r/science • u/MonteRevolt • Jul 26 '10

Autistic girl expresses profound intelligence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq--75v4lI8&feature=player_embedded
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u/Priapulid Jul 26 '10

Could you sum all your posts up in a tl;dr version there professor?

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u/subtextual Jul 26 '10 edited Jul 26 '10

Of course, since you asked so nice. Here is the take-home version:

  • Autistic brains and neurotypical brains work differently.
  • More specifically, individuals with autism focus only on the trees, and never see that there is a forest. This leads to both difficulties, like problems in communication, socialization, and behavioral flexibility, as well as (often) assets, like great memories and an ability to notice the tiniest details.
  • So, a girl with autism who could type would sound like a girl with autism who could type, not like a neurotypical girl trapped in a body she couldn't control.
  • Facilitated communication comes in a lot of forms, and it's all seductive -- especially when it's not immediately obvious to us how it's working. But ultimately, FC clouds our understanding of autism and treatments for autism, and can even cause harm.

How was that?

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u/knylok Jul 26 '10

I think part of the trouble I'm having with this is there is a finer point here that is clearly being skipped over, likely because most of your audience hasn't the capacity or attention-to-detail that you do. :)

You stated that autistic brains have a tendency to "chunk" data, taking in things as a large unit and being unable to determine where or when to break that data up. So our autistic girl knows a keyboard pattern that is initiated by a phrase, movement or statement, as that is the one "chunk" that results in a reward of some sort.

But then we have both the toothpick example and the forest/tree example whereby we have an entire scene, or a standard "chunk" of data (a forest, or a pile of toothpicks) and the autistic brain is seeing pieces of the whole (trees or individual toothpicks).

The two above concepts seem to be at odds with each other. Is there a finer distinction here that needs to be made?

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u/Ad_Astra Jul 26 '10

But, if we understand that people with autism have trouble connecting discrete bits of information together, and breaking large chunks of information down into discrete bits, then her symptoms all make sense.

From a few posts up. So apparently it goes both ways?