My guest today is Jonathan Mitchell.
Jonathan is a senior citizen autistic author, autism advocate, and has a blog, Autism Gadfly,
where he discusses views of autism.
Jonathan has a strong voice against neurodiversity and autism research.
He has a checks and balance for autistics that face different challenges in society.
In his book, The Mewrhythm Bluff about a Middle-aged Autistic can be found on Amazon.
Please see the show notes for links to Jonathan's work.
Before we begin the conversation with Jonathan, I couldn't help but notice the amount of challenges
that Jonathan has struggled with.
Take note of the biology of the autistic phenotype, of course, has its own sets of problems in life-functioning.
But what really captured my attention is the amount of problems from the outside in, such
as the education and the early treatment and employment.
There's a lifelong history of pressure and implications from the outside.
This in my opinion is what really holds autistics back.
It's not so much the challenges of the autistic phenotype, which I am not discounting.
However, the amount of inability of society to adapt to the certain type of different phenotype
is the biggest challenge.
And now my conversation with Jonathan Mitchell.
Jonathan, why don't we start with you explaining your life story to me and we'll go into when
you first noticed things were maybe even a little different.
Well, that goes back as long as I can remember when I was four years old and going to the
summer school to see if I could get into this kindergarten.
And I remember my mom telling me, they said you're not ready to go to this private kindergarten.
And that's probably my earliest memory.
Of course, my parents noticed something was wrong before I was three years old.
I guess up until two or two and a half, I had normal developmental milestones.
And then I either completely stopped talking or mostly stopped talking at about two and
a half and then recovered my speech between ages four and five.
And I guess they took me to a neurologist because they had no idea what was wrong with
me.
And the neurologist didn't know either because hardly anybody had heard of autism in 1958
when I was two years old going on three years old.
So they figured it was like some sort of emotional problem.
So they sent me to a psychoanalyst and I had regular sessions with her for about 10 years
or a little more until I was like about 13 and a half.
And I guess if you want to hear other relevant things, I was a special ed student for most
of the 60s.
I went to this special, this private kindergarten that let me in.
But then my mother didn't like that.
And she put me in this other kindergarten for my second semester of kindergarten and
my behavior problems were so bad.
I was expelled from that kindergarten.
Then I was in special ed for about eight years.
Like at 12, I was put in a right, I gave me a try at a mainstream private school that
I was expelled from there after about half a semester.
And then when I was 14 in 1969, they put me like in the eighth grade.
And then I graduated from high school, barely graduated from college.
And then I had a succession of jobs.
As I know, you seem to have read a lot of stuff about me as I guess you know, I was
fired from about 20 jobs, but I worked sporadically from age 24 to 51 and then retired some years
ago at age 51.
I don't know what else I can say unless you want to ask something more specific.
Sure.
Whenever you were explaining your journey in education and getting expelled and such,
can you remember some of those challenges that you had?
Well, you know, I had behavioral problems.
I lost my temper sometimes and the other kids picked on me and that sort of brought out
the worst in me and I just get in yelling, you know, fights and stuff with them.
If I get that at this private school where I was expelled at age 12, and as you probably
know, I have bad fine motor coordination problems where I can hardly write.
I can write so that it's pretty legible, but it's very slow and it looks like quote, unquote,
brain damaged writing quite a bit.
And also, you know, I've had very few friends and except for some casual dating never really
had a girlfriend and that beyond.
And it's been difficult.
I'm not sure what else I can say.
So the writing is huge in school too, that we must write and keep up with everything.
Did you find yourself having problems with just keeping up with the teacher in the classroom,
the pace of the classroom?
Well, sometimes my difficulty concentrating and you know, it was hard for me.
And those were probably just some some things that the other students pointed out and then
would start the bullying.
It kind of seemed like.
And at this point, your parents in the school, they they they didn't think autism at this
point.
Well, I like I don't think so, except I guess my mother heard about autism in like the mid
1960s.
And I guess she asked, you know, my there, my psychoanalyst was like my therapist at the
time.
You know, if I was autistic and then and then, you know, she said no, just that my parents
will cause these problems somehow and you know, trauma that I had as an infant or toddler.
