Autism and Adolescence E-Book

Temple Grandin

• Herausgeber: Future Horizons
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Serie: The Way I See It
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 256

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Temple Grandin draws on her own experience to deliver an essential guidebook for guiding and nurturing autistic youth. She gets to the REAL issues of autistic adolescents—the ones parents, teachers, and individuals on the spectrum face every day.

Topics include:

• Strategies for non-verbal teens
• Autism and driving
• Preparing for college
• Acquiring social skills
• Developing talents
• And much more!

In these helpful pages, Dr. Grandin offers do’s and don’ts, practical strategies, and try-it-now tips, all based on her insider perspective and extensive research. Interestingly, she argues that adolescents on the autism spectrum must focus on their overlooked strengths to foster their unique contributions to the world. She has packed a wealth of knowledge into this book, which serves as an excellent reference resource for the parents, educators and caregivers of autistic adolescents.

Rather than continuing to waste the singular gifts of autistics, driving a collective loss in productivity and innovation, Grandin proposes new approaches to educating, parenting, employing, and collaborating with them. In a highly competitive world, this important book helps us see, we need every mind on board.

Leseprobe

Autism & Adolescence: The Way I See It

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© 2024 Temple Grandin

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No part of this product may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of Future Horizons, Inc., except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews or unless noted within the book.

ISBN: 978-1-957984-98-8

E-ISBN: 9781963367119

Contents

The Social Brain versus the Autistic Brain

Insights into Autistic Social Problems

A Few Basic Social Skills Are Essential

The Need to Be Perfect

Learning Social Rules

Emotional Differences Among Individuals with Autism

Healthy Self-Esteem

Four Cornerstones of Social Awareness

Alternative versus Conventional Medicine

Autism Medical Update

Medication Usage: Risk versus Benefit Decisions

My Treatment for Ringing in the Ears

Cognition and Brain Research

Chapter 3

A Social Teenager Trapped Inside

Understanding the Mind of a Nonverbal Person with Autism

Tito Lives in a World of Sensory Scrambling

Chapter 4

Improving Time-Management and Organizational Skills

Employment Advice: Tips for Getting and Holding a Job

Teens with Autism Must Learn Both Social and Work Skills

Inside or Outside?The Autism Culture

Portfolios Can Open Job and College Opportunities

Going to College: Tips for People with Autism

Finding Mentors and Appropriate Colleges

Reasonable Accommodation for Individuals on the Autism Spectrum

Get Out and Experience Life!

Can My Adolescent Drive a Car?

Innovative Thinking Paves the Way for AS Career Success

Try on Careers

The Link Between Autism Genetics and Genius

My Sense of Self-Identity

At age four, I had no speech, but I was lucky to receive really good speech therapy and early education. Today I am a distinguished professor of animal science at Colorado State University. Early childhood educational methods that are effective are discussed in my previous book Autism and Education: The Way I See It. I have been giving presentations about my experiences with autism for over forty years. There have been great improvements in early childhood programs.

A major stumbling block for many autistic individuals is making a successful transition to employment and independence. This book will help guide autistic individuals into employment and successful adulthood. Parents often underestimate an autistic child’s ability to learn new things. There is often a tendency to overprotect and do too many tasks for their child. Many times, I have met fully verbal teenagers on the spectrum who are good at academics but have not learned life skills. They have never shopped in a store by themselves or ordered food in a restaurant or learned how to budget money.

Grandparents often come up to me at autism conferences and tell me that when their grandchildren were diagnosed, they realized they were autistic. In most cases, they had good jobs, in a roles such as a computer programmer, accountant, pharmacist, veterinarian, construction worker, or mechanic. These individuals were able to get and keep good jobs because they had learned working skills. They had paper routes in high school and worked summer jobs. However, I want to emphasize that it is never too late to start. The first step is for the individual to perform a task that is on a schedule where somebody outside the family is the boss. I recently met an autistic teenager who proudly told me that she was the “coffee lady” at her church. This is an example of a first step toward employment that can be easily set up in the community. There is no cost. Some other examples would be assisting an elderly person, or walking the neighbor’s dog. It should be a neighbor’s dog, so that the boss is outside the family. This will require being on time and following the neighbor’s instructions. Many times, parents have told me that their autistic child “bloomed,” “blossomed,” and “came out of their shell” when they got a job they loved.

For me, having an interesting career has provided me with both friends and a life that has purpose. I had to learn sufficient social skills to keep my job. Social chit-chat for the sake of being social is boring. I love to talk about my favorite subjects with friends who have the same shared interest. One thing I had to learn was not to overdo it.

Some of the topics in this book that will be covered are the importance of learning a few basic social skills and having good hygiene. Being eccentric is fine, but you cannot be a rude, dirty slob. I chose to dress in a distinctive western style, and another autistic individual may choose to have colored hair. Expressing yourself with your own look is fine, but it must not be messy. Doing these basics helped me to get into a great career. There is also a section on both conventional medications and alternative treatments. Both of these have been helpful for me. Other sections cover getting and keeping jobs, finding mentors, getting workplace accommodations, and learning to drive. Throughout this book, I have used the term autistic instead of person with autism. Most people on the autism spectrum do this. Being autistic is part of who I am.

