Adult Aspies are socially 11 years old?

Post Reply New Topic

It means you have a ToM better than the average autistic individual! HOORAY! No wonder why you get along so unusually well with others.

(Practically speaking, it's possible you're essentially neurotypical, socially. You might have other autistic characteristics, though, like sensory overload that might make you "autistic" but if it's not really a big deal in your life, then it's more of a superfluous meaningless label than a "disability".)

And, the term "social working memory" isn't an official term, it's my own neologism that extends "working memory" to social thinking. Working memory is about the amount of items that one can hold at the same time in your mind so, analogously, social working memory would be about the amount of "social items" that one could simultaneously hold in ones mind (Whether those "social items" be people, thoughts, beliefs, knowledge, intents, etc.).

I think autistic kids don't pay attention to the social content of the story. Little NT kids are enthralled with people playing tricks or teasing. When adults play with little NT kids they may play little tricks to get a laugh. Autistic kids usually aren't interested in that kind of play.

NT children might not actually work out in full what knowledge is in the mind of Sally at given times. That's a more difficult task. I bet they just pick up that by moving the ball Ann is trying to trick Sally. Therefore they predict that Sally will pick the wrong basket. Meanwhile, an autistic kid has no idea why Ann moved the ball. Autistic kids aren't going to attribute intent unless they're prompted to do so. There are other studies I recall that show how autistic people are less likely to attribute intent to certain actions.

I'd love for someone to test my hypothesis. I wonder if NT kids would also get it wrong if the ball didn't get moved intentionally by any character in the story. Will the results be the same if Ann isn't involved and the ball just moves around on it's own?

That came from a Social Phobia/Anxiety webpage and Autism is not mentioned anywhere, so I share a lot more in common with people who have Social Phobia/Anxiety than other Autistics, since other Autistics are all different and have all different reasons why they avoid social contact and social events.

That is why I class my anxiety disorder as co-morbid, because I find it's more disabling than the actual AS.