And then I guess in 1968, you know, we took a trip back east, you know, for my aunt's
wedding and you know, for some reason, there was some psychiatrist in New York in 1968,
child psychiatrist that they thought it like some expertise.
And though my parents didn't tell me this for many years, I guess she was the first
one who diagnosed me as being autistic.
And then, you know, I guess I saw another psychiatrist in Los Angeles to start, you know,
starting when I was 13 when I finished, you know, my parents didn't like the progress
I was making with the psychoanalysis.
So they switched therapists and he I think he also said I was autistic.
But you know, like they never he never told me my parents never told me them.
You know, I was 21, you know, I was hoping Ritalin would help me.
I went to the psychiatrist UCLA who said, Yeah, like what you have six hours like that.
You know, I tell them this was like in 1977.
Yeah.
So the psychoanalyst the view back then was it was apparent or an issue with parental.
And that was very unfortunate.
And that's that hinges from that psychoanalytic view.
They were they're very biased towards that.
And I'm I imagine your parents that was that was harmful to them to hear that.
Hopefully they didn't agree with it.
Well, they I guess they sort of did for a while.
But I guess they did for a brief time.
But then I guess I had like a psychological, you know, a psychological assessment, you
know, where they gave me like IQ tests and, you know, the Bender Gestalt.
And other, you know, psychometric tests and that indicated, you know, like some sort of
brain damage.
And then I guess they thought of me as being neurologically impaired.
During this time, did you have questions or did you have worries about, you know, something
about me is different than these other kids?
Well, not, you know, not not really not that I can really think of.
I guess I guess I wasn't aware of how bleak the future, you know, would become.
But I guess it could have been worse.
You know, I've had some success.
I worked, graduated college.
I've worked, you know, worked sporadically, had a few friends was able to get some writing
done and stuff like that.
You graduated from UCLA, correct?
Yeah, well, I went there for the last, I went to Santa Monica Community College for
my first half of college, then I went to UCLA for two years for my second half of college.
You know, I transferred the units from SMC and I ended up getting a bachelor's from
UCLA, like in 1979.
What was your degree?
Or what is it?
Psychology.
Psychology, okay.
Bachelor's, bachelor of arts in psychology.
Okay.
Do you think that kind of comes from your experience?
Yeah, well, I thought that maybe I might like to be a psychologist because I, you know,
had many like 18 years of therapy and I wanted to be like sympathetic and sort of try to
help solve people's problems.
And I thought there was some way, you know, that I could find some sort of breakthrough
for my own problems, but in retrospect, I would have been better off, you know, trying
to do something else.
And I guess I didn't, I don't have what it takes, you know, to get a PhD in psychology
or neuroscience or whatever.
You're very interested in, is it mirror neurons?
Do you actively?
Yeah.
Well, I was, you know, many, many years ago, but yeah, I read Marco Iacoboni's book about
mirror neurons and I thought, you know, it might be an answer to my problems, but now
I'm not, not so sure because, you know, I'm not, I'm not sure if mirror neuron or behind
the etiology of autism or not.
But I guess, you know, like, like there's like structural damage, you know, like in
the frontal area and broke as the area of the brain, you know, like, you know, the premotor
cortex when mirror neurons exist.
And as you know, you know, I wrote a novel based on the premise, you know, that if somebody
could really improve, you know, their mirror neuron functioning, you know, then they could
become like a poker expert and win a lot of money at poker.
Yeah, you have an interest outside of your writing in poker, correct?
Oh, yeah, I read, I do other things and watch some movies on Amazon crime and stuff like
that.
Tell me about your experience with the Ritalin.
I guess I'm.
Yeah, well, I, the doctor I saw, you know, prescribed it and he sort of said, you know,
it's a long shot like at your age, it usually doesn't do much good and it probably wouldn't
help your type of property by prescribing it.
I tried it didn't seem to work and then I stopped it and you know, there isn't really
anything more to it than that.
Okay.
I guess I was shocked about the timeframe of it.
If it was modern day, I could see that because that seems to be our first option is psychopharmacology.
