Can insight sometimes be impaired with ASD?

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For example my stepdaughter said, in what she provided for my assessment, that I had very poor road safety skills, and that I often walk across the road without looking.
I've not noticed that I do that.

"insight" for autistics could be better, neither, or impaired

Autistics tend to be bad at multitasking and paying attention to rapidly changing things

Some neurotypicals sometimes walk across the road without looking

There are seven billion people in the solar system

Can either of you or someone else define/clarify what "insight" means in this context? I'm thinking of "intuition" or of having "acute skills of observation and deduction, discernment, and perception". If you mean something else what do you mean?

I think the examples are more about "attention deficit" than lack of insight.
And that would probably apply to me, I'm off in my own world a lot of the time.

I think that “lack of insight” for autistics has more to do with not realizing that we’re acting oddly or inappropriately in a social situation.

Walking out in the street without looking sounds like an ADHD sort of thing. Your mind was off somewhere else rather than staying focused on the task at hand.

Autistics frequently have insight IN RETROSPECT....but not immediately during the social occasion.

I agree with previous posters that maybe two different things are being conflated - awareness, and making deductions based on reflection about what we are aware of.

To take firemonkey's original example - if, due to attentional deficits, you cross the road without noticing the dangers, you will naturally have no memory of having done that; and without the memory of having done it, you can't reflect on that behaviour in order to have any insight into when, how often, or why you do it. Likewise with non-verbal communication and the pragmatic aspects of socialising - to deduce the meaning, you first have to recognise the behaviour, and secondly, have the insight into their psychology to guess at their intent.

So they're related in that awareness is a pre-requisite for reflection, without which we cannot deduce "insights". Lack of insight could represent deficits in either or both of these areas, maybe in different proportions depending upon the behaviour in question, or who is behaving that way (including oneself.) I have found this contrast particularly important when working on my Alexithymia with a counsellor. Once I've worked out what emotion I'm feeling, I'm not too bad at reflecting upon it to gain insights into why I might feel that way; the problem is more that Alexithymia seems to interfere with the emotional state entering my self-awareness so that I notice the emotion to begin with (and like the street-crossing example, it's noticeable that my memories include few emotional cues.)

I think the cause of the action is being confused with the self awareness or not of the action. ADD/ADHD has never been suggested as a problem for me . My concentration is fairly good.



Test Name: Gradual Onset Continuous Performance Test (not-X CPT)
Mobile Version Available?: Yes
Primary Domains: sustained attention, response inhibition
Demo Link: http://www.testmybrain.org/tests/gradCPT/index_down.php
Psychometrics: Excellent
Time (minutes): 6.9
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Yes. There are many factors that could play of course.

Without ADD/ADHD; there's always overwhelm, disorganizations and stress in any form.
If you're overwhelmed, your mind's too busy sorting yourself straight to think ahead and be aware. It's like wrestling a sticky blanket, and you wanna move freely but it just persists.



I got a few stuff on concepts in scopes of insight for now; via time, via space, via concept. I think each of these have their own layers.

Time means, yeah, it's like time sense and regulation. You'd know when to stop, when to keep going, likely think ahead without the 'aid' of being a worrywart or relying on routines.
Space has... Literal layers. This is also sensory. From your own body and where you are, to 'where could this distant thing is now? Without too much effort on memorizing where places are.
And concepts... It's like a list of rules in your head and in real time. Be it manners of dos and don'ts, possibly common sense, staying in topic and the frame where to put the view of the bigger picture.

Didn't mattered if you can focus for 20 hrs straight, can shift gears fast in every changes, memorize things quick and hold many things in your head, be in a safe space, or get rid of the tunnel vision like focus trait.

This is more with multitasking, working memory, processing 'space', staying in relevant topic (than focus) and, well, 'scope'.

The 'scope' always blurs with brain fog and confusion... In which happens often.
The 'scope' gets fussy if the person is willingly self-centered or unwillingly likely constantly overwhelmed and kept being put back into self-monitoring or a level lower than that!
The 'scope's upper-like limitation is in the individuals knowledge, experiences and worst of all, depending on the state of the brain which affects processing space.

Limited 'scope' means impaired insight.
And impaired insight feels... 'I know it's there (experienced had told), but I cannot reach it, I cannot get there, can't seem to process it... There's this wall that I could've sworn I was able to break through sometimes'... It's a constant feeling I kept bumping into, over and over. It's like having your metamorphical mental arms are chained off and you just want to reach the thing you wanna think.


Yes, ASD can impair insight in various ways, depending on the person's autism, comorbids, environment, and overall state.

It's a near constant the mental feeling I want to get rid off... It's making my head feel heated or strained. It's like, similar to overwork.
I know what it felt like not to have that feeling; that's why I had concluded what I'm seriously dealing with is some issue, not all the autism's curses or downside that I would've otherwise able to manage without said issue.

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