As someone on the spectrum, I don’t necessarily know if this is something I would want. My ASD is a big part of my personality; if these social “difficulties” (which really just mean I click with a different type of person) were “solved” I don’t know I would be the same person.
Maybe this can offer some hope for others with more profound issues, but if you’ve found a way to function in society I’m not sure this will be very attractive outside a “let me try and see what it feels like” scenario.
I have ADHD. Drugs like ritalin never "fixed" me. They basically allowed me an exchange: give up the charisma, personality, sociability, and appetite for 8 hours of being able to focus on something. I won't write an essay here but trust me that the two versions of me were day and night and both had significant benefits and challenges. I really struggled growing up.
By the time I got to college I learned to use the drugs as a switch I could flip when I needed the focused version of me.
Not that ADHD and ASD can be compared, but I wonder if maybe ASD treatments could offer that option. Ie. Not to "fix" you but to give you a tool to be wielded under your own control.
ADHD checking in - I function with my ADHD and it's part of who I am. All I need is a little support and understanding due to my lacking organisational abilities and consistency.
That said, I remember someone who's younger brother was severely autistic. He'd shit himself as a means of communication, he was barely able to talk - he'd never be able to integrate in any meaningful way. His parents lives were spent 24/7 caring for this kid. They loved him but it destroyed their family. If a drug could bring someone like that to the level they can be mildly autistic and function and provide a far higher quality of life to those and those who would otherwise have to support them, why not at least make it an option?
As long as we're just fixing impairments, not trying to "fix" people.
If I could undo whatever 8 years of concerta did to my brain (and start growing like a kid again where I left off), I would give my life earnings for that.
Concerta/ritalin/etc are sit down and shut up drugs. It makes you feel neurotic and trapped inside your own head so you're not as physically disruptive as a healthy kid should be. It leads to paranoia and anxiety that you only grow accustomed to and can't grow out of. The lack of appetite stunts development. Just look for real world stories of people who've taken these drugs and paid more attention to what happened to themselves than "yeah I was less disruptive."
My understanding is that ASD and ADHD are often found together. I don't have enough familiarity with either to know where one begins and the other starts.
Thanks for sharing your perspective, as the parent of a child just diagnosed with both conditions it's useful!
They are often confused for each other, but I tend to think of ADHD as “ASD lite”. They have some of the same issues with focus and attention (esp with hyperfocus) but kids with ASD tend to show a lot more sensitivity to sensory perception. Loud noises, bright lights or uncomfortable textures become emotional outbursts. Hyperfocus also tends to be more of a constant state with ASD and can lead to emotional distress. Kids with ADHD get mad when they don’t get their way; kids with ASD get mad when they’re uncomfortable and don’t know how to express that or deal with it.
It all depends on the severity of the ASD though as to how constant it is.
I do almost feel a diagnosis of both is redundant though.
What I've been told is that people with ASD have a lot of the same issues with their executive functioning, and in many cases they can be diagnosed with both ADHD and ASD. Furthermore, it's quite common for siblings of those with ASD to suffer from ADD/OCD/etc.
However, one crucial difference is that the ADHD type of 'hyperfocus' is often in practice not as useful as it seems/feels, whereas the ASD kind of obsessive focus can be very productive and useful.
My personal experience, comparing myself to friends who have (severe) ADHD, is that a crucial difference is that I find it easier to see the bigger picture, assuming I'm not stressed (which is difficult to achieve), and can sort of channel my 'hyperfocus' in the right direction. These friends often struggle with this, and can easily spend hours or days doing something that in hindsight wasn't the right thing.
(interestingly, I feel that this 'problem' also has the upside in that they are often more artistic than I am, perhaps because a lot of what they do is not limited by a clear 'goal')
I actually have had the opposite experience with hyperfocus — if I get sidetracked into a subject I personally find very interesting but know others don’t, I have a harder time letting go of it. I know what the right thing to do is; my brain just won’t let go of the thing it’s focused on and I get emotionally agitated when I force myself to switch.
