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Autism: An evolutionary perspective, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, 1st Symposium of EPSIG, 2016

488K views · Oct 13, 2016 · Science & Technology

EPSIG UK

6.4K subscribers

Comments · 2.2K

@gingeyqueen · 3 years ago
People with autism do experience empathy. I'm autistic and I am a HSP. I feel everything all the time. It's very overwhelming.
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@spencerfraye1780 · 6 years ago
'Lack of empathy' is such a poor way of framing it. Just because we have difficulty recognizing & defining the emotions of others doesn't mean we don't care!
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@HeatherWorkmanRios · 6 years ago
I am autistic and LOVE patterns and repetition.  I'm also a weaver, and can't help but think that long ago when we were still hunters and gatherers (which was a much larger period of time in human evolution than agricultural societies)  that the "skilled" craftspeople probably tended to be those with some form of autism.  Things like weaving, making flints, bows and arrows, pottery etc. all require intense periods of focus for long hours and most of all the repetition.  Most people don't have the patience for these types of tasks and would rather be with the rest of the group socializing, hunting etc. So if each little group had a few people who were very skilled at things like weaving, it would makes sense that this ability to focus and less need of socializing became a trait that stayed in our genome and has stayed with us.
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@Olfan · 3 years ago
Small side note: if an adult patient in diagnosis asks to leave their parents out of the process because they won't be of much help, by all means please do humour them. My own diagnosis had been held off for several decades because every time I made an attempt to get what I knew to be true written and stamped on a certificate so I'd qualify for getting help/meds/therapy, the doc insisted that parental input be very important and proceeded to allow them to ruin the diagnosis. "No, my son isn't crazy, he isn't an autist, there never were any problems. I have a perfectly normal son, nothing wrong with him!" Especially among the elderly you're going to find many parents who view having an autistic child, especially one that wasn't diagnosed during childhood, as an accusation of bad parenting, one so strong that they have to deflect it, even to the detriment of the child.
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@vaporainwaves · 5 years ago
Some say that he still holds that cup till this day.
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@rick3747 · 6 years ago
Hyper-empathy. We are blessed/cursed with this.
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@Smyrna37 · 3 years ago
In my experience and as a Autistic woman, with 3 Autistic boys. We have more empathy than neurological people and often end up partnered with narcissistic people, romantically and or friendships. Especially because we struggle to pick up on obvious social cues, all the whilst believing we are reading the room correctly. And those that avoid narcs tend to get burned in the school system and the sensory overload of it all, with a seamingly low pay off for efforts. Once the pattern is recognised tho, alot of Autistic people then realize that its more peaceful to isolate to a certain degree. Once burned, twice shy as they say...
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@anna-lisagirling7424 · 7 years ago
Microsoft, the company, at least on the main campus in Redmond, WA, has an entire separate suite for people with autism/Asperger's that is literally designed differently (providing for low noise distractions, privacy, etc.) because the company and beyond that, the field of competing science, really can utilize the special gifts of those whose brains are structured in this way.  Their groups make huge contributions to the R &D side of the company's endeavors.
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@AmandaLamy82 · 5 years ago
I think we need more research on empathy in autistic females. As an undiagnosed but evidently neurodivergent woman in her late thirties, I can attest to having high awareness of other people’s psychological makeup but, more often than not, nowadays, choosing to disengage socially out of self-respect. In my teens and twenties I would contort myself in order to maintain some level of relevance in several circles of friends. I was on the periphery of all those circles, but at least I had some type of social safety net, however flimsy...Point being, when I was more concerned with surviving than becoming an authentic person, I was more “empathetic.”
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@sparkythancztwise · 8 years ago
Omg, he said, "finding them very confusing".  Uh, no. It's he and others who find us very confusing.  We are more repelled than confused. We see what's going on and it's shocking and horrifying. We choose to not participate in what is dysfunctional.  When we are forced to in order to survive it takes a savage toll.
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@moondogmcblackfoot · 6 years ago
I’m an Aspie... people been fkn with my perfect universe since day 1.
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@martincamden9949 · 6 years ago (edited)
Our empathy is so good, we know when our mother hates us !! We know what the truth is but we don't want it to be true or we look for ways of keeping toxicity away from us even though this methodology backfires !!
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