what causes the social issues with aspergers?

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what is it that actually causes our social issues with aspergers?

we can learn how to handle various situations with experience and training. but why did we mess things up in the first place?

people say empathy; but we HAVE empathy. so we struggle learning how to interpret what people are thinking. why is this?

what is it that we don't have that others do?

the only thing i can relate this to is the various emotions we feel much less - anger/depression/anxiety, etc. but i don't understand how this relates to underperforming in social situations

I'm thinking it's got a lot to do with how we process sensory data and information. Socializing is a very, very resource-heavy "program" on the brain's computer... I think we just kind of bog down doing it.

I hate it when people say we LACK empathy; it's more about not being able to see things from another person's point of view. It's also not intuitively picking up the cues that NT's pick up- we have trouble reading facial expression and tone of voice. We have to be taught social skills explicitly while most NT's pick them through osmosis.

Check out more about my insights at http://www.myaspergerslifestory.com/my_ ... rgers.html

One theory I read about involves mirror neurons. If I understand the material correctly, they're neurons that fire the same way whether an action is being observed or being performed. For example, A person sees two people shaking hands. That person's mirror neurons would fire the same as if that person were shaking hands with someone. The theory is that the mirror neurons are a significant part of how we learn, including social skills. It seems that in autism spectrum disorders these mirror neurons don't function properly, so we don't develop the social skills that NTs learn "intuitively" or "instinctively."

Here's an article about mirror neurons: http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct05/mirror.aspx

we can but we have to be taught it more strictly and specifically focus on it whereas NTs pick up most of it intuitively. Also, learning takes a lot of hard work and its not easy.



From what I get is that many aspies do have empathy just have a hard time identifying what people are feeling. Its difficult to know what someones thinking and really putting yourself in someone elses shoes if aspies already have trouble reading social cues. Thats kinda why were aspie?

some aspies like me have very little empathy(me) and I need to "fake" empathy at times when needed because I dont feel much towards others. I can however see that the situation thru a theoretical standpoint. Knowing what people are thinking is currently a major downfall for me. I can read what cues they are giving off but I dont always know why there giving off these cues. I can see whats on the surface but not underneath. When I try to guage whats underneath, it gets kinda messed up.



Different brain wiring. Certain parts of our brain dont function properly.

Research has shown that there are parts of the brain that are affected in ASD individuals, such as the amygdala and corpus callosum. Humans being social animals, the brain is responsible for interpreting nonverbal social cues and these mechanisms come standard in the neurotypical brain. People on the spectrum are not born with this social intuition, so we have to be taught.

ASD people have very impaired empathy because empathy implies an intuitive understanding of the emotions of others. People with normal empathy might not even be conscious of why they think someone else is sad, but they have a "gut feeling." They may even involuntarily mirror the emotions of others. People on the spectrum have to find other ways to do this. I have auditory over-perception, so I can use that to interpret people's voice, and that's usually a good clue as to what is going on with someone else. It is not intuitive for me, but my ears are good at picking up subtle details.

Emotions are a function of any society because they are a form of communication, so they are involved in social situations. Many people here have "all or nothing" emotions, but we do feel alot of anger, depression, and anxiety, so whoever told you that is completely wrong. We feel these things even more that neurotypicals because many of us get anxious in overwhelming social situations like school cafeterias, night clubs, and malls. Then we get depressed because our anxiety was so bad that we couldn't function in social situations, and consequently people don't give us a chance. There are also alot of aspies that struggle with anger, and I used to be one of them.

I believe it is a matter of working set and clutter. NTs see a wider field than we do, we see a narrower field than we do. When we learn, we skip parts of the process focusing on what we know to be important, but what is important to them is the process, not the result. NTs expend a lot of energy on the process, and we are oblivious to a lot of the details of the process and it disconcerts them as much as we get disconcerted by all the tedious and unnecessary (to us) stuff in the process.

So in a weird sort of way, we are optimized for a different kind of communication than NTs focused on logical results while they are focused on sharing a process. Ironically I think NTs are more distracted than we are. Really, I think you could think of NTs as being AS people with a shared special interest, where they have a depth of knowledge and all sorts of tangential observations and rituals to their special interest, and we're just folks that don't share that interest

I agree with Callista. I'm skeptical of the mirror neurons theory.

On empathy, recent research is confirming that we really do have empathy (nice of those researchers to notice that). However, we are poor-to-really-poor at picking up clues about what others are thinking. So we don't always pick up on situations in which we would be empathetic. Some researchers call this "cognitive empathy," that is, picking up on the emotional state of others. Once we know that emotional state and its causes, we are as empathetic as the next person.

However, when we miss the clues and do not respond in an empathetic manner, NTs tend to judge us as unfeeling and lacking empathy.

It is that cognitive function of understanding what someone is thinking or feeling but not saying that messes me up. I end up relying entirely on what they say and what I know about the situation.

oook... thank you all for your replies..

let me summarize how it makes sense for me..

as aspergians we end up with very logical brains.. and our logical brains prepare us for very logical communication (say what you mean, mean what you say, etc). we just don't think to look for any of the subtle clues either, body language, facial expressions, etc.

because we miss the subtle clues, we miss a huge amount of understanding in social situations.. this compounds every year and slows down our emotional maturation.. so we have less/no friends, and when things go wrong in various social situations, people don't tell us what was going on, so we learn even less, and it comes across like we don't have empathy (which we do; once we understand the full consequences of a situation). meanwhile our brains are being programmed to be reactive and defensive since everything is always going wrong.

this spiral gets worse and worse until life is a pain in the ass.

any feedback on this?

Another cause is the difficulty we have in rapidly shifting focus from one idea to another.....it's important to do that in a group situation, and if you can't then you'll either make social gaffes or you'll go mute - so all you can project about yourself is that you're either a jerk or you're boring, neither of which is going to make you popular.

