Sameness/ behaviours/interests - are they really a disorder?

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Objecting to such a deconstruction is of no value as long as that deconstruction is rigorous and does not pre-ordain a specific outcome.

Part of this has no answers in science. You cannot state scientifically that special interests are or are not of value in any absolute sense. If my special interest happens to be accounting, then you will not get many stating that it has no value. I can apply my accounting interests to gain self sufficiency. But if my special interest is counting railroad cars and I am so intent on pursuing that interest that I am unable to care for myself, then society will find no value in it no matter how much value I might personally assign.

Research in autism is in part focused on attenuating behaviors that are perceived to be harmful to the self or to the society at large. This attenuation can be through medications, therapy, or perhaps someday a genetic solution. But what gets attenuated is ultimately a question the culture will decide.

There are several questions involved. What is autism? What causes autism? What can be done about it? What should be done about it? Science can at least in part answer the first three but it is silent on the fourth. And all four overlap with each other and are to varying degrees culturally influenced.

What is it you are trying to deconstruct? The definition of what autism is? What should be done about it?

Wavefreak- At this stage I want to question the a priori assumptions about certain aspects of the definition of deviant behavior. The two aspects I have chosen to question frist are sameness and interest. The first part of the question I want to ask is if we all feel these are a negative, as the researchers seem to imply we think in they are. This seems to be evident a) in the terms they describe them , b) they way lump them with other behaviors.

Do we actually find a and b negatives ? That is all I'm asking at this stage.

I'm taking opinion.

Mr XXX

Well I can adapt to real life demands, but I like watching the same film over and over as much as the first time and sometimes the experience improves. I guess to me that.s like learning a visual thing in the same way as a muscian does a piece of music, or indeed a listener does their a favorite record . It's harmless, my family don't mind and it saves money at the video store.

Why should this be a negative?

I prefer my sameness behaviors to NT normative behaviors.

My preference for sameness serves a useful function for me. It frees my mind from mundane things that hurt my mind, things that I don't care about like what food to eat or what clothes to wear. I eat the same types of food and wear the same types of clothes all the time. Some women like variety, so they have to buy a lot of different versions of the same article of clothing, such as a scarf. I only have to buy one scarf. When I was little, my parents didn't have to buy me a lot of toys. I had only a few toys that I played with all the time. I played with my LEGOs building them into many different structures for hours at a time. It was great fun. Even when I built the same structure over and over again, I got something different out of the experience each time. Same with reading the same book or watching the same movie over and over again. I always get something fresh and new out of each experience that appears to be the same to NT researchers. Why do I get so many different experiences out of the same experience? Because that's the way my brain works. It sees everything in high resolution. It sees everything in a highly interconnected manner. I've read "Catch 22" many times, and I'm currently reading it again. Each time I read it, I understand a fresh and new slice of the story to connect to the slices that I had previously understood. Maybe NTs don't do this when they are reading a story. Maybe when NTs do the same thing over and over again, it really does feel like doing the same thing over and over again. For me, what appears to be sameness isn't actually sameness at all.

What about my routines and rituals? I like those too. I enjoy order and predictability. They free my mind from mundane things that hurt my mind. They help me avoid overload. They help me deal with the effects of overload. They help me reset my brain, so I can focus on work or school activities. So many functions do they serve for me. NTs don't need these functions, so they can't understand why it's so important for me to have my routines and rituals. But NTs do need socialization, and I can understand why it's so important for them to socialize. Their need for socialization is similar to my need for routines and rituals. NTs don't understand that our natural behaviors do serve useful functions for us, just like theirs do for them.

OK, now I have to admit that skin-picking was never a favorite pastime of my mine. I used to do a lot of this when I was younger. I enjoyed doing it, but I did think that it wasn't the healthiest of behaviors. So I gave it up and redirected my energies to non-self-injurious activities like my special interests. There's no time to pick at my fingers when I am focused on something far more interesting than that.



I'm all for this. We should do this as a matter of course.

Where the hell is temple grandin when you need her? Without her "insistance on sameness" she never would of built her hug machine, and never would of figured out the problems with the cattle, and we would all be stuck paying 12 bucks a lb for the worst cut of ground beef.

I agree with Meme, Sameness does not equal self mutiliation, self degredation, masaochism, self harm. Sameness may keep an AS in an unhappy relastionship, in an appartment that is suckier then what they can afford, and may keep us focused on whatever obession we have, like science, psychology, or whatever field of work we are in, advancing it. None of these things are bad things.

