Growing out of autism?

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Interesting article in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND. They ask whether it's possible to "recover" from autism. The answer seems to be "yes", but they have no idea how or why. They seem to be trying to find which therapy works best. I think they're missing the point: It's a natural process.

As an aspie who was diagnosed late in life, I had no "early intervention", therapy or support. But over the years my symptoms (eye contact, communication, relationships, reading body language, etc.) have gotten less severe.

link?

Link:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... rom-autism

the article was interesting. i'm 57. I learned passable small talk at 50. I don't stare as much as I used to. my face is actually less expressive these days. I used to overcompensate expression-wise, something my mother and teachers expected. my most obvious stim is done in private now. I think more about how my words will be received before I say them. all stuff learned from the school of hard knocks. i'm undiagnosed, so never had any formal intervention. i'd say I still have trouble interacting with people, but it's manageable.

I agree totally. I think the process is called learning. Everytime you learn something, your brain rewires a little bit.

I disagree. All you can do is learn adaptive skills. These will be sorely tested under pressure if your environment changes to a less favourable one. Under stress (particularly high stress) an autistic person will revert to their more severe presentation pretty quickly. It is a lifelong neurological disorder and cannot be undone or grown out of. Please see this link for the reality (in other words a critique of the study which points out it's massive flaws) of what they are claiming:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2013/01/17/can-people-really-grow-out-of-autism/

Last edited by whirlingmind on 18 Jun 2013, 3:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

I would say I've "learned" my out of the spectrum lately, but the more I think about it the more I realize I now live and work in a VERY Aspie friendly environment. Take me out of that and the moderate to severe AS I had as a child would return in spades. That's why I got so upset when the psychiatrist said I don't have any impairments. I'm just VERY lucky right now I don't have any triggers!

I will say that I, like most on the mild end of the spectrum have "recovered" in some ways because we have cognitively learned what is instinctual for NTs like how to engage in a conversation. I still am quite awkward but it's barely noticeable now like it was as a kid.

+1

This is my experience as well. You can learn and experience can make you better at dealing, but when you cross that limit you're not used to, you revert.

True. I experienced a "recovery" if that's what you call it and "regression" cycle---TWICE in just 5 years.
Currently I'm not functioning as well as 8th and 9th grade, but still better than 7th and before 5th.

If those are the measures, then I estimate that 50% of people around here don't have autism.

The word "recover" is totally inappropriate.

Leibnitz philosophy of monad and supermonads is actually a way of looking at ausbergers.Leibnitz thought we all were basically autustic entities that all live in their own worlds. We would have no way whatsoever of communicating with each other if it wasnt for the super monad.Now those of you who are into consciousness. Consciousness itself has to be the super monad.What happens when we sink into ourselves?We become very singular in that deep emotion of self as it pertains to us as being who we are.Its not that we arent compasssionate and are deeply. Its we lack the social contact. My ausberger wife would when she was younger unable to go to parties she was terrified to be around others. as for me at the age of 5 i use to hold emergency conversations with myself. I think we are all very sensitive perhaps way to sensitive.At the age of 4 i use to ask my mother if before she went to bed did she wind herself up like a clock.Around that age iasked my parents what happens when a person gets shot.

Whirlingmind:

Learning adaptive skills is great. This gets you through lots of things that would have troubled you more at a younger age right?

You can even predict what sort of situations will give you stress and try to work around it a bit rather than reverting to a more troubled state. For example go to a party and leave early = less stress.

I have my own struggles from time to time but I feel my relationships with the people around me are improving due to various adaptations and learned skills. It's taken decades to happen and it's really only taken place since I became honest with myself about AS and started seeking information on what deficts I have and how to improve......

Is it just the degree of change that is possible over a long period of time is an individual thing?

I didn't know how to learn adaptive skills at a young age, I was just in situations that I felt lost in.

Any adaptive skills I have were acquired as an adult - and very slowly. If avoidance is an adaptive skill, that isn't losing your AS, it's hiding away because you know of no other alternative. In fact it's reiterating just how much your traits are bothering you if you need to hide away. I wouldn't call that adaptation.

Even having adaptive skills does not mean you have grown out of AS (did you read the link I posted?) it just means you are maintaining your own personal equilibrium - which is easily shattered when something happens to spoil it for you.

You cannot change the fact that you have a neurological disorder. And even what you said about rewiring the brain isn't really so. AS brains have areas of overwiring where circuits weren't pruned (you'd need to Google about this as I don't have studies to link but I know I have read it). You cannot remove the extra wiring even if you were technically able to forge some new circuits or use some existing circuits for additional purposes. Your brain will always have a neurological disorder.

Just the very fact that you - as GiantHockeyFan said - have to learn things cognitively/intellectually rather than it being instinctive, shows that the brain is very different and it's almost like a forced learning by rote rather than it being natural.

Any Aspie thinking they have outgrown it or can outgrow it is living in cloud cuckoo land, maybe by luck they will never find themselves in the environment that will bring it all crashing back down making them revert to their underlying state of obvious Aspie, but that doesn't change the fact that the risk is always there.

Indeed me too - very slowly learning adaptive skills as an adult and I had no help with it - wish I had some help when I was younger.....

maintaining my personal equalibrium is a good thing - I've made it a goal. It's a fragile thing I agree.

Everyone can learn

Lot of people process more complex social stuff cognitively - for example if one speaks to a friend about troubles at work to get some advice they are doing this. As long as it works how does it matter how it works?

Tony attwood states in his book that as people get older the puzzle starts to come together for them and I support this view based in my own experience.

I'm not suggesting there is a cure possible with age however I feel much progess can be made. Some people who are already high functioning as kids may become subclinical over time and this would easily explain the results claimed in this study

I'm still basically the same way as I have always been.

Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder. "Removing" the autism would imply removing who you are. Autism is definitely not a superficial characteristic, it's deeply rooted. What is superficial and not so deeply rooted are all the coping skills you've learned yourself through the years to get by. If anything can be removed, it's the coping skills.

Claiming it's possible to "recover" from autism is to give false hopes, imo.

For a long time I thought it was just a matter of "thinking right" and that you could always completely control how you think. You cannot freely choose how you think. It's a matter of ability!

It's like asking a man to become pregnant. We all know it ain't gonna happen.