Gender conforms nothing to me since my teens I knew I was effeminate and what sort of bigitory around chasms of narrow passed down thoughts that being “feminine” is some how the negative “ying” to the positive “yang” of being “a man” in the context of denying your own weeping tear ducts and inner feeling states.
I am probably more happy now that I can have a matured head on my shoulders that I can take the assured nature of experience and use it now.
Paul Isaacs 2019
Once I was told why don’t you go to school reunion’s? Having thought about this answer and the infinite amount of timely words I could plunder on this subject. I figured it would best to say never go back to the person you used to be you will only get lost again.
People change for all sorts of reason’s and those people who knew me time is about being the best version of yourself.
For those who bullied me who clad it with denial or detachment or the “phase of being a teenager” you probably needed a hug and listening ear more than I ever did.
Paul Isaacs 2019
A lady last night asked me about what made me have the ability to speak in an interpretation language in late infancy. Of course this is my own trajectory many other factors with information processing have to be taken into account.
Autism Stereotypes: Ditch Them
There is no such thing as “pure autism” so their are many differing roads to Rome. Being brain damaged at birth due hypoxia meant I have challenges around visual perception faceblindness, object blindness and meaning blindness and hemiplegia.
Language Processing
Language processing disorder meant I was meaning deaf so with having visual, language and auditory pathways blocked I found other ways to map the world around me in a kinesthetic manner using my hands, feet as my “eyes” and “ears”.
Oral Apraxia & Body Agnosias
Having oral apraxia and body disconnection meant even I found the words they would fly away in an ethereal and ghostly fashion.
A World Before Meaning & Interpretative Frameworks
When I was echolalic my language was more streamlined and fluid when I explored the aspect of interpretative language it was stilted, slow and mechanical this was an transitional point from pattern, themed and felt language to a more universal interpretative framework.
Exposure Anxiety
Exposure Anxiety was triggered and I disliked my “interpretative voice” and what it triggered every time others made my aware of myself leading to selective mutism.
A lot challenges I have have been overcome others are more residual in there presentation.
Paul Isaacs 2019
Note This was from a personal perspective
There are times when I even question my own perception visual and/or otherwise and got the the point wonder of how I cam to this conclusion.
Noticing An Object With No Context?
I was presenting a workshop around a week ago and in the room something every so often was catching my eye and intriguing me, its was shiny and rainbow coloured in presentation however I ignored for a while.
Interpretive Meaning vs. Non-Interpretive Experience?
I was then talking about experiences of being object blind (simultagnosia) and meaning blind (semantic agnosia) and turned the the object of intrigue and held it and proclaimed and questioned “what is this?” in about 5 seconds or more the audience explained that it was a hip flask!
It just goes to show that even on a residual level my visual perceptual challenges take me by surprise this were I made an effort to remember the object by touching the its smooth and bobbled surface.
Paul Isaacs 2019
Note this is from person perspective
Gestalt perception can account for both strengths and weaknesses of autistic perception. On the one hand, they seem to perceive more accurate information and a greater amount of it. On the other hand, this amount of unselected information cannot be processed simultaneously and may lead to information overload. Autistic people may experience gestalt perception in any sensory modality.
About a month ago I was a friend of mine who is a speech and language therapist who works with people with autism, brain injuries (associated with language processing) other other neurological conditions.
Visual Perception & Memory
She asked me about how I mentalise the world around despite having challenges with visual-verbal connections and the ability to “marry” words and images together. This made me think about how I piece my “world” together and what tools I have used to do so. So she suggested about a simple memory comparison which was to see in the mind’s eye a generic church figure which she could.
Sensory Associative Memory
I said that when I think of a church I think of the feel and texture of the grass, the feel of the aged stone walls, the loud squeak of the wooden door, the musky smell of the aged church. She said can you bring all the those senses (experiences) together. I said I cannot as I think of them one sense at a time.