Staying in an unhappy relastionship means it may be HARDER for you to leave, but it also means you will work harder to make it happy. I know 3 people with aspergers in relastionships. Their significant other counts it their best quality. 2 of them choose to leave previously failing relastionships because the other person was not wanting to work on things.

Sameness is a prefrence, not a syndrome.

One more thing, if they find out that everyone with aspergers loves puppy's, are they going to find and remove the puppy loving gene? I need to know, cause i'm thinking about getting a puppy.

GET A DOG!! !! ! They are the best things ever. Don't tell my kids I said that either:)

Going to bed, goodnight USA.

No offense meant meme, but I think you misunderstand the meaning of "Sameness." Sameness is not about repetitive behaviors. Listening to the same song over and over is repetitive behavior.

Sameness is about things like finding out it's time to go shopping but you're in the midst of something else, and don't, or can't shift gears to stop what you're doing and go.

Or having great difficulty adjusting if the family has to move to a new home or town. "Insistence on Sameness" is about getting stuck and insisting that things one is accustomed to do not change. For example if your kid needs a new bed, but won't sleep in it because it's different. Or, if the bed is moved, and the child sleeps on the floor where the bed used to be.

Two of my kids had problems with these kinds of things, but neither really had much in the way of repetitive behaviors. It was their psychologist who explained the difference to us.

Repetitive behaviors, if they aren't bothering anyone, aren't really so much of a problem. Insistence on Sameness causes HUGE problems.

In what sense are you using the word deviant? Deviance from some norm? If so, the a priori assumption is that such a norm exists. Accepting that a norm exists, a priori, how do we determine what it is? Only then can we determine the measure of deviance from that norm. If we can define a characteristic, such as desire for sameness, and measure that characteristic, then the norm becomes a statistical evaluation. Then you can determine the standard deviation from the norm of any individual. Presumably, people on the autistic spectrum would be further from the norm. This would be a relatively objective evaluation. This same thing could be applied to special interests. If fixation on interests can be defined in a way that can be empirically measured, then a norm can be established and an autistic person can be measured against that norm. This is completely independent of any positive or negative connotations that might be culturally imposed on individuals that deviate from those norms.

Empirically measured, sameness and interests have no positive or negative associations. The measure is simply data. From these measures one could reasonably ask if sufficient deviations from these norms are likely to cause issues in an individual's life. If my desire for sameness is 3 standard deviations from the norm, will this correlate to my capacity to maintain employment? If that correlation exists is their causation? If causation is found, is it entangled with culture?

Deviations from the norm are neither good nor bad. They are simply statistical evaluations of a property or trait. Researchers are human enough that they will impart some sense of good and bad to behaviors that are deviations from the norm. This will in turn drive the directions of their research.

Good science would not a priori assign positive or negative connotations to norms. It would measure the trait and let the norm be established from the data.

This is currently a major problem for my daughter. Adolescence has arrived and with it a changing body. She is very upset by these fairly major changes. But you can't negotiate with biology. That change happens whether you are psychologically ready for it or not. Boys have changes too, but they aren't unbelievably paradigm-shifting as the changes that happen to girls. This is not a happy time. Eventually she will get used to this body. I hope.

Now there's a great example. For this discussion I mean. Probably really sucks for her though.

MRXxx

No offense taken . That's a half-a-century reflex response. "If it's not a problem to anyone why the hell does it matter to anyone?" Why do some of them make such an issue over minor difference. ( I know there's a long answer to this:) ) I'm am sure you did not mean it in anything other than a positive way , nor would anyone else here take a negative on anyone else's life experience or behavior. I will not.

This is my point, or at least one of them. If we drew a line and said everything on this side is beneficial everything on that side is not - and its all measured in degrees of usefulness and positiveness, I wonder how much we do and think and indeed intend is a positive. When these are taken together as whole and we can see how all the differing elements and components, aspects that make up the whole work together, then we can ask if they are collectively beneficial to the indiviual and indeed the social group thye belong to.

What we also need to do ( I think) is start at the fundemental level and find how express to that invidual although they are different , they are equal valued worthy human beings. That's not hippy bulcrapl it's basic thing we are all capable of if we know how and try.

I Just don't believe, I don't accept when a whole bunch of professionals express opinion ,no matter how scientifically supported , and describe groups of individuals as pathological/diseased/disordered this is valuing them in the fundemental way they need, especially if is a judgement about behaviour and their unique world view, and especially if their behavior does no harm and some of them regard it a beneficial, when taken with the whole range they have integrated into their lives.

This is why I can't help equating some aspects of research and the whole professional approach to us back to the playground game and asking if to an extent if this is just and extended , complex adult version, or to turn the argument around as if in that childhood game we see this complexity simplified down to it most basic- because in childhood games we can observe our adult behaviours, individual and group, laid bare and at their most basic.

