Uta Frith, women, autism, and what Dr Stock, Helen Lewis etc think...

This is a very safe thread, brilliant contributions.

Often the nuance and curiosity is shouted down on forums, MN is notorious for that unfortunately

Also interested in the masking thing which Im not articulate enough to describe why it doesnt make sense to say its evidence of ND as masking is a human trait, a universal one

Me personally, my 'true self' is constantly and utterly miserable and depressed, I could present that to the world as my own self. But who does that benefit, its unpleasant for me and unpleasant for others, so I dont, I fake it, I mask it.

the underlying fact remains - and I’ve seen this first hand with my own DCs - that boys act out their ASD or ADHD on others, and girls turn it on themselves. Guess who gets the attention? The ones throwing chairs about ….

I haven’t read the full thread OP, but I must object to this. Not all children fit this stereotype! My own DS’s autism wasn’t picked up in nursery or at school for a few years precisely because he was quiet and flew under the radar. The teachers thought he was academically ‘weak’ (he isn’t, but he also has dyslexia which wasn’t identified either). Certainly he never threw chairs about. He had a MH breakdown instead aged 10.

Please don’t make assumptions. We get enough of them from people who have no experience of autism or neurodiversity, without getting them from the autistic community too.

I think it's a reasonable question to ask. If autism is characterised by difficulties with social communication (I know there are other features), but a person is able to 'mask' and perform social communication adequately, but finds it tiring, is that really a social communication difficulty?

Because then you get the pushback of 'don't we all fake social communication to some extent to get on in the world'? I mean, it's one of the reasons why alcohol is so popular on nights out - it's a social lubricant.

Group work where there is a grade or reward attached is a terrible idea especially at primary level.
If the grade is for the work produced, the most willing or competent person has a choice between doing the bulk of it or trying to sit back and let others do it, knowing the grade is going to suffer. I feel the social nuance of this was lost by any teachers that I had that set it.

The goal of working well as a group often conflicts with the goal of getting a good grade/getting an extra ten minutes of golden time and for this reason I hated it.

If I’m honest, Uta is right about the term being problematic as it is very likely that there needs to be a clearer framing of what it is and isn’t. Which would hopefully lead to more precise terminology.

I remember a while ago that something like functional anxiety / depression were doing the rounds on SM, is in, you’d be getting through the day holding it all together, doing what you had to do, and then collapsing at home, feeling despair and suicidal thoughts. But getting up the next day and doing all again. Because you had to. Is that masking?

I think autistic people can get into a flow state when engaged in their special interest but I've also heard that it can calm their brain to e.g. monologue about it.

Group singing is supposed to be great for achieving a flow state. I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of religious ceremonies involve group singing.

I find the concept of masking interesting. I'm a teacher, I 'perform' being a teacher all day. I pretend to care about things like wearing your blazer. I greet students with enthusiasm at the door even when I'm knackered and all I want to do is go home. I use scripts for addressing stuff like poor behaviour 'you can choose to put the mini skateboard away or I can take it and put it on my desk for the rest of the lesson'. I think people who know me would be surprised to see my teacher self as it is not me.

Is that masking? Or something else?

Though I noticed online that the term is being described frequently as flow state - which is something we can all experience when deeply engaged in the things we really enjoy.

Anyone who engages in or works within the arts particularly for example.

Sorry cross post.

Monotropism ?

🤣 Whoops.

Monotropism. Intense focus or interest in specific features or aspects as opposed to wider focus.

Monotheism must be an autocorrect, what mono- word is it? I’d be interested to know?

The concept of universal design applies, whereby adjustments put in place for specific groups tend to benefit many more than the target group.

Lots of children who have social, emotional and mental health needs (SEMH) benefit from lots of the environmental adjustments that benefit autistic pupils.

A key difference is the emotion processing interventions that benefit those whose adverse childhood experiences (ACE) underpin their challenges.

50% of autistic pupils have alexthymia - difficulties experiencing, recognising and processing emotions. Those with SEMH arising from ACE also have difficulties processing emotions but effective intervention requires a different focus.

The autism advocates who are demanding no differentiation within the autism umbrella often appears to reflect monotheism (intense, single focus). The corresponding instance that there is no place from ‘non autistics’ to have any kind of say in autism diagnosis/ labels overlooks the harms that can be done by wrongly attributing autism to children who are in desperate need of care that would not be good for autistic people and so would never be offered to them if/ once diagnosed as autistic

Tbh I hated grouped tables with a passion. Wanted to listen to the teacher or to think and work at my own pace. I wasn’t at all good at working with others but I certainly didn’t learn it that way. Best progress in that area for me was in drama or music (orchestra) and later on in sport.