For me at least, the core component of my ASD is the complicated link between sensory input and my emotional state. The focus and attention problems are more that I have to really concentrate to understand the meaning of everything going on around me, and that gets exhausting. I get fatigued of being “on”, so my attention lapses.
Very interesting. I never thought of that before. I certainly have no traits I'd consider on the autism spectrum. I just couldn't focus. Sit me quietly in 5th grade with a book and I'd read a page and have absorbed none of it because my brain wandered. I'd ask to go to the washroom just to get out of my desk and take the exciting trip to the washroom. Teachers eventually started asking if I had problems because I'd ask to go to the washroom 7 or 8 times a day.
I'd say 3 or 4 times a week when I had classes. Then down to 0 times a week during co-op (working for an employer for 4 months).
Basically I selected to have it any time I had a major project to do or studying to do. It was absolutely glorious because I could go to classes, struggle through those a bit, get home, be social and have friends, then at about 9pm have some concerta and work on a project until 5am.
And maybe some of this sounds unhealthy but gosh did it ever work. I was a D student in high school and I managed to actually get into college, get two degrees, some significant awards, and a dream job after graduation. Without the opportunity to take Concerta when I wanted to, I all but guarantee I never would have gone to college.
I think the experience of being a person goes a lot deeper than having any specific personality, if it didn't we wouldn't be sorting traits into good and bad. If not having learned to read has kept someone away from the influences of literature, we could say that it has impacted their personality, but would that be an excuse to never teach them?
Some behaviors associated with autism are really results of having less social influence acting on one's self (due to both slower learning and isolation). Would we consider them a fundamental part of the person, or just evidence of areas that the person still can grow in?
I think it depends on the person; but I personally see a lot of people I would identify as high-functioning people on the ASD spectrum working in senior management positions.
We are able to be successful exactly because we have learned to expertly regulate our public and private behaviors to be acceptable to the audience. We’re really deliberate about the soft skills stuff because it doesn’t come naturally. We do that because we can’t read your body language or facial expressions at all, so we have to be as completely inoffensive and congenial as possible.
Many of us have learned how to delegate effectively because there are certain kinds of work we simply cannot do.
We tend to be much better with written communication because it’s easier to compose your thoughts in a text editor than on the fly. As a result we are often seen as excellent communicators in the digital age!
We’re really good at making lists of things (I should probably stop that)
We also tend to talk at length of topics of very little interest to anyone else (ok, I’ll stop now.)
What I’m saying is that a lot of tendencies that are totally attributable to people on the high-functioning side of ASD can be generally beneficial to certain kinds of work. I’m sure you’ve seen these traits in people you know. So I’m not sure it’s always something that’s always detrimental.
Sure, I know a zillion people superficially but I can’t handle more than one or two friends at a time. And I’m ok with that; it’s not debilitating and I enjoy my time alone. I just don’t think it’s something to fix.
Edit: also not implying that all people on the spectrum are this way at all; just that I do see a lot of us in various management functions where Machiavellian politics is in play. Your image is everything and you have no friends, which someone with ASD and this personality profile will feel right at home with.
> Some behaviors associated with autism are really results of having less social influence acting on one's self (due to both slower learning and isolation)
This isn't supported by the research, which shows that autistic people struggle with social communication even if you give them intense courses about how to be better at social communication.
What you're suggesting is dangerously close to the "refrigerator mother" hypothesis, and that caused harm to many people.
This touches on the fundamental debate whether autism is a disease or not. Your comment and especially comparing autism to not being able to read implies that but I personally think there might be parts of the autistic spectrum that do not fall under that definition.
Autism is especially difficult to categorize as a disease or even a negative, but even when you can relatively easily label something as a technical disability, like deafness, there are perfectly valid reasons why the folks affected would be pretty strongly opposed to a cure. Any issue pertaining to identity is always going to be a very sensitive one.
I tend to lean toward a trait, and there really is no arguing that there are benefits, at least on the lower end of the spectrum. Modifying genes for "ideal" traits in humans seems like a bad idea to me...
This is a myth. Authism is a spectrum disorder and you don't meet the more disfunctional cases very often. A few percent are also savants but not everyone in the spectrum has some superpower. The severe cases are very crippling and place a heavy burden in the family (specially because the life expectancy is normal so you will not be always available to care for your autistic son).