Yeah, well, Ritalin was a popular drug for ADHD like in the 70s and you know, people
were doing, giving people, you know, medications for various things.
I guess they, they still give like antipsychotics to autistics to calm them down, but I don't
think there, there's like a specific autism medication that's been invented yet.
Yeah, yeah, that's correct.
I'm not so sure how I feel about the medical field giving antipsychotics to autistics
either.
I think it's very concerning.
After you graduated UCLA, what was your first profession?
Well, I worked in a warehouse, you know, for about four months and then didn't like that
and quit, quit after that, you know, loading, you know, merchandise on industrial pallets
and then I typed prescription labels, you know, for a pharmacy and then I had a bunch
of day entry jobs where I got fired and then you know, I went to the California State Department
for rehabilitation and they sent me to the school where they taught me the rudiments
of medical transcription and then I did, you know, medical transcription off and on for
about 20 years, I guess.
And then, you know, I haven't, I haven't worked since.
Yeah, people, I don't think people understand how difficult autism and employment is.
There are many, there are many challenges presented in employment, including the social
communication and interaction aspect.
It's very hard to navigate that.
You know, of course, you know, I worked remotely, you know, like for the last nine years I worked
and that helped a bit but you know, when I was first working, you know, that option
didn't exist.
Yeah.
But then, you know, they developed computers and modems, you know, like where you could,
you know, like do a lot of jobs, you know, from home.
But I guess after, you know, the job I had for like nine years ended, you know, I tried
a couple other jobs and, you know, they either didn't work out or I got fired and I guess
I got fired, you know, after a day or two days, you know, from my very last medical
transcription job and then I was getting enough money for my parents as an early inheritance
and I retired, you know, at 51.
And, you know, like about, I guess that was like over 17 years ago.
Yeah.
Did the employers know of a condition?
A couple of them did because, you know, I went because, you know, right after, you know,
I was getting fired from some medical transcription jobs, I joined up with this organization with
the acronym ADAPT.
I don't remember what it stood for, but they would get like they would pay part of the
employees salary, like for the first month or something like that.
But you had to do like for disabled people that you had to disclose your disability to
the employer.
And there was one job, you know, I got where they made an agreement with ADAPT, you know,
they had for about a month and I got fired from that.
Then I went to another job and they didn't, and I guess they knew there was something
a mess and they, but they just wanted to work, they didn't want to work with ADAPT, they
just wanted to work with me themselves.
And I had that job for a little over two years and the company went out of business.
And other than, yeah, I guess it was just in those two instances that I disclosed or
my disability was disclosed to an employer.
Other than that, I'm sure they knew something was very wrong with me, but I guess they didn't
know what.
Well, it might have been just, they had just assumed get rid of you instead of trying to
work with you.
And I don't know how the views and employment and rules and regulations actually laws were
back then.
Well, for good, there was no Americans with disabilities act prior to 1990, as you probably
know, and that was like the first, you know, and then there was an 11 year period before
that, you know, between, you know, where I worked sporadically from 1979 to 1990.
And then I guess they had the ADA, but I don't think it really does much good, you know,
for autistic people, you know, it's better.
I mean, because there are, I mean, employers are required to give re quote unquote reasonable
accommodations, you know, to disabled employees.
But you know, that's like, like ramps, you know, for wheelchair users, you know, braille
for blind people or, you know, larger or if somebody's just like visually impaired, you
know, like a larger computer screen, but it doesn't, you know, require employers, you
know, to put up, you know, with poor behavior from autistic people.
And this has been upheld in like at least two or three federal court decisions.
You know, contrary to what people say, oh, that's, you know, employers are just are supposed
to give you like whatever accommodations you want.
If you're autistic, they're supposed to structure it for you.
But you know, I mean, there might be some accommodations for autistics, you know, that
are legal, you know, like, like if they had sensitivity to light or something like that
in the room, and like bad, like for less and lighting, you know, which they were sensitive
to them, they could ask to be put in another room.
But you know, if an employee makes a lot of mistakes or has poor behavior, you know, employers
aren't legally required to put up with that.
So I don't really think the ADA or accommodations for autistic people really do much good or
really an answer.
