Welcome to From the Spectrum podcast. This is
a podcast about autism. It is my goal to explain
what is autism. I plan to use a mixture of scientific
literature, personal experience, and opinion.
With opinion, I will explain why I feel the way
I do and give examples. I will provide links
to various references for each episode. For each
episode, we will discuss various aspects of autism.
For today's episode, we will discuss autism and
relationships. Now, my warning is I don't have
a lot of history with relationships. So I'm going
to speak on it from this perspective. things
that gives us difficulties with that relationship
component. Now, socialness is likely the easiest
trait others can see and understand. Before we
begin, I think it's important that we discuss
social communication and interaction between
the speaker and receiver or speaker and receivers
plural. We will discuss it from both points of
view meaning the speaker and receiver and the
potential implications from an autistic. The
speaker is generating abstract ideas based off
of a couple of components. There are a couple
inputs here. Their knowledge, their ability to
formulate speech and language and their idea
of the information. And then they process this
through speech and language to the receiver.
Additionally, the speaker will use different
gestures, body gestures, and eye contact and
eye gaze. This is all to kind of help the attention
of the receiver. This all helps with the conveyance
of that message, turning ideas, turning information
over to the others, inviting them to understand
and participate. And the receiver or receivers,
they have to follow along with the spoken language,
the gestures, the eye contact and eye gaze, and
make sense of everything happening. Now we've
discussed visual thinking, listening, and hearing
that information and then transposing that into
visual thinking, keeping pace with this, keeping
pace with the the speech and language that is
coming, and making sense of the gestures, all
the social norms, the eye contact, eye gaze,
Autistics, remember, autistics, see things and
imagine things from detail to general. So it's
maybe a different process, processing speed.
We see the details and then work our way out
as we're building the details up to make a concrete
image, a conceptualized concrete understanding
of the spoken language being received. Now I
know that's a lot. That's a lot to keep up with
and try to understand. But there's a lot going
on in socialness and human interaction. Remember,
it's very unpredictable too. Remember me too.
Remember we need structure. We don't like the
abstraction as much as concrete ideas. And consider
how Each environment or each interaction is kind
of context dependent. There are different rule
sets based off of the environment or the setting.
And remember one of the overall goals of the
prefrontal cortex is being a flexible rule setting
machine as far as giving us ideas or instructions,
I should say, about what to do in certain environments.
the healthy versus unhealthy adaptive responses.
And also imagine the back and forth with the
processing challenges or differences and then
exchanging the information or communication.
And remember, autistics typically bond to each
other easier than a non -autistic, and an autistic.
And I suspect for these reasons. And please don't
underestimate just simple small talk or simple
back and forth. Now imagine, based off of everything
we just discussed about the speaker using the
knowledge, the ability to articulate the message,
and their intelligence, their information about
the topic. and formulating that into a conveyance
for the receiver. Think about the gestures and
the eye contact, all those social norms to being
a contributing factor. Now think about an autistic's
ability to process all of this, to integrate
all of those components and use them for their
speech and language. It's not uncommon that someone
with autism gets labeled like odd, eccentric,
or they lack emotions, or they're kind of dull
in social settings. And maybe lastly is remember
the amount of metabolic energy all of this processing
requires and the ability to kind of use the resources
for that. and being able to sustain that and
think about being able to fit in the social awkwardness
and burnout. Regarding the biology, remember
the implications to oxytocin and even serotonin
and the poor connectivity to certain brain regions
and how that implicates what we're talking about.
We need to consider and understand the biology
that gives us autism gives us complications with
socialness and relationships. Frankly, relationships
are challenging. One consideration based on previous
conversation with Dr. Liana Hernandez from UCLA
is the sex differences and brain connectivity.
We covered oxytocin, and serotonin must converge
in the nucleus accumbens for social reward. It
appears boys and males lack this connection.
Further, research lacks for the girls and females,
meaning most of the scientific literature published
are on boys and males. As you know, the boy bias
with autism is a consideration. Mostly, I will
discuss the boy perspective. Any differences
on this topic between boys and girls could differ.
There is a chance autistic girls are opposite,
meaning they require higher social affinity,
connections, and so forth. I think the lay public
and even professionals, the default will be criteria
A, social communication and interaction. That's
external. That involves the environment and others.
However, criteria B, restricted repetitive behaviors,
is internal, within the self. So it goes within
the self to outside the self, the environment,
others, those external factors. Remember me saying,
are you even interesting? And remember me saying,
autism gives us the ability to be comfortable
within ourselves. Remember neuroplasticity as
well. Becoming who we are and our preferences
creating this so -called autistic phenotype.
Remember that rate of information moving from
the outside or external to the inside. Sensory
processing, external to internal. That is sensation
to perception. Now, It is true social skills
and the ability to process the external world
is involved, but the barrier is those internal
factors explained by the crude symptomology of
criteria B, restricted repetitive behaviors.
