Why do we believe autism is "hard-wired"?

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Oh dear.

I sometimes wonder if humans are "hard-wired" against comprehension.

Take this excerpt from Kim Peek's wikipedia entry:

He is not autistic and likely has FG syndrome.

Whoever wrote this clearly does not understand what autism is.

This is like saying:

He is not obese and likely has Prader-Willi syndrome.

ok you are probably correct.

i guess i wanted to own (not exclusively) the label of "autism" and i felt reserved about attributing the label of "autism" to people who have similar symptoms to me for entirely different reasons.

i thought of an example where a person takes LSD and has a psychotic reaction being compared to someone who is fundamentally psychotic. are their experiences exactly the same? even if they are, they are derived from different causes so they should be distinguished.

LSD is an environmental cause, and genetic schizophrenia is an organic cause.
if their experiences are similar, it does not mean they equal each other. i know i am genetically autistic, and i am not environmentally damaged to result in something that looks like autism.


so i guess that i should relax my concept of autism as being very rare, and i should accept that it is widespread, and caused by many types of unrelated experiences (apparently......................(i can not really accept it actually)).

i know i make not much sense tonight because i can not think well because i am having a severe day as far as my mind is concerned. i am not as "on deck" as most people here.

'night

I beg your pardon ! !! !! !

I could not agree more with your statements (that I've pasted below), Bonny!

From 25 years or so of experience, I know that I will not "grow out of" my autistic(-like) traits. I'm exhausted with trying to work around them, and I'm ready to embrace them.

Dan

---------------

"Having lived in the neurotypical world until 56 years not knowing I had AS - constantly adapting, preparing, analysing beforehand to make sure whatever , went right....and still being confronted with the "groundhog day" like experiences regarding 'people's' responses to me as 'you talk funny etc...ETC...'. I now, with more insight and clearer perspective on NTism, ASDs - am very happy for whatever the basic wiring of a brain is because adaptation is easy, we all do it very well every second we're alive.

Making the most of your own backyard and being proud of it , that's my point + recognising that words like "personality, normal, abnormal" are absurd because using them extinguishes the user's ability to be aware of the adaptative process...ie... their life.

With this perspective I have observed that people who want to remain in their own form of Alcatraz, prefer to give power to words like personality, values and attitudes.

I'm happier now that I have more understanding about my 'hard wired brain."

So let's review what we have learned, eh?

Some Aspies are hard wired.
Some Aspies aren't hard wired.
Some Aspies can get better.
Some Aspies cannot get better.
Some Aspies do not want to get better.
Some Aspies write very long winded pompous posts.....

Spectrum covers a broad range, and includes conditions that are lumped alike... largely because the understanding of what causes them is limited but the scope of effect is more observable. In that way, there will be disparate conditions falling under the same heading. I don't have issue with this - if one learning from the other helps both, and we can build on those commonalities to help catch a glimpse, an insight, to help anyone along to becoming the person they want to be... then I think it is a positive. That doesn't diminish who you are, or the uniqueness of your experience, B9. I consider your last post to be rather thoughtful and thought-inspiring, actually.


M.

Actually not necessarily. Many instances of exactly this illness first become symptomatic subsequent to intoxication. In practice it has not been possible yet to determine whether these people would have eventually become symptomatic without a trigger or whether the psychotropic substances they consumed caused potential illness to become actual. In reality, regardless of whether the first episode was triggered or caused by drug consumption, if the presentation and progression is consistent with schizophrenia, that is the diagnosis.

So does it make sense to say “there is a specific condition as defined by these behaviors. Perhaps it has genetic causes, therefore if such a condition is not genetically caused, then it is not such a condition”?

Autism refers to observable behaviors, it has never referred to causes because we have yet to determine them. To suggest that only genetically caused autism is really autism, when the meaning of autism currently, and always has referred to observable traits independent of (unknown) causes does not make sense to me. For all we know, there are no instances of Autism that occur without an environmental trigger, even if there is an underlying genetic vulnerability present.



So far as I know ASDs are relatively rare. Less than two percent of the population at the most generous of estimates for the entire spectrum. But are the causes of most or all instances of Autism entirely genetic, independent of any environmental causes? Actually we cannot be certain that even a single such instance exists, as prenatal environmental factors have been correlated with some instances of autism and-are very tricksome to rule out generally.


You make a lot more sense than some people can manage on their good days.

OK.
Some aspies argue on about neuro flexibility while seemingly demonstrating conclusively that they have none.

You're a harsh critic ! !!

I don't believe I did.

But here's something else we Aspies are known for: being blunt.

I let you know what I thought.

Heh, what you're saying right there isn't exactly helping me change my opinion, either.

the prof wrote:

All sound summation of AS traits, bar the rhetoic of judgment in your last line. Therefore, if you were observing and writing with accuracy, you might have finished with ...

"Some Aspies write long winded posts."

just one question for ya Professor...what is that avatar of yours, exactly?

Why do we believe autism is "hard-wired"?

Because I don't go for the conspiring programing group theory

C'est moi ! !! !

That post in my opinion, was your best contribution to the thread.

i see that the diagnosis of some syndromes is based upon observation of tertiary behavior, and if the behavior fits the diagnostic precepts of a syndrome, then the diagnosis is given.

it is a stage of evolution we are currently at in our understanding, so i am not ready to argue this topic until there are more adequate methods to suggest someone has a syndrome (or a mental malady) rather than "observation of behavior". i would very much like a physical difference in the brain to be identified that would verify if someone has true autism or not.

but at the moment i can only talk from speculation, and it is not sufficient to only speculate.

i do admire your reasoning ability.