Will it ever be possible to "bring out" the real person in an autistic child? Perhaps not, but Vilayanur Ramachandran and Lindsay Oberman think they have compelling evidence to explain autism's bizarre symptoms
Autism has never been short of controversial theories. Hype about "cold" mothers in the 1970s has given way to groundless scares about MMR vaccinations and notions of extreme male brains. Are we anywhere near a consensus? Vilayanur Ramachandran and Lindsay Oberman think their group has some compelling evidence when it comes to explaining autism's characteristically bizarre symptoms
"I KNOW Steven is trapped in there somewhere. If only you could find a way to tell our son how dearly we love him, perhaps you could bring him out, Dr Ramachandran." How often have doctors heard that heartfelt cry from parents describing their autistic child? Sadly, though, medical science has quite a way to go before we can talk about ways to bring Steven out.
But why does Steven need "bringing out"? In the 1940s, two doctors, Leo Kanner in Baltimore and Hans Asperger in Vienna, independently described this devastating developmental disorder ...
The rest of the article is subscription only, does anyone know what they are talking about?
i think its the classic "trapped in autism" myth.
this is the real me you are talking to, autism does not trap the real person, they fuse with the person to make the real, autistic person you see. just becuase they act diffrent does not mean they aren't who they really are. i've acted the way i have my whole life, and i'm not a monster keeping away the real person in my body...i can tell you that.
the whole trapped in autism myth is pretty much saying we aren't real people becuase we act diffently and defines human beings...digusting.
Autistic children seem to have a distorted salience landscape. This may be partially due to indiscriminately increased - or reduced - connections between sensory cortices and amygdala and, possibly, between limbic structures and frontal lobes. When these connections are exaggerated, every trivial event or object sets off an autonomic storm. If the emotional arousal is less pronounced, the child may attach abnormally high significance to certain unusual stimuli, accounting for the strange preoccupations - including "savant" skills.
Could anyone explain what they mean by salience landscape?
The Salience Landscape Theory: Cognitive Consequences of Autonomic Dysregulation in Autism.
William Hirstein, V.S. Ramachandran, Portia Iverson and Diane Rogers-Ramachandran
Abstract:
We observed severe autonomic dysregulation in the form of an inability of the sympathetic nervous system to establish an electrodermal baseline in 28 out of 35 autistic children. Also, the phasic autonomic responses of the autistic children were chaotic and not sensitive to the significance of the stimulus, especially with social stimuli. These responses have consequences for higher-level cognition, in a way similar to those shown by Damasio (1995; failure of autonomic response causes disinhibition) and Hirstein and Ramachandran (1997; failure of autonomic response produces 'impostor' delusion). The autonomic system produces a 'salience landscape' which guides higher-level cognition by attaching significance values to stimuli, we suggest. In autistic children the system can alternate between extremely high, chaotic levels of arousal, in which every perceptual event is given annoyingly high significance, and low, non-responsive levels, in which the child is calm, but unreachable. Bachevalier has argued that the central problem in the autistic brain is amygdala damage/malfunction (Bachevalier, 1994). The central route to the amygdala in visual perception is via the temporal lobe's 'ventral' visual stream. The autistic brain may 'prefer' activity in the other, 'dorsal' stream (generated by tactile or somesthetic activity) to activity in the ventral stream with its concomitant sympathetic overexcitation. We observed that certain forms of tactile stimulation cause steep reductions in sympathetic activity, which may explain why autistic children seek to engage in such behavior: they are themselves attempting to regulate a system which should be self-regulating.
This section is probable the most important part:
The autonomic system produces a 'salience landscape' which guides higher-level cognition by attaching significance values to stimuli, we suggest. In autistic children the system can alternate between extremely high, chaotic levels of arousal, in which every perceptual event is given annoyingly high significance, and low, non-responsive levels.
The autonomic nervous system is the part of the nervous system that is not consciously controlled.
