On Stereotypes

One of the kindest, most generous people I know is a homosexual, atheistic skeptic. I mention this not because I'm an atheist (I'm not, certain people's claims to the contrary aside) nor because I'm gay (I'm not), nor because I'm a skeptic (this, at least, I am). I mention this because "kind" and "generous" are very much not part of the stereotypes surrounding atheists, homosexuals, or skeptics.

Despite the stereotypes, however, he is all of these things. In fact, the entire list of traits works together quite well: his skepticism, for instance, means that he investigates charities before he gives to them and tries to make sure that his donations actually go to the people he's supposed to be helping. He's skeptical about the charities he donates to precisely because he genuinely cares. I cannot say the same for many people who donate to religious charities, who often care more about appearances or ideology than genuinely helping.

The prevalent stereotypes, however, would pidgeonhole him as the exact opposite of who he is: atheists are often seen as prototypical sinners, untrustworthy and criminal. Skeptics are seen as cynics at best (true skeptics are anything but). Homosexuals... let's not even go there.

Many of the people who know me will know precisely who I am talking about. There is even a possibility that the person I wrote about will read this blog entry some day. I am not, however, writing this to flatter him.

I am writing this to illustrate the point that stereotypes are often misleading. Worse, they are often wrong -- that is, they very often don't even have a genuine basis in fact, but rather are based solely on prejudice or incomprehension.

If this is the case, why do we persist in stereotyping? Especially now, as we're becoming increasingly aware of the manifold harms and errors perpetuated by this sort of thing -- why do it?

The sad truth of the matter is that, as best we can figure it out, stereotyping is the result of normal, adaptive cognitive mechanisms being used in ways that just don't make sense. People, in general, categorize other people in ways that just don't make sense... and then use these categories to reach conclusions that make even less sense.

While I sadly know the answer to why we do it (it's tied up into the normally-adaptive cognitive processes most people rely on to function), the fact of the matter is that we should be smarter than this. We can be smarter than this.

Just question yourself -- repeatedly. Be careful of over-generalization. Realize that in-group differences almost always exceed between-group differences. Keep in mind that people are people, regardless of anything else. Understand that you can misunderstand. Question yourself -- it bears repeating. Understand that statistical significance and practical significance are very different. Realize that "groups" of people -- however they're defined -- are almost always "fuzzy" statistical constructs. Watch out for logical fallacies. Don't expect perfection, mind... but always try to be right.

A Recent E-mail

The following is from a recent e-mail sent in response to an accusation that I lacked empathy after my attempts to explain that anti-autism hate speech is offensive to several curebie parents. I've modified it somewhat (taking out an introductory dependant clause in the first paragraph and removing a parenthetical reference to another list-member) to better fit the format of this blog and to respect the privacy of the individuals involved, respectively.

It's not so much that I'm oblivious to the idea that my words may cause pain as that I view that pain as unavoidable. "Autism" is a description of a set of neurological and psychological differences -- differences in the way our brains work when compared to yours. Setting aside the question of whether or not those differences are deficit-driven and/or pathological, how exactly do you think it makes us feel when our parents say that they hate the way we think and view the world? That is what autism is.

"Love the child, hate the autism" is impossible. You cannot separate the way someone's brain works -- the way they think, the way the feel, the way they remember things, the way they view the world, all of which are described by the reification we call autism -- from who they are.

What's more, children grow up... and an autistic twenty-five-year-old is a very, very different creature from an autistic five-year-old. When your children grow up and view these conversations, how do you think they'll feel, given what I described above? Leaving aside the question of whether or not vaccines "cause autism", how do you think that your children will feel when they see you advising people to risk their child dying rather than growing up to be like them? Is that not saying that a life like theirs is worse than death? How do you think any child would feel, growing up to read their mother's public and published accounts of how raising them was a "nightmare"? We've lived through that.

This, not merely the quackery (although that is awful), is the worst aspect of the whole DAN-and-Generation Rescue phenomenon... and I sincerely doubt that anyone on this list wants their child to go through this sort of pain.

I am painfully aware of what this sort of thing does to a person. I have had the unfortunate experience of seeing people go through this. It is not pleasant. This is a major understatement.

So -- when given the choice of trying to prevent this, and causing pain to parents as they mourn the loss of a "normal" child who was never born, or staying quiet and watching as countless children grow up to experience the same unspeakable heartache that countless friends of ours have lived through... what would you do? When confronted with the memory of someone's tear-filled face as they ask why their (loving, but misguided) parents hate them, what would you do?

(For the record, the last question above is the result of my attempt to translate some of my own experiences into neurotypical terms. Distraught expressions play a role in neurotypical cognition that they do not in most autistics' emotional processes. I've never physically been there when asked that question... but that doesn't matter to me; the emotions would have been exactly the same.)

The Return from Autreat 2009

As much fun as Autreat was, the trip back was... well, generally less enjoyable. Frankly, with all of the obstacles that seemed to pop up (including flight delays -- yes, that's in the plural -- getting spectacularly lost on the way to the airport, and other miscellany) I was starting to feel like an NFB officer trying to attend an ACB conference.

Then, when I finally arrived at Fort Lauderdale airport, still wearing the shoes (in more than one sense) and generally feeling good about things, it took Mom less than five minutes to start talking about how she's been cleaning the house... and how she'd completely disrupted one of the systems I use to ensure that I have everything with me when I leave in the morning.