Yeah, yeah, that's well said.
I don't really keep up with the ADA and how they've changed that now.
Do you have any?
I've just read about some of these issues because as you may know, I sort of wrote like
a nonfiction book about neurodiversity and and I was, you know, trying to dispute, you
know, like what airy name and if you've heard of him was claiming or, you know, he was claiming
oh that they should have like a social ramp for autistic people analogous to like a ramp,
you know, for wheelchair users.
But you know, there's, you know, there's no legal basis, you know, for that, that statement
because there have been court decisions where, you know, the employer asked the employee,
to accommodate, you know, like behavioral issues and and the courts, you know, ruled
it ruled against, you know, the autistic litigants.
Yeah.
Well, when did you first begin to speak out against these things that's not right in
society?
Things that aren't right in society?
Yes.
For instance, the movement of neurodiversity.
Well, if you if you mean like when I start speaking out against neurodiversity, I guess
it was, you know, like in the earliest days of the internet, you know, list serves.
This is like in the like a little over 20 years ago in the early 2000s, they had these
very, I mean, I guess the term neurodiversity hadn't been coined yet, but they had had like
these lists, lists serves in the old days of the internet.
I forgot their specific names and a lot of people would post a white I want to be cured
most or all autistics don't want to be cured of society change, we could function as well
as non autistic people.
And then I, you know, gotten to some debates and, you know, disputes, you know, with with
with some of those people that this was maybe around 2000, 2001.
Like, yes.
Yeah, you're you're you have a strong stance on.
So I read here from Newsweek described you as an extremely controversial voice in the
autism blogosphere for wanting to cure and discussing the need to consider the longer
term effects of autism.
And after I read that wanting a cure doesn't seem controversial to me and wanting to discuss
the longer term effects of autism doesn't seem controversial to me either.
In fact, autism research now is shifting towards adult autistics and needing this information
about these long term implications.
Well, I'm not, well, I'm not sure if that's a question, but while the Newsweek article
that it was sort of borderline tabloid journalism where they blew some things out of out of
proportion and wrote some, you know, unfavorable things about me and what I guess, but I guess
it did give some balance to both views, but I guess, you know, a cure, yeah, a cure is
like a controversial issue because a lot of people don't want it or they they believe
it's saying their child or themselves are defective or bad.
So it makes a lot of people angry and, you know, there was an organization can cure autism
now if you remember them that existed, you know, from like 1994 to 2005 before autism
speaks bought them out and, you know, the neurodiversity people would rail against can
and claim that, you know, their goal was to find, you know, a way to abort autistic fetuses
and that's what a cure and prevention really meant.
There are a lot of people there are a lot of people that for a variety of reasons were
opposed this and as you probably know, autism speaks did like a completely 180 from their
position from, you know, like having a finding a cure for autism was like their ultimate
goal and now they go out of their way to say how they're against a cure for autism and
they appointed you get like two neurodiversity extremists, you know, that they're bored
of directors one, Stephen short, who said autism is a superpower and Valerie Paradise
who said autism isn't a disability, it's a strength.
This is what the controversial issue is in some circles, but I agree it shouldn't be.
Yes, correct.
This is a very delicate subject, I believe, because there are some abilities and superpowers,
but for a population, if we just split the autistic population, there are some, I should
say many occasions or occurrences that they likely don't have the superpowers or they
don't society doesn't allow them to navigate towards their superpowers because I think
a lot of society just traps the autistic phenotype and that's one of the things that
I want to help remove or at least bring attention to.
Yeah, well, I've written about that in an article published in Autism Parenting Magazine
about the male-female ratio and how the neurodiversity people say things that have no scientific
basis whatsoever that autism is underestimated and feel females that there might be an actual
two-to-one ratio or other than a four-to-one ratio or some people even go as far as saying
they're just as many autistic females as males, and now social camouflage has become sort
of a hot issue in autism research and I've been reading about that and hoping to write
an article about that someday, but I really quit camouflage and masking in the same categories
as astrology and voodoo.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know there isn't, I mean, I believe the four-to-one ratios are genuine and are due
to some either differences in hormones or brain physiology in males or females or the
fact that the female has an extra X chromosome.