I'm not saying I'm absolutely right here, I'm just developing a critique , and I think this is a question to start asking.

Meme

Right. I don't disagree with anything you're saying here, but I think you're missing the point I made above. You seem to be referring to repetitive behaviors as "Insistence on Sameness," and I'm saying they're not the same thing.

While I agree with what you're saying here, I view it all as pertaining to repetitive behaviors, not "Insistence on Sameness."

Repetitive behaviors that aren't bothering anyone else, and aren't causing harm, is to me, not a problem.

Insistence on Sameness though, is a very real problem, and will most certainly cause difficulties in life not just for the Autistic, but also for everyone around them.

In your original post, you mentioned "Sameness." Later, when you gave examples, you seemed to be talking about repetition, not Sameness.

I guess I'm asking if you might have used the wrong term in your first post, or if you really think "Insistence on Sameness" isn't a real problem. Because if you are saying you think IoS is not a problem, i would have to strongly disagree.

Mr.Xxx

Thank you there. That clarifies these definitions for me. Have I understood what you have kindly written out twice?

"Sameness" in this context means a lack of a flexible approach to changing situations and context. "Does not like sudden or large change."

"Repetitive behaviors " in this context means watching films a zillion times , reading the same book
or walking the dog on the same path and throwing the ball at the same point every day.

Sameness is a broad more abstract concept. Repetative behaviors are a specific group of identifiable behaviors.

You have a no problem with a challenege on these grounds if repetitive behaviors
do no harm.

You find sameness problematic and even harmful when adaption to circumstances are required.


Have I got this right? I am trying to gather opinions towards these catagories rather than form it.

A further question I want to ask is : Are there any people here who do sameness and find it in any way beneficial- does the drive for stabilty ever outweigh the pressures for change as a strategy in life, if the balance works for the individual ? I have no idea of the answer to this. But I think it is worth asking.

Look, thank you for even thiking about this let alone writing a detailed reply.

I'll show you why I'm asking these questions later.

I've scanned through Lew and Bodfish's approcah to making sense of these catgories. They may be a bit outated now, I don't know . Note that there is a history of change/flexibility in the criteria for inclusion in these categories or not , as the knowlege base grows and changes. -Lew's 2007 work concerened reordering these catagories and formed part of a Ph.D thesis.

The basic question I want to ask is if AS groups had input into these systems of definition at the stage of catagory reformulation and continual ressessment could we add anything constructive to them? I think we should have this imput, I want to know if others agree.

There is another thing" Dev Disord" is a term used to classify an article a journal Lew has publish d in - is Dev-Disorder too negatively charged for our own sensibilities?

P484-Handbook of intellectual and developmental disabilities
By John W. Jacobson (online)

Meme

Wavefreak that is a very good point there- how can you measure deviation from norm? Well
When I was using deviance I was using a sciological term we had back in the eighties and found it realy uselful . It sort of bypassed the empirical questions and it was associated with a school of though which more or less said ," these guys (for example Hells Angels or refugees from another country ex prisoners who refuse to abide by the law ), define themselves as deviant so let's go ask them why they think they are deviant,because maybe we can build up a model from what they have got to say. One thing you can do is compare different types of deviant groups and see if there arecommon factors in how they describe the social norms they are breaking and from that attempt to retro engineer a definition of normality produced from a variety of devaint perspectives.

Well, I think what you get is a conclusion from either an empirical model or an interperative one that normality can't be defined like an element in the periodic table. It's more like a wave collapse in quantum physics.

Now that opens up a whole can of worms, it really does because you are then into arguments about who has the power to define normality in relative situations. Then you are into radical
approaches to understanding differences which gets very radical at an extreme end and not a useful game for anyone to play.

A wise approach here is try to see how to constructively use this understanding of power to define normality and it being relative, well it is to me.

Q: in minute long magic act , we know the magician is going to get shot in the mouth by a blank round in a gun and that is the pointof the act . Producing the bullet out of the mouth at the end is the trick. Usually, where does the bullet get introduced into the magicians mouth in these acts? I think it is at the begining and the rest is padding out to increase the tension.

That's why I'm asking for opinions as to what we think constitutes deviant behavior , prior to the imput into these catagories.

From your last response I gather that you are looking at deviance from a social perspective and not a statistical one. This is indeed a can of worms. The statistical, empirical measures tells us nothing about how to make the social determinations. I tend to agree that some autistic behavior is consider deviant for no other reason than it is different, even if not harmful to anyone. Deconstructing such reactive misconceptions about autism could be a very useful exercise.