She also catagorically refused to let me put anything back the way it was, saying that it was a "mess". In other words, she was more concerned about the appearance of the house (and specifically having the table by the door that I usually exit through remain free of papers) than my ability to be successful academically. Of course, she didn't see it that way -- as it took me several minutes of trying to get a word in edgewise (and quickly approaching meltdown) before I could even begin to explain why I wanted to do so. Even after I did, I seriously doubt she understands... and I doubt she ever will -- mainly because she doesn't want to.

Edit: Corrected a pretty nasty revision error.

Body Language, Facial Expressions, and Autism

A clinician recently wrote me, asking about why people on the spectrum have trouble reading facial expressions. This is, of course, a gross oversimplification.

While it's true that autistics have difficulty reading the facial expressions and body language of neurotypicals, autistics often have considerably less difficulty reading the facial expressions and body language of other autistics. In fact, autistic individuals usually find reading autistic facial expressions and body language easier than neurotypicals do. There's a pretty good first-hand account of the sort of thing that I'm referring to here. The comments on that are pretty eye-opening, as well.

On a similar note, a discussion of ABA on the ASAN's discussion list included the following anecdote (reprinted with the sender's permission):

A neurotypical teacher (who gets along with me just fine) was watching me doing some academic testing a couple of days ago with a student who is classic autistic, and she had to repress her laughter while she watched... because suddenly I was speaking a totally different social language (as in, being the real me), and she later said it was "wierd" to watch me "lose all my feelings," and yet he and I were clearly playing around and having a great time (the kiddo was laughing quite a bit, especially when I called him on some of the get-out-of-work-free behaviors he had learned because people don't normally understand him and like any kid would, he was playing it to the hilt). It baffled her. Especially when he then started giggling uncontrollably after he discovered that I was very good at eye-contact tag (letting him lead and just giving the briefest of glimpses at each other's eyes while I played "hard to find" by making him work to "catch" my eyes... he was intrigued by an adult that didn't force eye contact and then would actually dodge it to create a game).

That led to a rather long conversation about this very thing... that there are multiple social langauges, including the toned-down version.

There are similar issues with people from different cultures (For examples, I suggest studying the initial encounters between Americans and Japanese following Perry; I believe there were similar accounts involving the Chinese, but I haven't studied them in enough detail) as well, so I ultimately believe that it's not an issue of autistics having difficulty reading body language (and/or facial expressions) as I believe it's a matter of people in general having difficulty reading body language that's different from their own.

Stimming, autistic and NT

Autisics stim. If you've ever spent time around autistic people -- especially autistic children -- this is pretty much a given. What most people don't seem to consider is that NTs stim, too.

In fact, there are circumstances under which NTs even use many of the stereotypical autistic stims (or, more technically, "self-stimulatory behaviors") and under which those stims become generally understood -- and even almost expected.

Admittedly, most of those circumstances are pretty extreme, emotionally speaking, but one of the (many) hypotheses floating out there about autism is that it's (at least partially) caused by a deficit in the ability to self-regulate emotions. In many ways, this is an argument which helps support that theory.

On the other hand, there's also evidence against that idea. There are certainly difficulties with emotional self-regulation in autistic individuals -- and even Aspies such as myself -- but issues of causation are complex.

In any case, as I mentioned before, there are certain types of stimming that NTs regularly engage in. Many autistics engage in these same stims as well, but they're not usually pathologized unless there is an issue with the context. For instance, some autistic individuals have been known to masturbate in public because they don't understand why they shouldn't.

While that particular societal more may seem silly when looked at by someone without our cultural baggage, it is rooted in many deep-seated beliefs about sexuality. As such, it is unlikely to change anytime soon.

And yes, masturbation is a type of stimming... or, more accurately, a category of types of stimming. It involves repetitive movement intended to stimulate the senses of the person engaging in it in a specific manner... which is pretty much what the definition of stimming is.

While that particular type of stimming is pretty easy to find among NTs, the stereotypical autistic stims (e.g. rocking, head-hitting/banging, hand-flapping, spinning objects...) are somewhat more difficult to find.

Discounting children's use of rocking horses and adults in rocking chairs, there's one circumstance in which NTs frequently rock. When they're given extremely distressing news (e.g. the death of a loved one), many individuals will have a reaction that's quite familiar to many autistics. Specifically, they will start crying, almost hold themselves, and start to rock back and forth. Despite the extreme circumstances, this rocking serves almost the exact same function as it does in autistics: it's a soothing motion, one that helps the individual cope with an extreme emotion.

In NTs, head-hitting and head-banging is usually reserved for moments of extreme frustration or what I like to refer to as "D'oh!" moments. While NTs usually don't engage in this behavior with the same intensity (or frequency) that many autistics have been known to, that is a quantitative, not qualitative, difference.

Hand-flapping also follows this pattern. If you've ever watched videos of people as they are informed that they won the lottery (or Publisher's Clearinghouse sweepstakes, etc.), you probably know what I mean: many people in such circumstances jump up and down, waving their hands excitedly... in a manner quite familiar to most in the autism and autistic communities.

Finally, object-spinning is mostly a matter of autistic children (which is to say that autistic adults don't do it nearly as much). Parallels in NT children are pathetically easy to find. Simply put, neurotypical chlidren like spinning toys. Autistic kids like to spin toys... including spinning toys.

Edit: Corrected a typographical error.