I just thought of something

Post Reply New Topic

You know how many people on the spectrum have sensory issues and how some people consider that most of us are actually cognitively impaired.


Well based on what I'm reading about sensory issues, I was wondering what if a lot of people on the spectrum particularly the lower functioning people start out at normal intelligence, but the sensory issues interfere with key times of development. I'm not saying that this is true for all cases, but couldn't some of the cognitive problems actually have been the result of the sensory issues.

Language Development for instance occurs at an early age where there is a spike in the generation of neurons.

I just considered this and wondered what other people thought.

I think that's a very interesting and astute observation. If an organism is trying to develop in some way, less than ideal conditions are, without doubt, a factor in a less than effective development. Being bombarded with too much sensory stimulation could have a drastic effect on development. Or rather, being unable to effectively process that sensory information.

I don't like talking about intelligence because it's a fuzzy abstract concept that different people give different meanings to. And I also don't do the low functioning/high functioning distinction.

But as for perceptual differences affecting cognitive development in general (which isn't a synonym for intelligence, and which is affected in ALL autistic people) it happens all the time. I skipped over or experienced quite differently a lot of the stages in language development because for much of my childhood I heard/saw language as just noises/squiggles/etc. And a bunch of other things worked the same way. Even now my understanding of the world is dominated by sensory-related information and going into idea/language mode is exhausting.

Yeah, I seriously think the difference between "low" and "high" are dictated by sensory processing issues.
There are loads of intelligent people out there who are thought to be ret*d just due to this...but also, it makes me seriously wonder about mental retardation in the first place. cognitive ability. especially since Novartis designed a pill to help with Fragile-X, as they found that there was too much noise on the neurons. Another study using some acne medicine discussed The great amount of dendrite growth in the Fragile-X brain, but little communication between the neurons.
I think that sensory issues would affect development milestones. I don't know about you, but mine can be rather disruptive from day-to-day life.

That makes a lot of sense. When I was younger and didn't know much about ASD's, I read about "classical" (that is, low-functioning) autism quite a bit (back then, no other "spectrum disorders" were even mentioned). I never once thought that people with LFA were less intelligent than anyone else--just that, for some reason, the world didn't make sense to them because they didn't sense things like everyone else did.

I also thought that if telepathy were possible, communication with someone who couldn't speak might actually reveal that they were NOT "ret*d" at all. I still believe that.

Well here is the thing if it is perceptual in nature and that distrupts key parts of brain development yes it would affect intelligence and cognitive ability to an extent. It definately could hurt as far as ability to understand language.