My thoughts on autism:
Have any of you had any experience with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?
One of the functions of the test is to answer the question ‘what energizes you, how do you re-charge, do you prefer interaction with external, or are you more inner-working and prefer mental activity?’
Those who are more inner-working and recharge through mental activity score as Introverts. Typically, Introverted personalities need less interaction with people, need less physical activity, need less noise, less external stimuli. Too much of any of that wears them out, and they need to be alone for a while, in quiet, to get their energy level back up. You can be highly introverted, or just a little on the introverted side.
To me, I see autism as extreme introversion, introversion gone amock, where the individual can’t handle external stimuli—they are totally inner working, and they simply don’t respond to external stimuli, hence the lack of verbal and social skills, covering their ears when around noise.
Now contrast with the exact opposite (extraversion) gone amock, and you get a person who needs stimulation all the time, needs to be constantly a doing, can’t stay focused, talks and talks and goes and goes. To the extreme, this looks like hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder.
Those who score on the Introverted side recharge
I read about a parent whose son was autistic, no contact, lived in his own world. The professional she went to said that these kids are too good at collecting information from the world around them, and can’t handle what is to them, the extreme input. They just can’t process the huge amount of information they’re getting so they shut most of it out.
They took her son into a dimly lit, quite, uncluttered room and just sat there quietly. Within a few moments, her son turned around and looked her in the eye, something he hadn’t done in months. He was finally able to handle the input level.
I don’t recall how the whole thing turned out, but I just remember thinking how happy that mother was to have some sort of normal contact with her child again. That’s why the story stuck with me.