'salience landscape' is just jargon to represent the above.
it seems like ucsd is full of whack jobs. good thing i didn't go there, although i was consdering it at one point during high school. and it sounds like cali hates autistics (i was 14 when i moved there, too late for those whack jobs to get to me with their whack curebiedom...i was doing fine without their help...education is the real answer). they feel the want to bring the real steven out. this infers that he isn being held hostage somewhere and that he is a non autistic person that is unable to be his own due to autism. that is totally false. mabye he likes drawing better than interacting with people. i liked doing things alone than with others when i was young, especally with the friends i had (most of them were rude and mean to me, don't know why, and i tried being their friend). so i would rather have steven in his own world with his pictues than in the outside being bullied by his peers. all they are trying to do is bring steven to a level of mediocty to be like everyone else...which isn't intersting. autism is instersting...the outside world sometimes isn't.
just a quick comment on the whole mirror neruons thing...i think autistics learn better through trial and error...acutally ands on doing it, dinfing if there is a new way of doing someting...that's where we get our ideas from. if these mirror nerons are to supposely make us lern by just copying what others do, we will never advance in techology and insted just be drones to ourseves, as we never deivate from the norm. this is terrible that copying others is better than inviation.
the whole mirrior nerons is probaly why most people buy into mass marketing tatcs, becuase they want to be like everyone else...autistics don't fall for it alot of times becuase they lack the neurons. i have to say i have avoided many mass mearketing tricks...if i happen to follow the crowd, it's becuase i wanted it for myself, not becuase everyone else was doing it.
for many years, innovation has been demanded from the socitey at large, but are we at a point where we are saying that imiation is the best, and we have had enough with innovation. think about it, if you do everything exactly the same...we get nowhere. when that happens, we have a medicore socitey that does not desire change or differnce and is satifised with the exact same thing. this will lead to the end of the human race.
I find my self uncertain. I think it would have been a bad idea for me but is that true for everyone on the spectrum, could it help some people towards the extreme end or is changing young children's brain patterns to match an ideal just wrong?
Does anyone think it would be a good idea to write into the letters section to speak against the 'trapped in there' angle and to question the desirability of biofeedback being used in this way, Or what they think about the article?
This is the address for the New Scientist Letters section:
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If more then one person writes in they would probably at least publish one . I will post anything interesting on this article if it comes up in the letters section of future issues.
This part "In autistic children the system can alternate between extremely high, chaotic levels of arousal, in which every perceptual event is given annoyingly high significance, and low, non-responsive levels."
sounds like an experience that I get, and posted about, when I get overstimulated from seeing things that I enjoy/collect.
It can be overwhelming.
If I get overstimulated, I just "zone out". So what do there people want to prevent the overstimulated part or the zoning out? I do not have any problem with it. Do they just want to smooth the two out into some blob of semi-consciousness?
People have a tendency to overstimulate young children anyway.
I certainly applaud New Scientist for their efforts an their genuine attempts to remove bias from their research, but I do feel that *some* of the things they did weren’t the best options.
The first thing I’d like to address is the preoccupation with children who have Asperger’s syndrome. It seems tome that all the focus in research is on this, and that none is on adults.
My theory is that some of the problems with Asperger’s children might be solved, albeit indirectly, simply as a natural process of growing up. I’ve often heard the study saying you can take third grade students, one who reads at a fifth grade level and one who reads at a first grade level, and fast forward to freshman college, and at that point there’s more likely than not NO difference in their reading skills.
I think a study into adults with Asperger’s might point out that some of the problems Asperger’s children face need not be so worrying.
The theory goes that people with Asperger’s syndrome zone out and rock when they get overstimulated. I can tell you flat out that that ONLY happens tome when I’m understimulated.
I think they need to look into that a bit harder.
The one thing I applaud most of all is their research with biofeedback. There’s a theory in this site that I only half-agree with. People with Asperger’s syndrome should not undergo behavior modification theorapy.
Now I can tell you flat out that without behavior modification I would be at, twenty one, unable to go to college, exchange regular email with all my online friends, take my trips to the farmer’s market, or even hold a decent conversation! It was necessary for me to function as well as I do today.
But at the same time, it was an incredibly inefficient way of going about teaching me to function. It was unnecessarily slow, painful, and confusing. Problem was, it was the only way there was.
I believe people with Asperger’s syndrome do need somekind of therapy to teach them to function in the world and with people, but there is an ideal method suited especially to us that has yet to be discovered, and behavior modification is quite possibly 180 degrees away from that ideal.