I'm not sure if the specific is known, but there's been tons of research done on the
female protective effect showing that females have to have like a stronger hit of genetic
mutations to become autistic and I guess there have been some other studies.
I don't remember the exact specifics that show there's some biological thing that makes
males more vulnerable to autism than females, and it's also true in other developmental
disabilities like dyslexia, ADHD, stuttering, there's a similar ratio.
Yeah, yeah.
It's all very unknown to us, I think, a little bit too much.
One of the things that I question with autism research is it needs to go after the cause
foremost, and then early diagnosis seems to be important to me just because of the outcome.
The earlier one is known to be an autistic, the better the outcome, and then what we briefly
discussed a minute ago, or I mentioned about the longer term effects of autism in adults.
However, autism research seems to just be, in my opinion, all over the place.
There are things that we're sending money to and time and energy, and it doesn't really
seem like it has a lot of, it doesn't seem like it has a lot of, I don't know, input
or there's a place for it.
It's just a lot of odd research.
Yeah, well, I guess that's true.
I don't understand why autism speaks awarded Lauren Motrin, a half a million dollar research
grant, even though I guess that's kind of old news now.
You might remember Simon Baron Cohen's group, I think somebody named Godwin, or something
that was, she was the lead author of this paper that claimed autistics had superhuman
vision and a visual acuity of like 27, the same as birds of prey.
Then the study was retracted because it was either an incompetently done study or a hoax.
I realized I can't prove it was a hoax, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Yeah.
Those birds have two foveas.
So I doubt that we can even come close to that.
And you just even mentioning that Motrin, it kind of just highlights what is going on
behind the scenes.
And if they want to find a cause or a cure, and what their purpose is.
Now, our medical paradigm, it's easy to say that we just want to discover prescription
medications to treat things, not fix things, but just to treat them.
And that's my concern.
Let's talk about your blog where you, you call out autism speaks about the self identifying
how they just accept people that just self identify as autistic without even a clinical
diagnosis.
Well, I'm not sure I remember that that post, you know, I've written hundreds of blog posts
and I guess, but I guess most people have in the autism world seem to have that view.
Like, yes, autism speaks, you know, sounds familiar.
I'm not exactly sure which specific post you refer referring to, but I do seem to remember
something like that where they say like, you know, they accept people who identify as being
autistic.
But that's all I remember.
Yeah.
They took it or they added it to their mission statements.
And I think you were talking about we talked about before, as you know, like they, you
know, Steve, like, they were getting a lot of flack about not having any people with
autism on their board of directors and the thing with the cure.
And then, and then, you know, Steve Silverman got like this op-ed piece published in Los
Angeles Times about all these issues with autism speaks.
And then shortly after that, they did a complete 180.
They dropped the words cure and prevention and, you know, global health crisis, you know,
from their mission statements.
And they put the two autistics on their book, you know, Stephen Short, you know, who said
autism is a superpower and Valerie Paradise who said it isn't a disability and a strength.
You know, and she wasn't even diagnosed with autism until she was in her 40s.
You know, like many years after her son, you know, was had like an Asperger's diagnosis
and I've met her and I don't really understand how she qualifies for an autism diagnosis.
But maybe there's an explanation for it.
I don't know.
Huh.
He also wrote about Gates, Einstein and Jefferson, how people just it's easy for them to say,
oh, they're autistic.
And it's like they just want to strengthen the group.
It seems like to me without any accuracy.
Well, yeah, yeah, that was one of my earlier articles.
Like, yeah, it's been about 20 years, you know, since I wrote that.
And then I guess it was sort of self published on my website and this guy who heard me on
the radio made made for me in about 2008 and they used to, you know, get a lot of traffic
and you know, it was high up a few like type Gates autistic into Google or other search
engines that came up very high for a long time, but no more.
To me, it's like we open up this group of neurodiversity and then people can just say
that they're neurodiverse.
And then there's and then that's where it kind of stops.
Maybe people just like to say, oh, that's just my ADHD or oh, that's just my autism.