I did have an interesting conversation with an autistic pupil once where he said that he hated sitting at grouped tables where you have to face other pupils, he much preferred rows facing the front. He said that if the object of group work was for pupils to learn things it was wasted on him as he was so stressed by having to work with other pupils that he never learned anything.

I do think that 'learning to work with others' is something that needs to be a part of school though. If I do any group work as a maths teacher (very rarely, tbh) I do allow autistic pupils to work on their own.

Well, yes.

For my ds masking is more around him trying to hide self regulation strategies that were taught to him by OT to replace harmful behaviours because he does have self awareness that they make him look different. Its not helpful for him to be masking those.

He also does a lot of scripting social situations which is something thats part of masking. His school do things like going to the shops having rehearsed the things you might get asked at a till in english lessons. They are taught how to do the social norms. This is helpful as he can access more life.

Interestingly I read a study which now I cant find, that some severely disabled people who were thought to have little self awareness stimmed less with unfamiliar people or formal settings (not not at all and not all of them) i realised that the preverbal 20 year old i look after (he has about 15 words) he's incontinent and tube fed says 'thank you' to me at because he knows its expected but he doesnt know what it means.

So i think masking comes at different levels.

Brainworm that’s so interesting. I’ve often wondered what a school really designed for autism looks like and wondered if in fact it would improve things for NT children as well, in the way that provision for physical disability often improves things for everyone.

I have recently visited 2 special schools designated ‘autism provision’ where the leaders were saying that whilst all of the pupils had a primary diagnosis of autism, the most pressing needs were mental health needs.

There was very little good autism practice in evidence in these schools. The environments were ‘high arousal’, there was a lot of talking at the pupils (loads of words), the classrooms weren’t predictable and there were lots of transitions within lessons let alone between them. My feedback was (1) could the distress they are noting be arising from the pupils autistic needs not being met rather than a separate mental health condition (2) should the pupils be in a setting designated to meeting SEMH needs if there autism needs do not require specialist autism adaption / intervention.

That Naomi Fisher piece was great - thank you to PP. The parallels with the trans issue are clear just in that short blog - people making a trans identity foundational, the weaponisation of suicide, the vitriol and inability to discuss in a calm and nuanced way. The common factor is online communities that discourage people from thinking and which sees disagreement as harm.

I've been here at FWR for years, but change my name every two minutes, especially when I talk about my children. I nearly wrote "radicalised online communities" but because I know that that charge is levelled at this place, I instead described what those communities do and what this one imho absolutely does not do.

Over the course of this discussion, I've gone from thinking that, on balance, engaging in online autism communities would likely be helpful for my DD (in helping her normalise her struggles and find support) to thinking that, on balance, engaging in online autism communities would likely be unhelpful for my DD (as it would risk her centring her identity around autism and self-pathologising).

[Edited for typo]

“The clinical implications of this are particularly concerning, she says. Overdiagnosis dilutes research, Frith argues, because it mixes groups with potentially different biological causes and different cognitive dysfunctions. “This makes the data we obtain from large groups very noisy.”

She believes we should do away with the spectrum entirely. She would like to see it replaced with subcategories which separate those with childhood autism of the strict clinical kind, those with Asperger’s, and those with hypersensitivity.

“I hope that we may find meaningful subgroups, each with their own label,” she says.

From what I’ve seen on the chalk face the best settings for these children are often the settings designed for autistic children.

If you can only access such a setting with the diagnosis, when the other options are PRUs, I can well imagine a diagnosis would be the most sensible and holistic option at the time.

It becomes more problematic if the child has a level of academic ability to access content online / SM and then gets swept up in the binary concept of neurological diagnoses being absolute.

(See also: trans.)

I agree. I think there are a number of things that have happened/ are happening that have led people to speak out who have previously ‘held their tongues’ or have recently had an epiphany.

It feels a bit like the situation of risk/ harm being at its peak when people leave an abusive relationship.

Those who have had their thoughts and language policed will be viciously targeted by those who have been coercively controlling them if/ when they step out of line. Especially those calling out the coercive control. The BAFTAs have been a bit of a watershed moment for this as it provides an easy and accessible reference. I have been involved in 2 conversations that would not have previously happened where conflicting needs were readily a knowledge and a previously assumed hierarchy of oppression was acknowledged.

Uta Frith in the Sunday Times today. Can’t see if it’s been shared before.

www.thetimes.com/article/a83d207b-3a34-4364-b715-e479f4f68c19?shareToken=46af2e4f1a573eeaec62b1bd029b46c6