The one thing I dislike most about this study that I always seem to find in studies of not only Asperger’s Syndrome but almost every other kind of psychological idiosyncrasy is that they only have researches trying to explain it, they never have people with it trying to explain themselves.
"People with Asperger’s syndrome should not undergo behavior modification theorapy.
Now I can tell you flat out that without behavior modification I would be at, twenty one, unable to go to college, exchange regular email with all my online friends, take my trips to the farmer’s market, or even hold a decent conversation! It was necessary for me to function as well as I do today.
But at the same time, it was an incredibly inefficient way of going about teaching me to function. It was unnecessarily slow, painful, and confusing. Problem was, it was the only way there was."
If you want to do it fine. I do not think that people with asperger's should be forced to do therapy.
What is behaviour modification anyway?
Quote from journal paper abstract
The central route to the amygdala in visual perception is via the temporal lobe's 'ventral' visual stream. The autistic brain may 'prefer' activity in the other, 'dorsal' stream (generated by tactile or somesthetic activity) to activity in the ventral stream with its concomitant sympathetic overexcitation. We observed that certain forms of tactile stimulation cause steep reductions in sympathetic activity, which may explain why autistic children seek to engage in such behavior: they are themselves attempting to regulate a system ...
DUH!Temple Grandin must have explained this, oh, at least 100 times over, in her various books and writings. :roll: She does have quite an autistic obsession with her beloved squeeze machine. So now Ramachandran and his learned mates have explained the actual brain structures involved with this phenomenon. Whoop-de-doo! :?
I'd like to point out that it most definitely, certainly isn't only autistics who like to have a good bit of hard tactile sensory stimulation to get a nice calming effect. Young boys, tomboys and grown men seem to have a physical need for rough-and-tumble play, in the playground or the rugby field, and every mother knows that often the best way to calm a hysterically-overtired baby is swaddling. Is there any person in the world who doesn't feel calmer after a good hard back rub?
Autistic behaviour is on a continuum with the behaviour of so-called normal people. We don't do stuff because we are defective or miswired or brain-damaged, we do stuff for the same reasons why neurotypicals do similar or the same behaviours, but we are operating at the extreme edge of the range.
HELP! HELP! I'm trapped inside myself!! (Don't you hate it when that happens?) :lol: :lol:
Alison
The mirror neurones thing is interesting, do you think maybe the tendancy of autistics to come up with unique thoughts, views, oppinions, ideas, designs etc compared to NT's may relate to the damage to areas of the brain required for immitation in the same way as someone who is blind tends to have improved audio acuity and touch sensitivity etc.
So maybe the origionailty of thought comes from our improved ability to deduce things by trial and error, along with our enhanced ability to problem solve as we are much more comfortable with progressive trial and error than attempting to immitate others in some way, definately an interesting possibility no?
The latest fad of authors of pop science seems to be characterising autism as a disability that causes a failure to learn by imitation directly from other people, because of dicey mirror neurons. Of course, this NT trick isn't necessarily learning at all, it can stay at the level of mere rote imitation. I remember high school maths classes in which we were all taught how to do all kinds of maths calculations to pass an exam, but were never told what use or meaning this stuff had in the real world. The pop science account of autism and learning leaves us looking like unfortunates who are unable to do anything but re-invent the wheel. The authors fail to mention that autistics often end up inventing completely novel things instead. Nikola Tesla, Robert Boyle and Bill Gates are some inventors/technology inovators who are thought to be or have been autistic.
i can learn both ways, imiation and trial and error learning, but i prefer the trial and error way. have the sciencetists considered that if you just imitate other's experiments, you will get nowhere? thought they would know that. a major thing in science is trial and error, that's what studies are done for. when i imiate, i don't get it right away, i have to think it through for myself...if i just copied everyone else, i don't really get it. when i go through and anyalize it for myself through trial and error, i get it. now i know why the non autistics struggled in science and math and how i excelled. it wasn't despite autism, it was becuase of it....lack of mirror neurons can be a good thing.
btw, have they learned that imiation leads to trying to fit in and all that yucky social stuff that is senseless? i think non autistics tend to use their brains less and copy others more.
end of rant.