And they want to identify as something maybe to help them manage any type of conflict or
troubles that they are going through.
Yeah, I guess that's a fair assessment.
I don't know, because society doesn't really know what to do with it after that.
And plus, we love to label people.
That's what we like to do.
We like to subordinate people and just call it that.
What led to the book, the mood rhythm bluffs?
Well, I have an interest in poker.
And to this day, I still play it.
Sometimes I swear that I'll quit, but then I end up, I enjoy it and I've been a losing
player.
And as we discussed before, I was interested in mirror neurons as like a possible cause
of autism.
And I was wondering, what if something like super mirror neuron ability, like in they
were interested in poker with this, enable them to have like a superpower where they
could be like an expert poker player and it's fiction, of course, but that's what really
got me to write the novel.
And I've been interested in writing novels and I've written four other novels besides
that one, but they're not published.
You know, the mood rhythm bluff was my second novel.
I'm hoping to get like this follow up of the new rhythm bluff published someday.
I don't know if I ever will.
And I don't really care for self publishing novels anymore.
Do you find it hard to kind of promote yourself and market yourself?
Yeah, it's well.
It's hard for everyone, but I haven't been considering, you know, I was like an obscure,
but I've done fairly well over the years.
You know, considering I was basically an obscure blogger, but I was able to get on as
you know, get an NPR Newsweek, you know, things like that.
But you know, like the people were more interested in, you know, my idea, my nonfiction, my ideas,
you know, like about neurodiversity than, you know, you know, my fiction writing.
And yeah, it's very hard for an anti neurodiversity person to get promoted because, you know,
they have so much power.
There are a lot of people that believe in that, you know, they have billionaire patrons
like George Soros, they have the whole media, the whole government, most of the private
autism organizations on their side.
So yeah, it's hard to promote yourself.
It's sort of like a lone soldier trying to take on the whole Russian army with like a
BB gun or maybe even a peace shooter.
Yeah.
That's what I'll say.
It's a group in or group think, group in, group out.
And that's why maybe organizations like Autism Speaks just opened it up to just, it allows
them to get their marketing out and get more attention onto them.
And then they can get more fundraising and more power.
Perhaps I don't know, but, but Autism Speaks, the organization over, over time is very different.
Whenever you get into this mode of writing a novel, and I'm just curious if you have
any, if the symptom of restricted, fixated interest, do you find yourself like that's
the only thing that you want to do?
No.
That's something I'm interested in.
Sometimes it's hard for me to sit down and apply myself.
Like, you know, my, you know, my disability, though I guess I've gotten a little better
as I've gotten older, but you know, I wanted to write an article about social camouflage,
but you know, there's a lot of literature to read and I want to really know it well
before I end up procrastinating.
But hopefully someday I'll write that article.
I don't know whether I'll be able to get it published anywhere or not.
What's the name of your second book or the one that you're currently trying to get published?
Oh, oh, my latest one.
Yeah.
You know, gamma gets girls.
You know, it's, it's sort of similar to the MuRhythm Bluff, except, you know, bright,
if you read the MuRhythm Bluff, you remember this neuroscientist Bryce Blalock and, you
know, and, you know, this sort of, not exactly a sequel, but a follow-up work instead of,
you know, using the mirror neuron hypothesis of autism, you know, like he deals, you know,
with the lack of gamma wave synchronization and they, they not only use transcranial magnetic
stimulation, but also this technique that this neuroscience that was inspired by this
neuroscientist Yuri Danilov, where he puts some electrodes on the tongue and their nerves
that connect to the brain stem, which connects to the various parts of the brain.
And I guess it's similar to TMS and I use these in the book, gamma, but it, but that
decided back to, is it makes them, you know, like irresistible to women and then they have
some, you know, the two autistic protagonists have, you know, some adventures, you know,
in problems based on this newfound popularity, you know, with women and I don't know what
else I can say about it, but I don't plan to self publish it.
I don't know if any, I'll ever be able to get an agent or get it published.
Okay.
Yes, your writings, how much, how much of your life do you, do you integrate into these
characters in your books?
