Can Autism be conditioned out of you

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It's a crazy question but can autism be conditioned out of a person as in by corrective behaviour.

I tried reading up and it appears it cannot we can learn coping strategies but you still have autistic behaviour at times.

Reason why I ask is I'm sick of my autistic traits getting in the way of my life like when I get stressed I have behavioural meltdowns or my autistic traits make my life hard for me.

My partner once mentioned that he used to be autistic but his real dad put him though conditioning to stop his autism from being an issue. He don't talk to his real dad anymore.

I remember asking once during his therapy what he meant by conditioning and he said his read dad used to put loud static on headphones and force him to listen to it for hours at a time to reduce his sound sensory.

He also mentioned when he did something considered autistic he used to get his knuckles rapped till he learn to mask almost to a NT level. He was such at a NT level that when I first met him I said he was lying about having autism and he ended up showing me his diagnosis to shut me up.

Course now with what's happened with his grief and epilepsy his autistic traits are showing more often though his mum still claims he's cured and the traits are merely cause he's mirroring me.

No. Autism Developmental Disorder is a permanent and presently incurable neurological disorder that causes permanent dysfunction to the sufferers neurological networks and brain presentation.

Neural networks are very much like a collection of electrical circuits,
once built (or developed), neural networks like electrical circuits can not be "conditioned" into becoming something else with psychology, at least not at the moment.

The brain apparently has some level of elasticity, but not to the extent that an ASD brain can become a NT brain by conditioning.

At the moment, the neuroscience understanding of brain neurology is still fairly underdeveloped, and thus need a great deal more science in order for the scientists to develop the understanding needed to fix such problems.

On a positive note however, there are all sorts of trials / experiments going on around the world.
One neuroscientist is experimenting with creating brains from stem cells, with the ultimate idea of being able to use stem cells to repair damaged brains.

Elon Musk also has been funding his amazing Neural Link technology, that he proclaims will cure many mental illness ailments and dysfunctions including ASD.

We will have to wait and see what happens. Perhaps in our lifetimes, we will have a potential cure.

My father tried to "condition" my socially awkward behavior out of me, instead of quietly correcting and guiding me to more socially appropriate behavior.

And by "condition", I mean "beat".

His methods did not work -- I am still "Autistic/PDD-NOS+PTSD".

That's the basis for most of Applied Behavioral Analysis-----and especially a subset of this known as Discrete Trial Training.

In Discrete Trial Training and other forms of ABA, autistic children are given various types of punishments (some physical) if they exhibit stereotypically autistic traits.

Could deafness be conditioned out of a person?
Some people likely can be conditioned to behave like they weren't deaf in some situations if they can compensate with other senses. But, I hope, you see my analogy?

Imagine that ... my father was a pioneer in autistic developmental training, and he never even knew it.

I would say no.

But some behaviors should not be tolerated is what I would say.

Like, if it hurts someone else then I would not respond positively if my child did those behaviors.

That’s how my parents were with me, regardless of their issues.

Autism can't be conditioned out of someone. You can train an autistic kid to act "neurotypical" in some aspects, but it takes a lot of energy from the child as those traits don't really disappear. They're just masked and ignored.

As a kid I would be reprimanded about how embarrassing and annoying my behaviour was by my parents and some teachers if I showed any noticeable autistic traits. They didn't want to deal with my traits since they were "weird", so they made sure I knew how exhausting being around me was for other people and how much of a burden my traits were. I learned to pass somewhat as NT to please people, until I hit my limits, became exhausted, and developed autistic burnout.

All that "passing" was me constantly keeping my autistic traits in check and consciously fighting against my urge to stim, avoid eye contact, etc. while around other people and often even by myself for years. The traits never went away and are now very noticeable post-burnout.

When I went to school (1960s-1970s), there was no official recognition of autism (at least, not in my hometown) -- only "Mental Retardation" or having a bad attitude.  "ret*ds" were placed in "Special Ed" classes and forgotten, while kids with bad attitudes were ridiculed by teachers, punished by parents, and beaten up by other students.

I guess that's what happened to my uncle... and the school psychologist who tried to "fix his bad attitude" was, to say the least, not helpful.

I hope he recovered.

I recently learned from my Dad that my parents thought I did "weird" things when I was little but they decided I wasn't being bad, I was just like that, so they decided not to punish me. I am soooo glad!

The family still thinks I'm odd but they realize I've done well for myself. No one else retired at 56 and it was 40 years before someone else got a bachelors degree.

Over the years I've necessarily developed a number of coping strategies. I didn't know until I was 64 that I was mildly Autistic so I was not knowingly coping with that; I just tried to figure out how to get through life with as few problems and discomforts as possible.

Oh. My parents did try to teach me manners. For instance, I was told that it was polite to look at people when I was talking to them. No one said anything about looking people directly in the eye.

I didn't have an autism diagnosis as a kid, but my traits were noticeable enough that I was assessed. My parents (an aspie and a suspected aspie) grew up in the same era you did and were treated like they had "bad attitudes", so they treated me the same when they saw traits like that. Teachers in my school district treated even diagnosed kids like they had "bad attitudes" which still irritates me.

No, it can't be conditioned out of you. It's innate and developmental. You can't change or remove something you were born with, just like you can't stop a person from being deaf (good analogy magz), or gay, or trans among many other possible examples.

Autism can be masked or suppressed or hidden through social conditioning, but only with disastrous effects on the person's wellbeing.

I think I could be, as I'm on the very "mild" end of the spectrum. But it will take a lot of time and effort. I can just about get by by passing off as a quirky NT. I just wish I could change the way I think. I overthink things and have overwhelming empathy and get strange, contradicting thoughts that disturb me (usually linked to having too much empathy).

Where I first worked in a bicycle shop we had a customer who used to talk a bit in an unusual way but we understood her and got on well. Despite getting on in age, she was very fit.

Then forward a few jobs later, on a quiet train I was working, I happened to see both another person I knew and this elderly lady. Now the other person had difficulty speaking as his muscles were effected by a medical condition, so all I could make out is a grumble of his voice (A few years earlier he had no issues so it kinda hit him fast and a year or two later he had died). But I was trying my best to make out what he was saying, but this elderly lady could pick out what he was saying word for word.
I was puzzled and she said "Can't you tell what he is saying?" I said "No" and I was rather puzzled how she could tell.
She said she was lip reading. I asked where she learned to do that and she said she was completely deaf. I never knew that! Of all the years I had known her and the many times I had seen her I did not know!
It made sense why she kept needing to look at me because I can often not make eye to eye contact as I am speaking. Due to retail training they tried and tried with me so I learned to point my face towards someone but look either to the left or to the right of them. Most people do not notice. I can look at people when I am not talking to them or if I am "Surface talking" where I don't need to think too much, but much of the time I will not be looking at someone when I talk... Somehow she could tell what I am saying even when my face was at odd angles to her. Amazing! Also useful for her to be there during that conversation.