Russell Barkley's summation of what autism is

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What do you think of this statement?

"To refer to ADHD as inattention, is to refer to autism as hand flapping and speaking funny. They are the most obvious symptoms of a failure to develop the ability to relate to others as special objects, as humans. And that is what autism really is underneath. The rest of it is just the most superficial set of symptoms."

Russell Barkley

(starts as 0:39 in this video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQC-Nk5OOfE

It sounds like a sentimental description, rather than an explanation for the true nature of the condition.

I actually found that video incredibly intriguing. What he says about self-control being neurologically inborn rather than learned is something I have pondered for a long time. There are always people that are lazier than others, that have lower self-esteem or increased sensitivity to rejection.

I would absolutely love love LOVE to know all that results from neurological wiring, that has generally been regarded as something learned.

Though, I can think of potential criticism for these ideas. A major one being that the brain is very plastic (particularly during childhood) and thus it reasonably stands that learning may facilitate change in these areas.

"a failure to relate to others as humans" - I think that's accurate in my case. I've taught myself to be aware of others, but I don't really care.

Two points.

1. How is hand flapping a symptom of being unable to relate to others? This is not how I would interpret it.

2. The statement sounds like an extreme version of "people with ASD have no empathy". To say that they relate to other human beings as objets is just another way of saying "no empathy".

Hand flapping and speaking funny are not symptoms of not developing the ability to relate to others.
A failure to develop the ability to relate to others along with hand flapping and other symptoms are all symptoms of an underlying brain difference.

I think I get the sort of point that he's trying to make and I agree with it, but I don't think he did a good job of making it.

Of course there is impairment or failure in the development of social abilities in autism but to refer to all of the cognitive processes/abilities that go into social interaction as "the the ability to relate to others as special objects/humans" is a lot like referring to ADHD as inattention. To interact with other people successfully requires a whole lot more than just seeing them as "special objects, as humans". He's made the same kind of oversimplification and confusion of symptom with cause that he is criticizing.

Maybe for nts it doesn't?

Pardon me. I see that my brain is taking this out of it's given order. I apologize if that is jarring or disorienting to anyone.

I felt that autism is a failure to relate to your own self, as it is subsumed beneath external stimuli.



I don't relate autism to ADHD, as I am not at all inattentive to the outside world.




I take no offense at hearing that my way of thinking or outward mannerisms may have a neurological basis.

But, I don't consider a map of my brain to be disordered, any more than I pathologize my physical build or eye color.

In my way of thinking, a conspicuous lack of deportment or inability to communicate are the disorders, and might be dealt with separately.

How so?

Because in the time it took you to click it, the post was gone!

It definitely does for NTs. It does for everyone.

Social interaction is not a single skill that you either have or you don't. To interact with others successfully requires many skills (some of which are also collections of skills), uses many cognitive processes. It's really complex.

Take something like language. Language skills are part of social interaction. If you have impaired language skills, it can impair your ability to interact with others.

Language skills aren't even a single thing -- there is semantics (meaning of words) and there is pragmatics (how you use words). There is comprehension and there is expression. People can have difficulty with some aspects of language and not others or they could have difficulty with all aspects of language.

Then there are things like auditory processing, visual processing, motor coordination/motor planning, executive functioning, memory -- any of these things, if impaired, can affect and possibly impair a person's language use, language comprehension, or language skills in some way; Which can, in turn, affect or impair their ability to interact with others.

A lot of things can impair social interaction whether you see people as "special objects" or not.

I agree with you that a lot of things come into play for successful communication. But I think for neurotypicals these things come naturally and with no thought. It is only when one is impaired, that one becomes aware of the aspect one is deficient in.

I agree with you that most people probably don't think about these things unless they have a specific, need-based reason.

When I said that successful communication needs a lot more than seeing people as "special objects", I wasn't meaning things that a person is necessarily consciously aware of.

Russell Barkley speaks in vague generalities like a psychologist, so I can't take him seriously on what autism supposedly is.

I'm an Aspie, and I definitely see something special about people, and I'm capable of relating to them. Therefore Barkley is wrong, I would think.