Quite, you know, their amount, I guess not a hundred percent, but you know, a very high
percentage, you know, like, you know, a lot of the protagonists are sort of based on
my self.
I, you know, a lot of my fiction, you know, I wrote about things, you know, that happened
to me, you know, of course, with some embellishment and yeah, that makes it, that makes it even
kind of a more genuine story to me whenever you can, you or anyone can integrate their
own personal life and experience and into this other story.
Hopefully it's maybe even empowering or it could give people hope and insight from the
outside.
I don't know.
I have trouble getting exposure in scouts and, you know, I stopped blogging in autism
scout fly.
You know, I haven't had as much, you know, publicity.
I get requests from people like you and stuff, but I don't get a whole lot.
So I'm, you know, not that well known, even though I've had, you know, some big, meagy
exposure like Newsweek, NPR being published in suspect.
It's definitely a side on autism.
You go up to bat for autism, in my opinion.
Well, I'd like to be in the submission with a bath actually, but you know, but I don't
think science has really advanced that level yet.
And because of, you know, neurodiversity and our government and a lot of other things,
you know, they, they impede advancement into, you know, you know, trying to find causes
and treat, you know, like treatment breakthroughs for autism.
So it's in my opinion, at least, you know, it's gotten a lot worse.
Yeah.
Questioning the purpose of things.
Talk to me about your, your involvement in research.
How did that come about?
With well, I, I, maybe you're referring to like being a subject for the Corshain research
group.
Yes.
I've covered a lot of his work.
Well, it started, you know, like, I guess in late 1988, early 1989, you know, when people
were starting to analyze, you know, autistic brains with MRI scans and the Corshain group
was sort of at the forefront of that.
And then, you know, they had an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine about
how they had found, you know, some portions of the cerebellar vermice were smaller in
autistics than like an age, you know, matched controls.
And then there was a front page story about the, you know, and the LA Times about that.
So I called their group and talked to the, you know, Eric Corshain's wife at the time.
And, you know, and I said, are you looking for subjects for MRIs?
And, you know, they said, yes, yes, we are.
And then, and then, you know, I drove, you know, from Los Angeles to San Diego.
It's about a two-hour drive between Los Angeles and San Diego and, you know, where their
group is.
And I had like a couple of MRI scans, you know, of my brain.
I guess I participated in some of their revoked, you know, potential studies.
But then, you know, I wasn't sure how much they could help.
And I tried to ask for some results of something I was in.
And then Corshain never replies.
So I just stopped being involved, you know, with their research group.
I'm not sure what else I could say about it.
So you don't know the results of your scans?
Well, just, well, I know that.
Like I had like an average, like the, well, globules six and seven of my cerebellar vermice
were like about an average size of an autistic.
And then there was some other experiment.
I don't remember.
It's many years ago.
So that's then, you know, I just sort of lost contact with them.
And then they were sort of interested in maybe having me do, you know, a research for this,
you know, a stem cell thing they were involved in, which would require them like grafting
some skin for my buttocks.
And I guess trying to develop like sort of like an embryological brain from.
And, but, you know, I, and I thought about participating in that, but it would, you know,
would mean driving to San Diego and maybe having to spend like a few days there.
And I just wasn't really interested.
And then there, I was brief, you know, I, you know, there's this group at Caltech that
this guy Ralph Adolfs has and I just paid him some of their eye tracking studies, but
it wasn't something I was really interested in.
So I stopped doing that.
You know, other than that, you know, I've really had no involvement in autism research,
except in those two instances as a subject and not as a researcher.
And that's, I guess that's about the extent of my quote unquote involvement in autism.
Ralph Adolfs is quite the name.
And there's heard of him.
Yeah.
Oh, because, oh, he's just as an interesting name.
Yeah.
Well, no, I'm very familiar with his work and, and the work from UC San Diego with the
trio, I think he actually does pretty good work.
Kurchesni or I fell with his name.
What's what are next?
What's next for you, Jonathan?
I guess dropping, dropping dead because I'm, I'm so obese and I'm nearly 69 years old.
And so I'm not, I'm not, other than that, I'm not, I'm, I'm not sure.