I think for this topic of autism and relationships,
B to and B3 are most prevalent. B2, insistence
on sameness and flexible adherence to routines
or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal
behavior. This encompasses a lot of predictableness.
Remember the conversation about brain connectivity.
and adaptive responses and so forth. You can
see B2 involves some external. Our brains, or
more accurately, our nervous system is a prediction
machine. It just wants to respond with little
to no work, little energy as possible. That metabolic
bank account versus the perceived amount of metabolic
energy required? Do we have enough metabolic
resources for this task, the plan, the environment,
etc.? We have a default response. Okay, this
can be explained in different ways based on the
same meaning. And that's the English language.
Phenotype is how we commonly define it. A description
of this is, when we encounter something in the
environment, we respond to it in a certain way.
This solidifies B2. However, the environment
is mostly unpredictable. So we need, humans need,
a flexibility in their phenotype, an ability
for adaptive responses. Remember the conversation
on the medial prefrontal cortex. And this takes
us to the prefrontal cortex, which is a flexible
rule -setting machine that allows us to respond
in healthy, adaptable ways. Remember, with little
work, little energy, as possible. The human body
intends to be efficient. When we are metabolic
deficient, that metabolic bank account, when
we overdraw these resources, we remove ourselves
from the demanding environment, which is common
for all humans. However, with autism, it appears
more frequent. We need breaks. B3 Restricted
Fixated Interest Now, the book says that are
abnormal in intensity or focus, but it's foolish
to say abnormal when discussing interest. intensity,
or focus. We don't have to discuss how this implicates
or interferes with relationships. Autistic phenotype
can zone into a topic like no other. It is a
superpower. Society and education as a component
of that wants to throw lots of randomness at
us. at all people during childhood. This is not
us. We hate it. It prevents autistics from doing
wonderful things. You heard it on this podcast
from Dr. Catherine Lord. The one and only Dr.
Catherine Lord. If the child wants to stare at
lines, stare at lines. One, Remember thinking
in pictures. Well, this is well understood with
autism. You cannot possibly understand what is
occurring when a child is on one object or subject.
Maybe those lines are creating an incredible
and interesting imagination. Something others
will never know or understand. But maybe this
will lead to engineering or creative arts. Anyway,
we will have an episode on B3. In short, this
interest is mostly more interesting and safer
from the outside world. Now, consider how this
implicates making friends and implicates keeping
friends. at any ages. This occurs to all ages.
Let's imagine how intense interests are most
salient in our attention. In other words, we
don't want to attend to the environment. Those
criteria B2 and B3 are indirect impact to socialness.
In the first episode, I mentioned criteria B
causes criteria A at minimum. Criteria B accelerates
or implicates criteria A. I need alone time to
attend to fixated interest. Remember from the
first episode, the reference to B movie. Now,
we will discuss direct social interactions. Typically,
autistics have low acceptance from others, lack
of understanding, fitting in, a history of poor
relationships, low self -esteem, a pressure to
fit in, anxiety, tantrums. Lack of understanding
or enjoying social norms. Can you fit in or not?
Are you like the so -called normal people or
not? The lack of understanding is crucial. Others
at some point, others try to change the autistic
person. Because they are different. Do you think
that helps or hurts? Humans love to inject themselves
into others. Not interested. And this is especially
true during childhood to adolescent. Mainly the
child is surrounded by people that are so -called
trained to help. I've mentioned I believe I supplement
relationships by having utilizing these thinking
and pictures and curiosity of others. I can see
other people's lives in my thinking and pictures
head. Also, I can have many hypothetical conversations
and imagination using this autistic trait. That
said, I and others, it doesn't mean we don't
want relationships. Mostly, it centers around
being able to balance criteria A and criteria
B. Remember these things, social -emotional reciprocity,
difficulties with back and forth. starting and
ending conversations, inability to know how much
to share, poor verbal and nonverbal communication,
the pressures and complications with eye contact.
Society says we must, we must use the eye contact.
Our biology says hang on, this is a lot. Remember,
vision is roughly 70 % of our sensory processing.
Also remember with socialness, autistics have
a very strict adherence to rules. They're very
rigid. Also, the restricted behaviors implicate
shared interest, meaning inflexible. to want
to do other things. Rigid thinking. Remember
my personal experience with breaking plastic
toys, playing cops and robbers as a child. When
the other child changed the rules of the game,
basically changed the rules in real time without
any notice to me. This is a normal child thing
during play, but it wasn't from me. To the outside,
one could say that is a barrier to a friendship,
acting out like that. However, maybe not considered.
More from the autistic's perspectives are 1.
Why would we want to interact with that? And
two, it makes more sense to follow a strict or
rigid set of rules during the interaction. Two
separate perspectives. Now, understand the autistic
phenotype's perspective. In scientific literature,
or maybe you even recognize this, that two autistics
can form better relationships. It's easier because
of the rule setting, is what I think. And remember
the role of the prefrontal cortex, that flexible
rule setting machine that governs our social
interaction. Remember the discussion about brain
connectivity, not reaching these critical brain
regions and networks. Remember that about autism.
