So, who's read up about The Intense World Theory of autism?

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http://www.frontiersin.org/human_neuros ... 00224/full


Honestly... I just feel like this is almost perfect. I was diagnosed with AS a while back, but when I read about the symptoms (in the way that they are widely presented) and I hear people's "experiences"(quoted because a lot of the way that people describe their experiences on wp are coated in a filter of what they've read or heard about autism/AS - which is perfectly natural, of course), I honestly just feel that it didn't fit me at all.

But this theory... I'm not sure, but it feels like this actually fits me.

In particular the parts about lack of social interaction being more to do with involuntary withdrawal as opposed to simple lack of "theory of mind" or whatever. Because I know I can communicate. I can read people well and I have a good amount of empathy, but I'm switched off to it 95% of the time because it's too much to handle.

What are your thoughts on this theory?

I came up with it on my own over a decade ago, around the time I was first diagnosed, and I have been quite gratified to see more recently that others have come to the same conclusions as I have.
Basically, the fact that the DSM and other guides still define autism & AS as 'social' disorders at their core and barely mention the sensory issues really pisses me off since it's clear that those are all based on behavioral observation rather than just asking us what we think is going on.
They seem to think that because we have a disorder somehow our observations about ourselves mean nothing in terms of defining it.
Shmucks.

Thank you for posting this! I'd not heard of this before and am quite intrigued. I'm going to download the PDF and try to go through this as best I can. How well I'll ultimately understand it, well, I'm afraid I can't say. My knowledge of the brain and its functioning is candidly not the best.

That's really interesting. What stuck out to me was:

When I was first diagnosed, I really didn't think I had AS, because I'm actually a bit good at figuring out social cues. But I get so many of them from the environment due to over-stimulation that I have a tendency to shut them out altogether.

I consider my Autistic behaviour to be due to a horrifically abusive and terrifying Childhood rather than genetics, which would seem to be a point of view supported by this article.

You will find lots of people on the spectrum however for which Aspergers does seem to be an inherited trait.
So my theory is that it can be both, genetic and a result of trauma, both damaging the same area of the brain and therefore resulting in the same symptoms.

I believe it was as late as the 1950s that Autism was considered a direct result of bad parenting, a "refrigerator Mother", whilst this theory has been dropped, it is still acknowledged to be a cause of "Reactive Attachment Disorder" which just happens to result in somewhat Autistic behaviour.

Thanks for starting this thread, and I like the tone of it so far; I will be discussing this theory on another thread, Autistic Encapsulation---protecting The Self From Pain, as the intense world theory was brought up there the other day. I have just put there the link you have given and given a quote from that link , as it does seem to be describing autistic encapsulation.. The intense world theory theory seems quite on the mark, even delightfully so, but as far as I can tell, it does not explain how to get out of the box one has gotten into, ...

Same! I mean, of course I had no evidence to support this theory aside from my own experiences and talking to others, but honestly this is exactly what it felt like, which is why I questioned if I even had the disorder to be honest.

And yes, I agree with you whole heartedly, they would observe an autistic person, note that they are not behaving "ideally" in a social situation and label them as mentally ret*d or deficient in some way, without actually asking them how they're interpreting the situation. Ha!

Oh, I wouldn't worry! Although there's quite a lot that's technical and brain jargon like, they have nice easy summaries at the end of each chapter to help us laypeople out lol

EXACTLY! This is the part that stuck out to me also, I feel like I can read people, if I really force myself to, but it's so stressful to be open to everyone like that, that I just shut down.

I think you misunderstand. The Intense World Theory is saying that autism is a pre-existing trait. It's to do with how you process meaning that an NT who went through the childhood trauma that you experienced would process the situation in a very different way and thus would now have a different set of behaviors to you.

Though they make no that it is 100% genetic, they do say that it's a result of a particular way that the brain is structured, and is that way since birth, with trauma aggravating the condition.

