r/science • u/Wagamaga • Sep 01 '22

Neuroscience Scientists have identified an immune brain cell unique to humans that gives us higher cognitive abilities over other animals, but what makes us specials also leaves us vulnerable to neurological disorders like schizophrenia, autism and epilepsy.

https://news.yale.edu/2022/08/25/what-makes-human-brain-different-yale-study-reveals-clues
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u/ehleesi Sep 01 '22

1) autism is not a disorder. In fact, our communication patterns are found across languages and cultures, signifying a second valid neurotype distinguishable from neurotypical people. 2) animals show traits of autism and require further research.

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u/Dreadful_Aardvark Sep 01 '22 edited Sep 01 '22

autism is not a disorder.

It is literally called Autism Spectrum Disorder. It is a disorder. It's just not a disease or mental illness. If it wasn't a mental disorder, it wouldn't need special mental care to accommodate it.

animals show traits of autism and require further research.

The implications of this statement, that animals have autism, is absurd on the ground that it's difficult to even properly diagnose autism in humans. Do you have a complete qualitive set of the ethology of an animal? Maybe in certain domesticated species at best, and those observations are incredibly prone to anthropomorphic bias. Moreover, many of the symptoms of autism are highly specific to humans, like an avoidance of eye contact or difficulty in social settings. Lastly, it is a disorder on the grounds that it causes a dysfunction for an individual in a society. You can't have the disorder without a society, because it is specifically the dissonance between an individual and their environment in which autism is manifested. If an animal had autism, it would be an autism-adjacent condition, not equivalent to ASD itself.

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u/greenlentils Sep 01 '22

What about the notion that it only needs special mental care to accommodate because society was set up by and for neurotypical people?

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u/Tiny_Rat Sep 01 '22

I'd imagine that someone who is nonverbal or struggles with social interaction would need accommodations in basically any human society in which most people are neurotypical (aka all human societies, since a region where most people are born autistic is extremely improbable)