I guess what I, okay, I guess what I hope is the very next thing is that I'll be able
to write, you know, that article, you know, debunking, you know, social camouflage and
masking, you know, that neurodiversity, you know, writes about and I've read enough to
see that it's, you know, basically junk science.
And I hope to write an article about that someday.
And I, and I'd like to write another novel or, you know, other than that, I guess I,
you know, that's about it.
I guess I'm not sure what comes next for me long term.
You know, if I, if I, if I live long enough.
Some of the research that you hint on is I call click bait.
They publish it just for recognition is my perspective.
Well, I, well, there's certain, there's certain, you know, no, no scientific basis for it,
but I guess the, the cat queue, they have a new camouflage instrument that's, I guess,
been standardized, but what exactly measures and how it can, how it can show, you know,
that, that's, you know, somebody can, you know, disguise their autism more successfully.
I, I don't know.
And there, and there have been, and the results in the camouflage area are mixed.
You know, there are some studies that don't show a superior ability of women to count
camouflage over men based on that measurement.
And they had a lot of other, you know, camouflage before the cat queue was developed.
They had some other measurements, you know, but these were just created on the fly and
they weren't validated in any, in any way, you know, very unscientific and or they, you
know, had like, had surfed people that they responded to and would advertise in places
where, you know, they could attract, you know, like women who were like diagnosed and, you
know, in middle age, allegedly, and, you know, they were the participants in a lot of the
search.
Yeah, there's a lot of pro and other than Eric Fombone's article, like he wrote it,
or I guess an editorial in molecular psychiatry, I, I haven't been able to find any published
anti masking cat camouflage article.
And if there's one in the popular press, I'm not aware of this.
It has a lot of traction and things like that do have a lot of traction because that's what
people can understand with autism.
They understand some of the autistic phenotype and it makes sense to them.
And my opinion is the things that make sense to others delay public and professionals and
researchers, then they get hitched on to that and they won't expand beyond that.
Now with the social camouflaging, I guess I can see that navigating the social world
is very demanding, especially for autism with the excitation and inhibition imbalance.
And all of that metabolic demand, maybe they are trying to highlight that.
And it just takes a lot to kind of fit in.
There's a lot of social pressures to fit in.
I don't know.
I don't either.
What's one thing you would like to know about autism that isn't known?
Well, what causes it, at least in some specific situations?
And I'm trying to think of, yeah, I guess, you know, knowing how it could be legitimately
treated because I don't really believe there are any legitimate good treatments for autism.
Yeah.
I would question if there's a medication or a shot, dare I would say a shot, but that
would be something that would be explored.
I don't think those are the answers.
Is there anything else that you want to cover or talk about before I let you go?
That's what I can think of.
I guess we've talked about an hour, so I think you have enough for a good podcast.
And I hope your listeners like what I have to say.
And I thank you for having me on your podcast.
Yeah, Jonathan, I appreciate this.
This all came out pretty quick.
So we just kind of did this in the last couple of days.
I was really drawn to your ex account, especially your ex name.
I'm very active with now and my new handle is something pretty new.
Yeah, yeah.
Why don't you share that with us?
I tweet anti-ND with loud hands.
I appreciate that because you may be familiar like Julia Baskin, who's a neurodiversity
big neurodiversity proponent, I think wrote this book called Loud Hands because supposedly
she was an ABA as a child and the therapist would say quiet hands like when she moved
her hands.
So I sort of took it from that.
We didn't talk about ABA, but I question that as well.
The next time maybe.
Yeah, yeah.
I will be looking out for your work, your newest writings.
And good luck on the book, and we will interact on X maybe some more about especially about
the cause of autism.
Okay.
Jonathan, thank you for joining and your story is incredible.
Yeah, thank you.
If you are listening to the podcast, please feel free to leave a review or a rating.
In podcasting reviews, ratings and downloads are huge and I very much appreciate your feedback.
You can contact me on X at RPS 47586 for any discussion about autism.
I'm always happy to discuss autism on that platform.
You can email me at info.fromthespectrum at gmail.com.
And thank you for listening to From the Spectrum podcast.