There appear to be multiple pathophysiological mechanisms that result in apperceptive visual agnosia. These may be related to the misperception of shapes due to defects in representing the elementary properties of curvature, surface and volume149 or failure to integrate multiple elements into a perceptual whole.150 Patients with severe apperceptive agnosia usually have extensive and diffuse occipital lesions and tend to have residual field defects.151
D. Tranel, A.R. Damasio, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001
Conclusion
It’s clear that I have documented about having faceblindness, object blindness and meaning blindness which of course leads to “blindisms” in visual surroundings in which one has “context blindness” in which objects, faces and places lose their significance and visual-verbal meaning.
However it is clear from this conversation that the way in which I store memories through fragmented pieces of information bring about and evoke an emotional connection with what I am talking about.
Paul Isaacs 2019
The late Polly Samuel’s (Donna Williams) through her career had pointed out that firstly autism was adjective a describer of an experience rather than a definer of a person, she also pointed out through her books and blogs that “autism” is different for each person a clustering and multifaceted condition made of different conditions in both neurology and biology and contributing psycho-social factors, identity, mental health and environmental factors
Asperger’s Syndrome – Left Brain Autism
When noting and observing people with Asperger’s Syndrome the part of the brain which is being used to compensate for a disconnect right is the left, people with Asperger’s Syndrome have a condition called social emotional agnosia this means that the person cannot perceive facial expression, body language and tone of voice. Even thought sensory issues may present themselves it would to do with modulation and integration rather than sensory perceptual issues that effect different areas of the brain, faceblindness (prosopagnosia) has a high co-morbidity as well as dyspraxia, alexithymia and literal perception of language. So other words people with AS have to intellectualise in order to compensate for the disconnect in the right.
Characteristics of Right Hemisphere Syndrome:
– Left visual neglect – an individual may neglect words on the left side of the page or not realize that there are objects on the left side
– Difficulty with facial recognition
– Poor awareness of deficits
– Poor self-monitoring
– Impulsive behavior
– Poor initiation and motivation
– Disorientation
– Impaired attention/memory
– Difficulty with organization and reasoning/problem – solving
– Difficulty with social aspects of language (e.g., poor turn taking skills, providing too much information)
– Difficulty understanding humor
– Difficulty with word retrieval
© By Beata Klarowska, M.S. CCC-SLP Monday, July 25, 2011
Classic Autism – Right Brain Autism
When looking at “classic” autism one makes the impression that the person has (and wrongly) a “lower functioning”variant of AS, this could not be further from the truth people with classic autism tend to to have receptive and expressive aphasia, verbal agnosia, speech/oral apraxia, and a higher rate of visual perceptual disorders such as simultagnosia and semantic agnosia. However introspection is in tact and just look at the poetry and art.
Injury to the left side of the brain may result in right-sided weakness and the following communication problems:
© 2016 CONSTANT THERAPY
In one of my books, The Jumbled Jigsaw, I presented a range of conditions commonly collectively occurring in those with autism and Aspergers. I was asked about the differences between an Aspergers (AS) ‘fruit salad’ and an Autism ‘fruit salad’. As an autism consultant since 1996 and having worked with over 1000 people diagnosed on the autism spectrum there are areas that overlap, areas where similar can easily be mistaken for same, and areas that are commonly quite different. Some with AS can present far more autistically in childhood but function very successfully in adulthood. Some with Autism can have abilities and tendencies commonly found in Aspies and some will grow up to function far more successfully than they could in childhood but, nevertheless, when together with adults with Aspergers they each notice that the differences may commonly outweigh the similarities. Generally the more common differences are:
ASPERGERS
originally called ‘Autistic Psychopathy‘(now outdated)
commonly not diagnosed until mid, even late childhood.
lesser degrees of gut, immune, metabolic disorders, epilepsy and genetic anomalies impacting health systems
dyspraxia
mood, anxiety, compulsive disorders commonly onset from late childhood/teens/early adulthood as a result of bullying, secondary to social skills problems, secondary to progressive self isolation and lack of interpersonal challenge/involvement/occupation.
