Uta Frith's comment

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Good answer, and thanks for your entire message, but do you think all cases of autism are just a neurological disorder? Personally I do not believe that. Yes, the refrigerator mother concept is very over-simplistic, and I do think its application in France is unproductive and outdated, to put it mildly, but I would not be so quick to completely dispense with all facets of the idea that certain kinds of parenting in some ways can play into the development of some (and I think many) cases of autism, and personally I would not give her too much kudos for going in the direction she did. I suspect it is because she followed a trend and tendency that was developing, and I think it may actually be harmful to autistic people to think too much in this direction. From what I have seen, it does not lead to a balanced and nuanced approach at all. This response may not be popular, but I am speaking my truth as I understand it, and I thought about this for a long time before responding.

Good answer, and thanks for your entire message, but do you think all cases of autism are just a neurological disorder? Personally I do not believe that.

Perhaps she's following a trend because there is actual scientific evidence based on much research to corroborate it, as opposed to speculation which has been widely disproven, such as autism being caused by parenting.

Scientists generally follow scientific research. If there is a research that overwhelmingly prove something is true, then most scientists will follow it, and thus you have a trend.

But I think you are likening it to trending on Twitter.

Trends are not a bad thing when they have a basis in fact.

but do you think all cases of autism are just a neurological disorder?

Having said that, I'm sure you will find one or two scientists somewhere in the world that still insist the earth is flat.

I would love to hear your elaboration on how you think it may be harmful to autistic people to think that autism has a neurological basis as opposed to your parenting theory

Good answer, and thanks for your entire message, but do you think all cases of autism are just a neurological disorder?

littlebee wrote to a nuanced thinker, dianthus, questioning one particular point, and note the italics which were also in the original message):
...and Rascal 77s replied (see whole message above):

If these experiments by Uta Firth are meant by you to be an example of corroborating evidence, then that causes me to chuckle is what it causes. Moreover it has not been widely disproved that parenting that not cause autism, but this aside, I am not even saying that it does.

I do not believe this at all. I think sometimes it does work this way, but not always, and especially not in soft science fields like psychology, including psycho analysis, but your message is fascinating to me, as it is a case in point illustration of this kind of thinking at work in that you seemed to have missed any kind of nuanced thinking in my own message and in effect are doing the very thing you say I am doing, which I am not even doing. So I hope you take this as an opportunity to look at your own way of thinking from a different angle..

Yes, I am, except in science factors such as funding and disapproval of ones colleagues and the possibility of getting ones worked published play into it.

Actually, by my understanding, completely not true in that the way you put it is way over generalized. Though I get what you are trying to say, you are skipping too much information when you make this comment. A trend can be either a bad or good thing when based on some kind of fact. And also a trend can be based more on feeling than on fact, though there is generally some kind of fact underlying the feelings and again,this can be either bad or good depending upon the interpretation and in what context. Again, this is what I actually wrote:

A lot of it has to do with all and never thinking. Note that I did not do this kind of thinking (though sometimes I do and try to watch for it, and sometimes even this kind of thinking can be good, depending upon the context), but you did do it. The way thinking and feeling work together can influence a person's interpretation of various data, imo it is facts which should be the basis of ones feeling, generally speaking but again, this is all contextual, depending upon the weight people give to various data and how they factor it into a given situation and what kind of framework they make of it. We can see from looking at this one video made by Uta Firth that there are many questions about how she conducted these very experiments and interpreted the data, but if a person just believes in the general idea set she is presenting, then he will dispense with certain questions which might lead to another way of thinking. It is very easy to do that-- sadly, .too easy.

First of all you are painting this soft scientist to be a hard scientist. Secondly, almost all (so-called) professionals do not even think that most autism is a purely neurological disorder. They believe that genetics is one factor and that environment is another, and it is generally accepted by most scientists and psychologists (whom I do not really see as scientists, though imo they sometimes have done and are doing some interesting work and are sometimes really onto something or other)) that no one really understands the various dynamics and cause(s) of autism that well. Secondly, you are equating thinking the earth is flat with the idea of thinking that parenting can in some way play into some kinds of autism. That is a very false analogy taken out of the rhetoric and game plan of authoritarian tactics (the same tactics which are often used to discount the experience of people who are autistic, it should be mentioned), and also, you seem to be implying that only an odd-bird psychologist thinks thinks that parenting plays into it. My guess is a whole big lot of psychologists actually believe that parenting does in some way play into it, but you will not see them writing this on the internet or even talking about it, as it will ruin their careers, plain and simple.

You're not a person I really care to dialogue with as your thinking is way too over-generalized for me, but in short, I do not really have a "parenting theory of autism," though psychological object relations theory explains a lot about the possible parenting angle, as I think genetics and other factors such as the complexity of present day society plays into it.

I think it is obvious that thinking one IS the way one IS because this is how ones brain IS is not a good approach to developing comprehensive flexible thinking and learning to adapt to the world, especially when the people who are thinking this do not even really know who they are and are not really aware of how their own minds are conditioned. And this latter applies to everyone, but most people do not go through this life thinking they are the way they are because the way they are is because that is the way they are. The same 'brain' that is thinking something like this needs to not think this way in order to be flexible and adapt. In short, the mind is not the brain, and anyone who thinks it is the brain is imo in a very limited position from a developmental and functional perspective..

"It's easy to confuse autistic-like traits with autism, so if you think you might be a little bit autistic, you're very probably are not"

It's all conjecture anyway until an actual "autism gene" or "genes" are identified. Otherwise you are looking at a collection of traits and expressive behaviors that when combined on some fancy checklist and cross a critical mass of tick boxes make up a profile that over-paid autism specialists can refer to based on a diagnostic manual or trait dictionary as autism.

Without identifier genes or at least some type of EEG brain scan image pattern then you are dealing with people with fancy pieces of paper with checklists. I'm pretty sure many of us can already tick off boxes ourselves.

Over-paid they may be but years of experience, education and empirical evidence (even in soft science) count for something,IMO.

I'm not saying professionals are are infallible (far from it) but I think they can make more accurate judgments in diagnosing neuro-developmental disorders than random people without the same experience and education.

There are many brain/cognition differences between autistic and neurotypical measured already. These will become diagnostic tests in future. I am interested in the kind that you can't consciously score one way or the other, but that measure unconscious behaviors or brain responses. In the latest research that I am doing, I realized that subjective observation of other people's eye contact/movement behaviors is super inaccurate and disagrees with what the objective eye-tracking data show.

I've heard that research shows ASDers don't actually fixate the mouth more than the eyes or there was evidence refuting that anyway. Is that what you're talking about, eye-tracking studies that had showed autistic people fixate the mouth more?

This is why it's necessary that diagnosis is made only in those who exhibit the traits to a severe degree. So we can understand better why this group of humans differ from the rest. But once the label becomes wide, you start including people whose problems can often be better explained by psychological issues, or people with just minor personality traits that overlap superficially with the diagnostic criteria.

This is why it's necessary that diagnosis is made only in those who exhibit the traits to a severe degree.

I've heard that research shows ASDers don't actually fixate the mouth more than the eyes or there was evidence refuting that anyway. Is that what you're talking about, eye-tracking studies that had showed autistic people fixate the mouth more?

I found this article on the subject:
link

Interesting.

This one too:
link2

Just curious, how would you describe severe? There are a lot of Aspies who are independent, some even married.

Just curious, how would you describe severe? There are a lot of Aspies who are independent, some even married.

Daydreamer can you give a full citation for those refs? The links only work if you're a member of the University of Toronto