Having Autism is Like Watching a Poorly Dubbed Movie?? WTF?

Post Reply New Topic

>>Having Autism is Like Watching a Poorly Dubbed Movie<<

Dunno 'bout youse guys, but that is not remotely what I experience. Once again, researchers hold their own work back by decades because they aren't smart enough to ASK ADULTS WITH AUTISM WHAT THEY EXPERIENCE.

They know that nobody outgrows autism, so what is the point of sitting around watching nonverbal children and speculating on what's going on inside their heads, when you can simply ASK someone who has lived with the same handicaps for fifty years or more who is capable of articulating it clearly from a firsthand point of view?

These people claim to be "scientists" and "doctors" yet they aren't smart enough to think of that on their own? Doh!

Ohhh, that's what my mom was telling me about this morning - I guess she read that too!

She told me about how autistic kids put their hands over their ears so they can focus on visual input, just one sense at a time... And I was like "huh, interesting"...

But now that you mention it, what I really think is that we put our hands over our ears simply because the sound is distressing us. And it has absolutely nothing to do with wanting to focus on something visually.

She mentioned something about a badly-dubbed movie, and I just laughed and said - actually it's more like being in a TV store with 100 different channels playing all at once, and you have to try to focus on just one.

You're right - that article doesn't describe my own personal experience either!

Oh Willard, I feel like I'm trying to make you hate me or something, even when I'm not.

The comment seems more about explaining their research than explaining than anything else. Their research supports the idea that simultaneously processing visual and audio can be hard for children with autism. That's what you should be taking away from this. And I think that that's perfectly cromulent (you get +10 points if you get the reference to that word) research. Although I question how useful that information was...doesn't the scientific community already know that sensory overload exists for people with autism?
But even then, we don't really get a good idea for the overall purpose of this study. For instance, it could be the first in a set of similar studies that allow for good baseline measures that can be compared to other upcoming studies that require data from this first one in order to be valid, or perhaps it's the first sort of study that will then be used in conjunction with an MRI and they again need a proper baseline measure and just to see that the study shows the results they'd expect.

Most importantly I think though, you're not actually reading the published study, but what some poor professor might have had to say off the top of their head in an interview they might not even have wanted. I don't have much experience in the academic world, but I've got enough to have heard plenty of professors get upset that the media doesn't properly represent their research, or that the people who are the liason to the public aren't themselves the brain behind the research, and that it's the media's fault for glossing over things and taking things out of context, or for forcing opinions and grasping at sentences they say so that the general public can easily 'get' it, even though that almost always means they're 'getting it' wrongly.

Not all psychological research should be done via introspection anyways. Most shouldn't be. If I were researching autism I would be basing my research off of what I've learned from individuals and from previous research done, but the research itself would probably not be introspective in nature, especially if I were to want to use any sort of imaging technique with it.

Besides which, maybe some autistic somewhere would describe it as this guy described it.

You're good people Willard though. I like you. Your rage makes sense no matter what I've prattled on about.

I have the same instances of rage against what I'm passionate about....like people still not f*****g knowing the debacle surrounding antidepressants and their efficacy and how it was largely 'work around' that got them deemed useful in the first place. And now everyone f*****g thinks there's useful drugs to help with depression when there really aren't. If they help its likely to be placebo.

^^Precisely.

I for one have never dealt with sensory overload by covering my ears, because the discomfort I'm experiencing is not just coming from sound, it's the entire world full of sensory input that is overwhelming. It makes the entire body and brain one raw nerve.

If I were driven to cover my ears, it would probably be because some dumb ass was standing over me, repeatedly asking "What's wrong? Are you okay? Why won't you answer me?"

I'd say its more like a too well dubbed of a movie....if that makes any sense.

As a kinda-sorta-mostly-NT visitor to these forums, I can say I run into these descriptions of autism whenever I approach the subject in research.

People in general don't want to have to expend the effort to really get into the mindset of another individual, especially one with a neurology so far removed from their own. Rather, they like their information in metaphor form. "Autism is like watching a poorly-dubbed movie" is something that is not grim, and that people can relate to, because damn near everyone has seen a poorly-dubbed movie at some point in their lives. It's also completely incorrect, but the people writing it likely believe it to be more important to make their readership feel a sense of competency than to accurately describe the condition. They're writing the article to make NTs feel comfortable in dealing with autism, not to actually fully inform them about the diverse and varied realities that individuals with autism experience.

From my experience working with people with autism, I've found that autism is more like having a world made entirely of songbirds, or entirely of jackhammers, with very little ground in between. Of course, all ya'll are the experts (that being why I'm here), so feel free to tell me if I'm wrong with that assessment - and perhaps give me a better one, if you feel so inclined.

That was my first thought when I read the end of the article too. For the most part, when I have my hands over my ears it's because the noise I'm blocking out hurts or is in some other way distressing, such as when people yell at me, not because I'm trying to focus on only one sense at a time. I agree with Willard, it seems very silly to claim that the way people with autism function is still a mystery, because all the scientists have to do is sit down with a verbal aspie or HFA and ask us what the world is like, it's not that hard. I wish there were someone who could explain in detail what it's like to be an NT, so I have a better idea of their thought processes and why they make some of the assumptions about us that they do.

I'm NT except for social anxiety - I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you have.

I put my head in my hands so I can focus on the sound...because I can't process both vision and sound at the same time.

Just because it's entirely too much for you, not processing difficulty didn't mean it's that way for all of autism either. While including adults and talking to us is important, I actually don't have any issues with that study. It's just focusing on one part of sensory processing and not everyone with autism has these issues. It even says nit everyone has these issues.

The phrase autism is like a badly dubbed movie though, that is getting a bit in the everyone has this direction.

One reason I have a hard time making eye contact is because I can't focus on that while listening to someone or talking to them. But yes it would make sense that not everyone with autism has all the exact symptoms or would describe their experience with it the same way.

That's not my experience at all. Not once did I have to cover my ears and shut my eyes as a reaction to various stimuli.

Really? I do it all the time. If I'm tired enough or the task is brain-heavy enough, I'll close my eyes to shut out visual input, or ignore auditory input to concentrate on visual, or wear earplugs. I can only take so much information-processing before things start to get backed up like an overflowing inbox and I have to reject all further projects until I catch up.

Occasionally, I will cover my ears, almost as a reflex, in a reaction to a loud, sudden sound that's bad enough that I can't tolerate it, but not so bad that it just makes my brain crash and have to re-boot.

It varies. Sometimes, that is an apt description, kind of--more like a foreign film with no dubbing whatsoever, when it gets really bad. There are times when I know the other person is speaking English, but I literally cannot comprehend what is being said. (I would definitely prefer subtitles. )

At others, the "100 TVs at once" thing is pretty close--a whole lot of channels playing at once, and feeling like I have to follow them all--or at least switch smoothly between them.

At the worst, everything is just a cacophony of sight/sound/everything else, going through and over me, and that's when I get close to a shutdown.

I don't watch dubbed foreign films, so I don't know what that is like, compared to autism.

I can't describe what is my perception like, but it is not like what others have posted in this thread.

I only put my hands over my ears if I want to make a point to someone else nearby. I don't need to do it, I'm making a visual statement of how I feel.

I do close my eyes in order to reduce visual overload.

From the first paragraph of the article

These people are our profesional researchers? They are lazy and stupid, truely.

This is more of what I experience than what the research describes. As I described to my therapist, it's like my brain has limited processing bandwidth. To me that's another issue than something "like a poorly dubbed movie," but as you point out, everyone on the spectrum experiences it differently.