scotopic sensitivity/light sensitivity more than simultagnosia
most have social emotional agnosia & around 30% have faceblindness but usually not due to simultagnosia
literal but not meaning deaf
social communication impairments, sometimes selective mutism secondary to Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD)
sensory hypersensitivities more than sensory perceptual disorders
higher IQ scores due to less impaired visual-verbal processing
tendency toward Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), Schizoid rather than Schizotypal Personality Disorder and commonly Dependent Personality Disorder to some level.
higher tendency to AvPD rather than Exposure Anxiety
Alexithymia is common
ADHD common co-occurance but may be less marked than in those with autism.AUTISM
Once known as Childhood Psychosis (now outdated)
generally there is always some diagnosis before age 3 (those born before 1980 were still usually diagnosed before age 3, although commonly with now outdated terms like ‘psychotic children’, ‘disturbed’, ‘mentally retarded’, ‘brain damaged’.
higher degrees and severity of gut, immune, metabolic disorders, epilepsy and genetic anomalies impacting health systems
mood, anxiety, compulsive disorders commonly observed since infancy
commonly amazing balance but commonly hypotonia
simultagnosia/meaning blindness rather than just scotopic sensitivity
verbal agnosia/meaning deafness
verbal communication impairments (aphasia, oral dyspraxia, verbal agnosia and associated echolalia and commonly secondary Selective Mutism)
lower IQ scores associated with higher severity of LD/Dyslexia/agnosias
tendency toward OCD/Tourettes, also higher rate of Schizotypal PD, DPD is common and tends to be more severe
higher tendency to Exposure Anxiety more than AvPD
higher tendency toward dissociative states (dissociation, derealisation, depersonalisation)
poetry by those with autism as opposed to AS commonly indicates those with autism can have high levels of introspection, insight
ADHD extremely common co-occurrenceDonna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net
Reflective Conclusion
It is simple people need to start looking at the functioning of the brain and how these different systems work for different people. This will in turn create advocacy which is not only meaningful and beneficial but character building and the correct information will give a broader foundation and palette to work from. I have autism (as opposed to AS) not because I am just “saying it” but because of what part of my brain affected.
What I am not saying (and never will say) is that I am speaking for all that would be disservice to many people’s realities. I am fully aware that this may challenge people me saying there are differences however looking at the neurology behind it and Polly’s observations I think there is room for healthy discussion.
Paul Isaacs 2019
When we some people look at Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism it can be used interchangeably as the “same thing” but a “different presentation” between the two. If we look a little (or a lot) deeper you can actually find that the differences lie in brain hemisphere dominance and neglect and all that comes with it.
Autistic’
Reliant on the mapping of pattern/theme/feel known as ’Sensing’, with intermittent use
of interpretative processing at the level of the literal
Mono tracked processing with moderate to severe information processing delay.
Indirectly Confrontational, self in relation to selfThe struggle here is the use of switching between “being” and “doing” states this means that the person is going from a “sensing” state to an interpretive state.
Asperger’s’
Interpretative processing at the level of the literal intermittent processing
beyond the literal to the ’significant’,
Generally Mono tracked processing with mild information processing delayThose with Exposure Anxiety are indirectly-confrontational and self in relation to
self. Others are able to manage directly confrontational other-initiated social
interaction but generally lack a simultaneous sense of self and otherThe struggle here is the opposite the use switching between “doing” and “being” this means that although the person gets a level of “significance” they may get “stuck” in a state of over thinking.
Exposure Anxiety is one of the three faces of “Autism”
Notes from a presentation by Donna Williams
At Flinders University, Friday Jan 16th 2004
Autism Doesn’t Run On”One” System
There is not one “system” in autism and that is part of the larger issue, by promoting tired stereotypes and linear 2D presentations of “collective autism” in which the person is assumed to think, act, react and behave in the same manner is rather passe and potentially dangerous.
Looking deeper, being objective and opened minded to the varying presentations that both “Autism” and “Asperger” fruit salads supply as an adjective and a description can lead down to meaningful roads of empowerment.
Paul Isaacs 2019
