Intense World Theory

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I have just read the article on the Home Page, Intense World Theory. I quick scan through this and suddenly so much in my life made sense. So much is the sensitivity and goings on in the Autistic that they need to build a wall of defense, locking so much of themselves in.

Intense World Theory

Is any body prepared to discuss this article?

I've read the article and two scientific papers and I must say it is very good theory. Very good start to finally understand autism and get rid of arrogant and ignorant theories.
Unfortunately usually people seem to misunderstand the theory when they have no scientific background and/or lack the basic knowledge. I've seen some really stupid comments...

I've found nothing contradictory in the theory. I'd love to see more studies and experiments to support or falsify it.

It would make sense. It might explain why autism makes you more focused on details. Because your experience is so intense, every detail is intense as well. Because you see "everything" rather than the big image.

I thought about this intensity in the cinema yesterday. When I have to get up too quickly, it makes me uncomfortable. Because the film's just over and I can't get used to "the real world". It takes some time. It's like reading a really good book that you have to get away from.

Fear can last so long. I always imagined that other people did not develop these fears as much.


I know exactly what they are talking about here. I tried to explain to other people how my emotions work, but they never understood.

Have you seen this, written by the great lady. She does question why it was necessary to experiment with rats when humans are so readily available.

Rachel

A fascinating read, full text here: http://www.frontiersin.org/Neuroscience ... .2007/full

It doesn't go any further to explain what causes the development of the autistic brain.

I think this needs several reads before I am comfortable with it.

Jason

Here's a government site where the full article is posted.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... ool=pubmed

Although a lot of what they say seems to make sense and I can relate to it, I became skeptical of the part that looks to blame (or is a factor in) autism on Valproic Acid exposure during pregnancy. This would suggest that autism didn't exist before 1964. Clearly that is not the case. But they do say this is only a theory and needs extensive follow-up experiments.

I do not subscribe to the intense world hypothesis of autism, but I do think that it has some interesting points that should be further investigated, e.g. hypersensitivity. One thing that annoyed me was the part in the introduction saying that autism was a progressively worsening condition. That is false, but it does conveniently fit the hypothesis of autistic people being progressively locked in, so it was written into the paper at the eggspence of the truth, which is that autism is not a progressively worsening condition for the large majority of autistic people. Just the opposite, I think. I know that I was much much much moar autistic, both externally and internally, when I was a child with greater severities of all traits than I have now as an adult.

I want to read the paper in detail, but also think about it terms of theories of consciousness., from Whitehead to Penrose and Hameroff. It seems to me they are too much on the edges of science for most scientists to be comfortable with them.

You're misinterpreting it. The VPA exposure is a strong environmental factor and it was used to artificially cause autism in rats (with very high dose). That's the VPA rat model, upon which their original experiment is based. Other stuff is from hundreds of studies before them. (there are ~300 citations).

I can understand your confusion, it is very scientific and complex text. The cause of autism is genetic and environmental.

The purpose of Intense World Theory is to define what autism actually is and provide a framework, not why it happens. They mainly try to understand the problem first, not to understand what causes it.

Last edited by kojot on 25 Mar 2012, 3:26 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I think what they meant was that it is progressively worsening from the society's point of view. Because there are more and more people being diagnosed (and no one knows for sure if it's on the raise or that simply the detection rate is up)

They are definitely talking about worsening in terms of development, not worsening in terms of prevalence. Here is a quote from their other paper on the same topic:

Here is a quote from the linked paper:


The progressively worsening interpretation fits verry merry berry well into the intense world hypothesis, eggsept that it is not true for the large majority of autistic people. Kanner mentioned autistic children eggstending cautious feelers into the world and broadening their eggsperiences as they grow up, and that is the interpretation that is eggsacly correct from my point of view of having autism, early onset from birth. No natural instinct for communication to developing communication abilities at a later age than NT children. Intense need for sameness to becoming more flexible in teenage and adult years. Lack of emotional eggspressions and lack of understanding of own emotions and states and mind to learning how to verbalize and eggspress states of mind as an adult. It has always been progressive improvement for me, with the usual ups and downs of anyone's development.

Yes. You were right. I didn't remember that part. I think they may be saying mainly about severely autistic children and about worsening from birth to 3 yr old, and so on. If there is no way to communicate, any therapy can be very difficult.

Her criticism look like overreaction for me and lack of understanding how science work. That's why she can't understand the need for controlled experiments and insist on "just talking" to autistic people.
The problem is that they need to slice their brains not talk to them - it's neurobiology not psychology

Here is the paper from 2010 LINK, LINK

It is the actual theory. I see no mentions about "worsening" and "devastating". The previous one was some initial hypothesis and have some unfortunate statements. And remember it's focused more on the "severe" end of the spectrum. And they've actually cited works by people on the spectrum (Temple Grandin and Sean Barron), so they took into account the introspective point of view.