I think the discussion should not be whether autistic people have some kind of superpower but whether there are parts of the autistic spectrum that can't be thought of as a disease.
There are obvious examples of Autism that are absolutely objectively terrible for the person experiencing it, this is not about those cases but about the "less severe cases" where an autistic child can go to a normal school and lead a generally normal life. If that is the case, I think the line between what you call a disease and mere personality traits is actually not very clear. Instinctively I would be very careful to describe someone's personality as a disease just because it is different from other peoples behaviour.
The problem with my thinking on the other hand is probably that the definition of the word autism itself might be unclear when considering these edge cases.
It's not a myth. I'm convinced that, all else being equal, being able to obsessively focus on one thing will bear its fruits, even if it can be disastrous in areas like social life and personal health.
The idea that people on the spectrum are more likely to be savants is a myth (the opposite, that savants are more likely to be on the spectrum less so, from what I understand), but the person you responded to made no such claim.
I found this NYT article from a while back fascinating. Basically this guy has TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) and he starts feeling more emotion. He discovers his wife is super controlling and ends up getting a divorce. He's not sure how much better his life actually gets from this "cure".
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/an-experimental-au...
As a father of someone who is about on the middle of the spectrum, I kind of agree. I couldn't separate his personality from his ASD - however if something could alleviate things like the stress he gets from sensory overload then that would be great.
I think it depends on how bad it is. If it's in a way that a person is introverted and has some peculiar communication style, that's one thing and if the person can not go outside, visit public places, hold a job, get an education, etc. then it's a different thing. I imagine some people would very welcome it, some would stay away from it.
This was my first reaction too. From the perspective of the person who would be taking this treatment, this sounds less like “alleviating symptoms” and more like adding an extra sense or altering their perception.
Whether a condition is labeled a disease is less important than whether it affects your ability to function and be happy, so definitely should be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Our personalities can change dramatically as we age and yet we retain our sense of individuality. People struggle to be stonger and if medicine can help then it should. If it's not right for everyone, that's okay.
This is the topic of the book "Speed of Dark" by Elizabeth Moon - the self identity of someone who has high-functioning autistism as an adult and the possibility of having it cured.
This also touches on the community that forms for people with a particular disorder or disability (e.g. the deaf community, the blind community being two that come to mind the most easily with their own culture).
> if you’ve found a way to function in society I’m not sure this will be very attractive
I think this is the key point. Some of us are high-functioning and have found ways to operate in normal society, but many people are effectively crippled by their autism.
High-functioning autism has many beneficial side effects, and I would be loath to give them up. (For example, even just the fact that you see things differently to the people around can be really useful).
> I’m not sure this will be very attractive outside a “let me try and see what it feels like” scenario.
I think that's exactly the value. Once you've tried it out, you'll be able to make an informed choice. I certainly wouldn't presume to choose for you, and I hope no-one else would do so either.
The "disadvantage" is that the article repeatedly calls the effects "long lasting"
It is complex indeed, specially for borderline cases. Looks like my son is landing on the functional side of the spectrum but it is always a coin toss. He will be 5 in May and is doing great attending a regular school although he is fortunate enough to have a dedicated tutor with him in class.
One of the concerns about treatments for ASD and ADHD is that parents could be incentivized to do what is convenient for them, rather than what is best for the child.
Parents don't prescribe drugs, doctors do. No system is perfect but I trust doctors and parents to do a better job than politicians and social workers when it comes to deciding what's best for each unique child.
We are talking about lifetime medication here so there is a huge incentive for drug companies to campaign for chemical solutions. Not so long doctors prescribed lobotomies for trouble-makers. Parent is correct here.
It's something everybody else would want because its unreasonably difficult to deal with autistic people. I have sympathy for those who can't help it but that sympathy evaporates the second there's a cure.
Maybe this can offer some hope for others with more profound issues, but if you’ve found a way to function in society I’m not sure this will be very attractive outside a “let me try and see what it feels like” scenario.