What if we've been misunderstanding autism all along?
The diagnosis of autism is built around the assumption that autistic people cannot perceive emotions and do not have a wide range of them. New research shows that people with autism actually experience complex emotions. And there is hope that the findings will lead to better treatment strategies for neurodivergent people.
The subject of behavior is very complex, since our brain is affected by a lot of factors, and our state at the moment is determined by a whole system of impulses and meanings. It seems that this is complete chaos and a person does not have a single “access key” to it. However, we can manage minor factors in life to get the maximum return on both productivity and full rest and a sense of happiness. All this is told Telegram channel materials. Subscribe to stay up to date with new articles!
Emotions and Autism
Since autism was first described in the 1940s, it has been assumed that the condition is based on a blunted emotional response or an inability to describe emotions. Moreover, this same principle underlies the creation of media content where one of the characters is autistic.
New research Aaron Dallman, an associate professor of occupational therapy at Rutgers University School of Health Professions, challenges stereotypes about autistic people and their ability to experience emotions.
What if everything we know about autism is wrong? We spend all this time problematizing autism instead of working to understand what it’s like to be autistic. The popular idea that autistics don’t have rich, emotional lives is not true.
Aaron Dallman, associate professor of occupational therapy at Rutgers University School of Health Professions.
First Steps in Redefining Autism
Dallman approached the study from the perspective that differences in neurological processes—or neurodiversities—like those seen in autistic people should be embraced as a natural part of human variability, rather than suppressed. The study had two goals: first, to explore how young autistic adults describe their emotions, and second, to suggest ways to improve affective contact, the ability to form emotional relationships between autistic people and their therapists. The latter, by the way, can also be helped cognitive behavioral therapy.
The researcher recruited a group of 24 people with a self-reported diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, nine men, nine women, and nine non-binary individuals, to participate in one of six focus group interviews to discuss their emotional experiences.
The average age of the participants was 28. The interviews used software to generate an AI transcript of each interview, which was anonymized. The data was then coded and analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), a qualitative research methodology that examines how people make sense of their experiences.
Data set and early contradictions in the theory of autism
Two themes emerged from the resulting data set: autistic people experience complex emotions, and their emotions are often mismeasured and misunderstood. Participants described a range of positive emotions, including calmpleasure and euphoria, and negative emotions, including feelings of anger, depression and frustration. Often these emotions, whether positive or negative, were “embodied” at the physical level of sensations in the participants’ bodies.
Usually I feel, I feel very, very, like I feel some kind of weight on my shoulders [и] on my chest, and it feels heavier than usual, and then my brain becomes sort of foggy.
Description of one of the study participants of his emotions
The vast majority of participants reported that traditional emotion measures did not adequately capture their emotional experiences and that subjective scales used to assess “happiness” and “sadness” failed to adequately capture the depth of their emotions.
How People with Autism Describe Their Emotions
I understand the need to use categorical labels for emotions, such as “happy” or “sad,” but I also know that experience is much more complex than just the feelings associated with these words. I would argue that there are different shades of happiness, and different shades of sadness.
One of the respondents.
All participants noted that affective contact with people without autism was particularly difficult, as their emotional displays tended to be misinterpreted by non-autistic people.
I've been told, “Wow, you look really happy right now,” even though I'm just chilling. I'm not sure what it is about me that makes me look incredibly happy, and then people think I'm much [сильнее] angry at them than I really am.
One of the respondents.
Because I know that for neurotypicals [людей] It's quite natural, they understand that they should smile when they are happy. But it took me several years of therapy and training to understand this.
One of the respondents.
Some participants reported feeling guilty when communication between them and the non-autistic person was disrupted. This can be problematic, Dallman notes, because it can cause autistic people to “mask,” or suppress, their natural expressions of emotion to avoid the stigma of autism.
Participants' descriptions of guilt imply a sense of social responsibility on the part of the autistic person to make non-autistic people understand their emotions during social interactions. This may explain the alarming rates of autistic behavior.
Aaron Dallman, associate professor of occupational therapy at Rutgers University School of Health Professions.
Research has shown that masking emotions in people with autism is linked to co-morbid mental health conditions, including depression.
The Path to Therapy
Dallman hopes his findings will lead to new treatment strategies for people with autism that will equalize communication opportunities and make those communications less biased toward neuroatypical people.
These interventions should be aimed at improving bidirectional communication for both autistic and non-autistic individuals and should not focus on teaching the autistic individual neurotypical communication needs. Of course, encouraging autistic individuals to assert their communication preferences will be a necessary and important component of these interventions.
Aaron Dallman, associate professor of occupational therapy at Rutgers University School of Health Professions.
Personally, I was and remain a supporter of the mechanisms of communication and building interpersonal connections, regardless of location, political, religious or any other preferences of a person. And if shifts in science allow us to communicate with a large number of people discussing topics of interest to both of us – that will be simply awesome!
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