"but as far as I can tell, it does not explain how to get out of the box one has gotten into, .."

It's the old "raised by wolves" problem that has been a hard nut for people to crack for centuries.

I'd say it'll take some new, heavy duty, biological research to stimulate the latent "learning" areas in older children in order to create some lasting results.

denny

The problem with this theory is that it doesn't take into account the recent discoveries using High Definition Fiber Tracking, the underlying mechanisms are directly related to the differential distribution of nerve fibers in the brain... I actually covered this in my "Care and Feeding of You Aspie" Series...

The Autistic Brain vs. The Neurotypical Brain; Visual Proof

My aim is to help high functioning autistics discover and explore ways to transform ourown suffering, to discover and explore ways to do that, and this is the intended direction of all of my threads. Then if we ourselves discover how to come out of the shadows, --or should I call it hell?-- we may be able to help other people also. Without an individual feeling some kind of urgency and passion to do this, I do not see much hope. Most people seem to have a false sense of unlimited time and imo, including myself, will talk about anything to avoid feeling pain.

I think my psych might be sympathetic to this. I was asked about florescent light. My diagnostic report recommends learning in "chunks" and taking frequent short breaks.

If it was a deficit the level of "disorder" should remain constant if the stimuli remains constant. But it goes up suggesting increased stimulation.

Actually, this theory talks a lot about differential distribution of nerves.. in fact it seems to be the core basis for the theory.

(unfortunately I can't check that link because blogspot is blocked on my computer.)

Actually, Feralucce, the IWT basically says that autism is mainly the result of a lack of filtering of sensory information.
Those pictures bear this our by showing how the sensory input channels are going to more areas of the autistic brain rather than being filtered and processed in a single area like in the NT brain.

I'm not sure why you would think that this is contradictory, rather than confirmation.

Could you clarify your objection?

I think it's on track but the article scares me a little.

<--- This part is surely correct

In fact, I think autism is a part of evolution. As humans changed from normal animal and grew more intelligent, our brains changed. I think we became able to not just follow the herd and react instinctively.

This scares me though

In fact I highly suspect that increasing cognitive flexibility (and the ability to see the same thing in a different way) will turn out to be more productive. For example, we can see increased cognitive flexibility in "balanced bilinguals" who get lost of practice at doing the same thing in different ways (by use of language). My view too is different from traditional therapy which programs people into a certain desired reaction said to be "typical".

It's clear autistics attend to different stimulus than NTs, and that this causes difficulty in social interaction with NTs. To try and limit a child's experience so their brain doesn't overdevelop seems a bit drastic. I would think it would be more advisable to carefully make sure a child has a range of positive experiences taking into account that they may be more sensitive and this needs to be accounted for.

I just couldn't see preventing my toddler from getting on the subway when he clearly wanted to even though it's an overwhelming experience (never caused meltdowns though). I don't believe that was a negative experience because he always stopped to read everything in the system and to this day finds reading his most enjoyable activity. I do believe care needs to be taken to not place a child in a situation that is adverse to them of course ...

In my child's case he had a meltdown the second day of his life. How do you know with a baby? His nurse fed him the first night and I when I held him in the morning he melted down until the nurse held him again. The nurses thought it was the change of smell from the nurse to me. My soothing voice and loving embrace meant nothing to him. He had associated a certain smell with food and I think felt great anxiety about where his next meal was coming from. A child can hear their parent's voice in the womb, but I am pretty sure my child didn't respond already to my voice in the way an NT baby would.

If it is the case that having a nurse at night and parent in the day (a parent who's voice the child surely knew) was so overwhelming to my child that his brain started developing autism, then I very much doubt that anyone could really provide an environment sufficiently free from stimulation. This was a very expensive, very quiet, very controlled environment where my child was born and it's pretty clear he was different from the beginning. Ok, so maybe there would have to be a non-stimulating environment in the womb... I just don't see this as doable...