It's not just because. All of our behaviors are
based on the social norm. That's the comparison.
Is the autistic person acting, and adherence
to social norms. Let's discuss how different
types of relationships require different amounts
of time. We've discussed problems in autism and
employment. Co -workers require a significant
amount of time. We briefly discussed romantic
relationships in What is Autism? Part 2. of criteria
A. Romantic relationships require the most time
commitment. Think about the challenges with that
cohabitat, the daily activities, the amount of
time here interacting. It's very demanding. It's
very complicated. It's probably difficult for
you to even consider or even try to understand.
Don't underestimate that background noise even
even if it's not direct interaction Just other
people being around in the environment think
about that resting state of those fMRI studies
about that brain activity being activated just
during resting states and the sensory processing
problems That is very demanding My biology kind
of prevents me from having this type of relationship.
I am not equipped with this. Temple Grandin,
probably the most famous autistic person, well,
in the history of humanity, discusses this, discusses
how she never married or had children. In large
part, my romantic relationships the ones that
I've had in the past they've all had a or most
of them have a distance barrier protecting me
if you will there was a distance between her
and I and I believe this helped this helped minimize
that interaction as you increase time with another
person more challenges are potential There are
more opportunities for just being exhausted,
being torn down and worn down. That's why we
need breaks. We often just leave. It's very tough
for you probably to understand. I can't underestimate
the role in just how people do things and how
we do things and how we think, well, it ought
to be done that way. because we've exhausted
the process out to discover the one that makes
most sense, that maybe even uses less energy
or requires a less least amount of time. Simple
things like that is constant in our thinking.
And if you go back to autism and employment,
this is a superpower. Well, quite frankly, it's
a superpower in all aspects of life. but it really
just starts to interfere with those relationships
that you do have. And it's understandable. And
now we can even talk about B2, that insistence
on sameness and that needing those schedules,
everything being the same, those routines. All
of this is connecting here. So more of that autism
and adaptive responses remember that episode
and the oxytocin Those roles with oxytocin with
like the pair bonding Something that has fascinated
me Recently, there's some information come out
about do people with autism kind of outgrow the
autism and Maybe this is true But this is what
I do know. One, as we age and we learn more about
ourselves, this helps. But two, and I think something
that carries more weight than the first one,
than that first example, is we can better control
the environment. Now, these two things, learning
about ourselves and controlling the environment,
are kind of entangled, whereby we can... better
prepare and recognize. Just understand everything
around. Understand the environment. Remember
on previous episodes discussing social interactions?
Well, I'll just I say that I'll just leave. I'll
just leave that social encounter or the environment.
And I made jokes like the gathering will gather
without me. That's just something that you come
to terms with. and accept. However, a topic that's
more challenging to accept, something that is
maybe even more important to me and is very challenging,
is parenting. Now think about when autistic people
have children. They become parents. And think
about that interaction with everything that we've
discussed. This is very challenging. It can be
very challenging because it's quite demanding.
It's a it's a wrestling match. It's a tug -of
-war between managing your sensory processing
and Just the biology that gives us autism all
of those crucial components how we interact Versus
wanting to be there wanting to be active and
being able to sustain that for so -called normal
durations. This is a conundrum for me and maybe
for others too. But something that I want most
in life, something that I want to be good in
or good at in life, is very hard at the same
time. And the level of intensity and degree of
difficulty increases as the ages increase and
there's a little bit more freedom and ability
to just grow into themselves while understanding
both criteria A the social communication and
interaction and the criteria B that restricted
repetitive behaviors. Younger autistics will
have more let's say attention on them. more adults
trying to help them and this will kind of limit
what they can do or who they are I should say
and it is true we already have this this limited
amount of ability to fit in and we've discussed
the adaptive responses and how much that interferes
with or the lack of adaptive responses interferes
with our ability to socialize and switch behaviors
depending on context. Remember the medial prefrontal
cortex. Kind of a context dependent behavior
region. And another thing that kind of implicates
this is that excitation inhibition balance or
imbalance. Whereas the excitation kind of is
too much. there's too much going on within that
brain energy and that you want the surroundings
to be calm. That's why we prefer that. This makes
a lot of sense if you think about it this way.
The surrounding areas needs to be calm. And this
isn't limited to autistic parents and their children.
this is all relationships and really all environments
husbands and wives or live in or roommates things
like that is very challenging just that daily
activities keeping up with your activities being
able to make plans i think there are a lot of
opportunities here to establish expectations
being able to predict. Therefore, the autistic
person can better approach and commit and sustain
the social interaction. Never underestimate the
need for outs when we commit to something. The
need to know and predict what will happen and
when will it end. This is very comforting for
autism. Try to remember some of these things
discussed today when you're interacting with
someone with autism. Don't make things worse
just because they are different than you and
different from others. If you are listening,
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Spectrum Podcast.