Then there's the unawareness of NTs........if they mostly understood what AS is about, they'd not be put off us so often.

I do agree on the existence of such a negative spiral. Add to this what Callista wrote about resource-heavy programs, the difficulty with shifting focus rapidly, the overly logical thinking, and there is also room for the theory of lacking mirror neurons.

I think we should stop talking about "empathy" and begin to talk about "cognitive empathy" and "affective empathy"; these talk of "empathy" (without using any adjective) only creates confusion.

Guy - life would be a pain in the ass whether you had social issues or not.

I noticed with my daughter - from a very young age - that she couldn't innately recognize her own emotions. We taught her the words for what she was feeling. She had to learn to equate 'happy' with the feeling - NT's do this innately. It really doesn't matter to me why this is so only that it is clear that she and I are wired differently than other people. Whether that difference is mirror neurons or decreased connectivity is irrelevent. How to identify and work with what we have is more important to me because even if we absolutely KNOW what causes it, I think we are a very very long way from proficiency in rewiring the human brain.

So, those with AS need to actively learn that which NT's are born with. AS is the DOS to the NT's Apple - different operating systems that do the same thing but with some distinct differences. NT's don't have to waste memory on booting up their operating systems. AS needs to boot up Windows (social skills) before they can even begin to get to work. I could go into all sorts of analogies about memory and corrupted files and broken links but I'll spare you. Those with AS can learn the skills NT's take for granted but it will always be rote learning - memorized theory that must be actively accessed to utilize. With time and practice it gets easier but it is always an active function and that takes up energy.

What people call lack of empathy is just a lack of recognition - it's a conmmunication issue. Not a lack of feelings. We do not communicate in the manner in which they are accustomed therefore it is interpretted as a deficiency simply because they do not recognize it in the manner they are used to seeing it. I do not see this as an AS 'problem' but simply a difference - it is only a problem when NT's (and those with AS) hold rigidly to their expectations of everyone presenting in the same way.

All of this trying to keep up with NT expectations takes alot of mental energy. Honestly, I don't think we get worse with age, I think we just get worn down. Trying to always be something you're not is exhausting work. At some point in life, some people just say 'f**k it - I'm done'.

I agree. Baron-Cohen splits it the same way, though he uses different wording, and Carl Rogers does too, which surprised me because AFAIK he doesn't do autism, yet he still thinks the difference between picking up the other person's emotions and feeling affected by them, is important.

I do not know if I have an ASD. At times I think I might and at others times not. When it comes to not being good at socialising I think it's because most people spend so much time standing around talking about rubbish that the lack of use of their grey matter has lead to them being considerably dim. I cannot communicate with exceptionally dim people. People say I misinterpret them but I say they misinterpret me.

Ie At University when working in groups I often found that my ideas were not well received by the other students, initially anyway. They would comment that they 'couldn't see how they related to the project at hand'. So I saved my ideas and put them in my essays (about the same project). I averaged an A grade whilst they averaged a C. I even gave them a marked A grade essay to read, which the tutor said 'Was beautifully written and very well argued'. The group I gave the essay to still remarked 'We don't see how it relates' in regards to some of its content. I could understand their ideas but thought they were lacking or flawed.

Now who is misunderstanding whom in that example? Is it that I do not understand what the project is or their ideas or is it just that they could not understand mine?

I'd say the latter.

Now at Uni they came to accept my ideas and the way I thought because I was the student getting A grades. In real life I don't have a lecturer following me around going A grade, A grade, A grade, so if someone does not understand the way I think they just assume that it is I who is stupid, wrong or dim. However, my colleges referred to me as being 'extremely intelligent' (their words not mine) and in no way thought I was thick...it just seems to be the average Joe or Jane who seem to be incapable of understanding me.

Another burden I carry is that I also suffer from depression (which I actually think is chronic boredom and not depression at all as I have been stuck at home going stir crazy for 10 years (initially as a single parent and more recently because I am on disability) and every time I mention studying etc someone sits there going 'oh we don't think you can cope with that'. Well thank you to the dingle berry who found studying stressful...some of us love it and think its fun ta!) and now every non mainstream idea, quirk or oddity I have is put down to that...ie "oh she is just mentally ill!" Just because THEY don't understand it, it has to be the result of my mental illness...errrr?

Also they decided I could not cope with working...personally I'd be fine in a job where I don't have to work with dingle berries (aka idiots). Add to that the fact that when ever I am within 200 yards of another idiot (average human) I cannot get my words out properly (I am very articulate when I am on my own or with people I can relate to...although the latter is a rare find lol) and you have a bunch of people running around saying I misinterpret them because I have mental health issues.

No, I think they will find that they misinterpret me. They are usually too busy thinking about chatting around the watercooler to give anything any kind of real thought...

Yeah I can have a bad attitude towards dingle berries sometimes..but it is born of frustration. I have literally given up trying to communicate with them now.

Most social conventions are bol***ks anyway and are mostly used to ensure that the dingle berries have a support network to rely on and so that they can meet a mate to breed with.

God Help Society...it is already going to hell as it is, what with monkeys (aka politicians) running the country! Now we can look forward to a future of street after street of people gas bagging around a Watercooler and shopping for shoes. In 30 million years or so a new species will come to dominate, dig up fossilised Watercoolers and shoe racks, place them in museums and then spend many hours trying to speculate as to what their religious significance was.

Welcome to the beginning of the birth of the Watercooler shoe shopping diety...who can be worshipped in every high street and office building everywhere!

*gets off my soap box and goes back to my geology DVD's*

Last edited by bumble on 05 May 2011, 12:05 pm, edited 9 times in total.