How are autistic people fundamentally different than NTs?

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[quote="123autism"]I'm just as human as anyone, whether 'NT' or autistic. Being autistic is - in my view - a subjective medical opinion".


Yes, it deeply bothers me that the DSM defines Autistic People ONLY and entirely by a list of deficits. It totally ignores the big picture - that NTs and AS people have different operating systems, both having positives and negatives.

Make an imaginative leap for a minute: that AS people are the dominant population which assumes the right to "diagnose" neurotypicals" as disordered - for example:

SYPTOMS OF NEUROTYPICAL DISORDER:
An obsession with hierarchy
A compulsive psychological need to repetitive engagement in gossip and small talk
A contempt for any other operating system but their own
A belief that their operating system is naturally superior to other neurotypes
A tendency to belittle neurodifferent people by sigmatising, otherising, patronising, bullying, and gate-keeping
A craving to exert their power by dehumanising attitudes toward those they deem "lesser" humans
A fanatically held belief that their numerical dominance equates with psychological superiority

All neurotypes are humans; humans ARE intensively diverse in many ways. My dominant special interest is music. I believe the human world owes a debt, or at least positive acknowledgement, to AS musicians, conductors, composers, performers over the centuries. For example, while perfect pitch does appear in both AS and NT populations, it is more dominant in AS musicians. Contributions to science and the arts by AS people over the centuries seem to be reguarly "neurotypical washed" and taught as if AS is irrelvant to it, and there is "spurious denial" in the form of belittling AS as too "impairing" to enable such extreme achievement. "Special interest" is rarely linked to exceptional talent, instead often used as a stigmatising terminology. Autistic savantism presents AS savants as freaks, rather than gifted. The same talents in NTs are more likely to be labelled as "exceptional".

Well, that's my rant for the day..... I dream of a world where AS people focus on their strengths and not harmful and demeaning stereotypes imposed by neurotypical distortions.

Fundamentals? Alright. I think there are several layers and overlaps to such aspects.
I'll do my best to slice it thin...

Inherently, in which every life has value? No. Obviously, no as someone who has a right to exists.

Inherently, in each foundation as a human? No. Not by law, not by ethics, not by nature...

Inherently, as a person, with their own stories and circumstances? No. Because everyone is unique.
This is where socioeconomic and cultural divides are. Autism doesn't discriminate.

Inherently, in the contexts of human inclinations including the way they experience things?
Somehow yes. Why? This is where some human commonalities stops.
This is entering what colors neurology, certain labels and as I said, inclinations.

Inherently, around the realms of usefulness and socialization contexts?
Not really, and it can depend on individual and collective priorities.

Inherently, by "language" (not necessarily language ability) input and other sorts that would color their experience as a human?
Likely yes. Because this is where double empathy is supposed to coincide.

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When a NT and an autistic are having an argument and nobody is backing down it's usually beacuse the Nt will not stop until he/she is right and the autistic will not stop until it is right. To me the key difference is what's first priority - yourself and your ego or the truth.

^
"Autism As a Disorder of High Intelligence"
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4927579/
"........alleles for autism overlap broadly with alleles for high intelligence, which appears paradoxical given that autism is characterized, overall, by below-average IQ. This paradox can be resolved under the hypothesis that autism etiology commonly involves enhanced, but imbalanced, components of intelligence. This hypothesis is supported by convergent evidence........."

Thanks, that's a very interesting way of looking at it and it had never occurred to me before. Reading your post made me visualise the inverted Bell Curve and I think you are spot on. It's one of the most thoughtful/perceptive posts I have ever read here.

I've always felt that intelligence is something of a crock anyway, especially when IQ tests are applied to people with ASD. IQ is essentially a set of aptitudes, and the weight the tests give to individual aptitudes is questionable. The individual person may do very well or very badly in life depending on what aptitudes they happen to be required to have. People with ASD often perform uncommonly well on some aptitudes but poorly on others. So what does the result of an IQ test mean for such a person? What is IQ even trying to measure?

The inversed bell curve is under whatever I labeled as 'inclinations' and where neurodivergence enters within the wider aspect of being a human individual.

But the human fundamentals itself is not dependent over what a person could and couldn't do, should and shouldn't do...

It can be seperate -- in which many mistakes the traits of neurotypicality for one's essence of being a human and humanity.
The same vein as to feeling feelings especially tied to whatever vice and virtues, or even something as base as libido, desiring sex or concepts of love.

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Would say the DSM V criteria gets it right:

-socially

-strong presence of obsessive and repetitive behaviors

That's all. These differences are notably more present than they are in NTs, and also caused cuz our brains are quite literally wired differently.