Comments on: Sorry I’m late with the Blog Carnival. My home was invaded by interesting geeks.

By: ballastexistenz

ballastexistenz — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 04:21:18 +0000

Oh cool. Thanks for standing up to him. There’s at least one study refuting his claims, too. Morton Gernsbacher talked about it in her web class on autism. Maybe you should contact her and ask her about it, because I know it exists, and it showed increased stress response in autistic people when they looked at people in the eyes.

That “projecting your own experience onto others” thing is stuff autistic people get accused of all the time. I mean it happens, but not as often as people think. I’ve been accused frequently of projecting my experience onto others even when I’m talking from not just my own experience but thorough reading of both personal and scientific accounts of autistic people, and knowledge of a very large number of other autistic people. It’s a way to shut us up and make us sound like we can’t possibly be useful for knowledge of anything other than ourselves as individuals. You would never hear Ami Klin saying that to a non-autistic researcher, even if that researcher did happen to be making that or a similar mistake.

By: noah

noah — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 03:33:30 +0000

Wow I feel honored!
I was the guy who told Ami Klin he was full of crap.
We kept discussing it and he eventually was like “no you’re wrong. Just because it’s true for you doesn’t mean it’s true for everyone. People tend to project their own experiences onto others” and my processing delay made it so I couldn’t argue with him on the spot and when I figured out why I was still right he had moved on, but a bunch of people approached me afterwards. I sent them to the asperger LJ community. I bet one of them was the person who talked to you. This experience has made me want to do that to more researchers, on a volunteer basis. Still have not been able to find any. Maybe I am going to meet you when you come to Boston for the lecture during which I have to work. Maybe not. It is 4 a.m. I am going to bed.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 05:06:58 +0000

My reaction to reading about the physiological-arousal-measuring glove:
1. Oh cool!
2. The happy dance. (Which involves my toes drumming rhythmically against the floor when I’m sitting down)
3. My ankle hits the back of my chair.
4. I have a sore ankle.

And what you posted about the measurement of your stress levels… it would be good if people who came out with things like eye contact doesn’t actually cause any stress for autistic people” would actually PAY ATTENTION to this sort of thing.

By: Solaesta

Solaesta — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 23:03:08 +0000

Like rr, I too noticed the way that guy from CNN was leaning way into you, and you were turned away as though in response to his invading your space. I thought it was rather weird for him to do that when he has (I assume) been reading your blog, and I think the article said he had been corresponding with you by email. I usually find it icky and off-putting when someone leans in close to me like that. And I recently noticed that I do look at people’s mouths a lot more than at their eyes. My husband is the only one whose eyes I look at frequently.

By: rr

rr — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 22:05:59 +0000

I noticed that on the CNN video. The guy was practically sitting in your lap! (At least from my point of view, which really means that he was just WAY too close for comfort and not actually trying to sit in your lap…). I wouldn’t have looked at him, either, if he was that close. Too close, and also I am far-sighted and hate looking at blurry people. The geeks sound fun. When I went for my diagnosis, the psychologist asked, “So, how are you with eye contact,” to which I responded, “YOU tell ME.” She watched me for awhile and said “You can do it but it’s not your favorite thing.” I do seem to be able to either listen or look. Part of what happens when I make eye contact (I think) is that I am then trying to process the face, since I am somewhat face blind, so I am busy with all that and don’t hear what the person says. Looking at mouths is OK because it helps me to get what the person is saying at the time they are saying it (I don’t lose attention as much that way… or maybe I do, it depends…). Looking at something else nearby helps calm me and also puts the speaker in my peripheral vision where I can keep an eye on her/him.

Rhonda

By: kristina

kristina — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 21:44:42 +0000

Following on what McEwen noted—-it’s often been the case that, by the time we realize something is upsetting Charlie, he is already very upset. One keeps trying to learn the signs, just a bit earlier and in time.

By: n.

n. — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 19:41:11 +0000

wow, cool reason. deadlines are unnatural, anyway.

By: daedalus2u

daedalus2u — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 12:28:59 +0000

I think the next time you do have an interview, that you should wire yourself up and record it, so that you can display a “stress” level in the video. Then NTs might get an idea of what it is that is causing stress.

As an aside, the “reason” that people sweat for non-thermal reasons (i.e. “stress”) is to release ammonia for “my” bacteria to turn into NO and nitrite, which is a compensatory reaction to “stress”.

By: Hannah (from pthalogreen)

Hannah (from pthalogreen) — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:22:43 +0000

Eye contact is stressful. A lot of neuro-typical people (not everyone, but a good deal I think) find it easier to listen to someone else when they are making eye-contact and find it harder to pay attention other wise. For us, it’s pretty much the opposite, and if we’re moving our hands or doing something or at least looking at something like a wall or a curtain, it’s much easier to understand what they’re saying. In elementary school the teacher would always yell at us for not listening and make us look at her, and then we’d stop understanding what was being said.

These days, though, we tend to hide it by staring at people’s mouthes when they talk, because the lip reading kind of reinforces what we’re hearing (even though we’re terrible at lip reading) and it’s not as distracting as watching someone’s eyes.

By: Janet

Janet — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:21:38 +0000

Very interesting. It seems that physiological responses to stress are present, even when they aren’t seen by someone or measured by a device. My daughter has very difficult to manage diabetes, and we notice big correlations between her stress and her blood glucose levels, both awake and asleep. It’s very consistent that when she is having a stressful time, her blood glucose levels rise in the middle of the night. Her blood glucose levels also start to rise a few days before she gets sick. I’m guessing that both the skin response and blood glucose response to stress comes from the rise in adrenaline. The fact that it is unseen by an observer makes it no less real.