for every day. Spoons are the resources (mentally, emotionally, physically) you can use to do some task. Some days you may have more spoons, and other days you may feel like you have none. Getting up out of bed cost spoons, dressing oneself cost spoons, brushing your teeth, showering, eating breakfast, going to work, going to class, anything you do cost some amount of spoons; with little resources of spoons available, you may only be able to accomplish only a few tasks, and that is perfectly okay. Sometimes a task can cost a lot of spoons, and sometimes the same task may cost more spoons than other times.

Sometimes looking at a person's face or communicating with someone can be difficult. Communication is like a dance, and can be very difficult to follow. There are 3 ways of communication: what is said, how it is said, and body language. A person's face goes through a lot of changes over a short period of time to reflect how they are feeling, and looking at a person while talking can take a lot of spoons at time. It can be very overwhelming to try to pick up on a lot of cues people have in any form of communication. A lot of times an autistic person may only focus on one form of communication, if any, to be able to communicate. Communication in of itself (talking, listening, changes in subject) yet alone looking at some, taking in all the noise, and light, among some many things happening at once can be too much. If things feel that way, that everything is overwhelming, it is okay to remove yourself from that situation or choose not to be there in the first place. There is nothing wrong in taking care of yourself.

[DueNorthGaming]

I was diagnosed at 6 years old. I'm 16 now, and I was at a drivers ed behind the wheel lesson a couple months ago. Driving is very stressful to me, and the instructor told me it seemed as if I didn't understand right of way. I told him that I have Aspergers, and he said that the law in my state (Wisconsin) says that people with Autism/Aspergers aren't legally allowed to drive within state lines. My parents and my psychologist looked it up, and it turns out it's not true. Autistic people CAN legally drive in Wisconsin, as long as they have a liscence. I don't plan on getting anymore help from that driving school, and I don't plan on ever driving ever. I'm perfectly fine with taking the bus.

I agree, people with autism should be treated like everyone else. Discriminating against the Autistic is very mean, and it should be a law not to discriminate against any Autistic person like the instructor did to me.

[jivemrjay]

I'm so glad that someone made a video explaining Autism because I have a couple of autistic siblings and it pisses me off when people think "oh there useless" or "they are dumb" and again thanks for making this video

[infernalpear]

As a person with autism let me say:

Don't expect us to be good at math. Some of us are. Usually we're either really good at it or absolutely terrible at it. There is no goddamn inbetween.

[HinataChick]

I remember being diagnosed with Aspergers' syndrome.

I was in second grade (I was 6 years old) when i started misunderstanding things, and zoning out so much I was sent to the principal's office. After that, people with clipboards kept taking me out of class a lot of times and asked me questions. My mom later took me to a doctor and he had me do some tests. Ones I remember are arranging blocks to look like the picture on the card, pronounce big words, and answer questions to a lady while i drew pictures and played. Afterwards, they diagnosed me with Aspergers Syndrome. My mom started crying.

Years later, I graduated high school with all of my classmates. Today? While it's difficult most days, I get by just fine.

Was I bullied as a kid? Yes. Deppressed? Still am. Do i have issues in subjects? Yes, math and science. What am I good at? Music, video games, and Art.

How did i get it? Well my mom turns out to have Autism too, because she showed the same traits as she gets older that I had as a kid.

Back then, i wished i was someone else, but now, i'm happy being me!

[drewgrimes]

I would like to say that this is mostly correct but it's not 4 times more common in boys than girls, it's just that it presents differently in boys and girls, and the diagnosis criteria was created for boys. For example, I was tested twice, once by a professional who had only had experience diagnosing boys, who concluded I was not Autistic, and then a few years later by a professional who had experience diagnosing boys and girls, who concluded that I am Autistic.

[elisabethbt]

I have Asperger's syndrome and trust me, it's not easy having it. we suffer from social anxiety for our entire life, we constantly feel as if we're weird and that we'll never fit in with others, socializing is a difficult task for us, and it usually also comes with a plethora of many other mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety.

But even though I may feel different or out of place, I'm still a human being and I still have emotions and goals that I strive to achieve. I just absolutely DESPISE it when people use "Autistic" as an insult for someone who is stupid, or dare I say "retarded". Many autistic people are actually quite brilliant, though most of the time we're trapped in our own minds and have trouble expressing ourselves to people. We may be "weird" or "different", but we are as human as everyone else.

[KompridiCR]

I'm autistic and its very hard to have a good life, especially in school because there's this person who keeps taking my stuff and I get annoyed, thankfully I have friends to support me through school. I also don't like loud noises and, I have to sleep with the radio on and light on since I hate the dark and don't like sleeping in silence.

People just can't understand how hard it is to live with autism. They should experience it so they understand it.

[matthewl]

I have autism well I have Asperger syndrome. It's hard when people online make fun of it thank you life noggin for making it aware:)

[RAPTOR-bsem]

Finally a person who knows what he’s saying when talking about Autism, I have been diagnosed with Autism but most of the people i see every day think it’s just a quick thing to make fun of.

Wow 284 likes, well thanks!

[mikeable]

I have autism and you aren't accepted when you have it, I'm smart enough te become a pilot my dream job, but I can't because i have autism, some times they treat me like I have a down syndrome, but a lot of ppl I know doesn't even know I have autism because i don't tell them and they can't see on the outside if you have it or not, I don't like to tell ppl that I have it because the are gonna treat you different or they just vanish and they never want to speak with you again.... if you read this command please, we aren't that different from you.... please accepted us how we are, and don't treat us different.