The way I see it, a huge mistake many teachers and parents make is to try to make autistic people into something they are not—turn the geeky nerd into an un-geek. I will never be a highly social un-geek.

The Social Brain versusthe Autistic Brain

For me, the most interesting things in the world are animals, aerospace, and building things. The people I have the most fun socializing with are the ones who have similar interests. I love to geek out and discuss animal behavior, concrete-forming systems, or how to improve animal welfare. Many other people do not share my intense interest in these subjects, so I have learned that I can still be myself, but I limit the time I spend discussing them with people who have other interests. My best friends are those with whom I have shared special interests.

There are hundreds of papers in scientific literature about problems people on the autism spectrum have with social thinking and theory of mind (ToM). Theory of mind is the ability to understand what other people may be thinking. In its most elementary form, it’s the ability to understand that different people have different thoughts. Involved with ToM is perspective taking, being able to think about and understand an event or a situation “through the eyes of another.” These are all social thinking skills that develop without formal instruction in neurotypical individuals, starting at a very early age. These are also skills that most people, including educators, assume exist in all people, to a greater or lesser degree of development. This is not the case with autistic people. Everything has to be learned.

Uta Frith’s theory of mind is similar to context blindness, described by Peter Vermeulen. A simple example of not understanding how other people would feel would be laughing at a funeral. Another example would be complaining about the food when you were invited to a charity banquet. That would hurt the host’s feelings. However, there is another context where telling others that the breaded chicken was terrible would be appropriate. If I was working with the hotel banquet manager and the banquet planning committee, it would be appropriate to voice my opinion about not serving the breaded chicken meal. Autistic young adults who get out in the world and experience many different events can be mentored on the appropriate way to act. If they put lots of specific examples into their database, they will know how to act at similar events. A good mentor will explain why laughing at a funeral is not appropriate because the other people attending the funeral are sad.

Without a fully functioning social thinking system, autistic individuals who are fully verbal stumble along through academic and social situations, missing valuable bits of verbal nuance or nonverbal body messages that are woven into typical conversation. The impairment can be pervasive, even among those with higher intelligence. For instance, a middle school child who can wax eloquent about the anatomical differences among different varieties of alligators may not understand the simple social convention of turning his body toward his conversational partner to indicate interest in what he has to say. The alligator expert also needs to learn that not everybody wants to discuss alligators for over an hour. Neither verbal ability nor IQ is an indication of equivalent social aptitude and social thinking/reasoning skills. The most basic of social skills may be missing. In a highly intelligent person, social skills that come naturally to most people have to be learned. It is like learning how to act in a play.

I have always been able to pass a simple theory of mind test. An example of such a test would go like this. I am in a room with Jim and Bob. Bob puts a candy-bar in a box, and Jim leaves the room. While Jim is out of the room, Bob moves the candy bar from the box to a desk drawer. When Jim returns, I know that he thinks the candy bar is still in the box. If I had impaired theory of mind, I would think that Jim also knows the candy bar was moved to the desk drawer, because I saw him move the candy bar, and if I know it, so does everyone else.

I process this test purely with my photo-realistic visual thinking. I picture Jim outside with the door closed; he could not possibly see the candy bar being moved. When I was given a more complex theory of mind test, I did poorly because it required remembering a sequence of several events involving children and an ice cream truck. Plus, the test was presented verbally, which made remembering it even more difficult for my visual-thinking mind. My ability to remember spoken word sequence is absolutely terrible. When I ask for driving directions, I have to write them down to remember the sequence. With the second ToM test, my problem was not in understanding another person’s viewpoint; it was with my sequencing skills. Written instructions in a checklist format are best for me, as they are for a majority of individuals with autism.

Visual Theory of Mind

My mother taught me when I was very young—again, by using visual examples—the importance of understanding how another person feels. When I was about eight, I ate with my mouth open, and Mother kept telling me to keep it closed when I was chewing my food. She kept telling me to close my mouth, but I still chewed with it open because it made no sense to me why it was important. Then one day I came home from school, and I told mother that watching Billy eat with his mouth open made me gag, that it looked like the inside of a garbage truck. Mother quietly replied, “Your mouth looks like the inside of a garbage truck when it is open, and it makes me want to gag.” Now I understood that mother was experiencing the same response that I had experienced when I saw Billy chew with his mouth open. To understand how another person felt in the situation, I had to experience myself what the other child was experiencing. For children who are less visual learners and respond well to verbal language, it may work to tell them that the rule is to chew with their mouth closed.

Avoid Being Abstract

Conversely, it is also difficult for people who think in verbal abstractions to understand situations where nonverbal thinking may be an advantage. This can present career opportunities for people with autism. In my job designing livestock facilities, nothing is abstract. Verbal thinking is not required to design and build things, because I visualize them in my imagination. This is why I like my career so much. I get a great sense of accomplishment from improving conditions for animals, and now half the cattle in the US and Canada are handled in equipment I designed. I can see the tangible results of my work; it is not an abstract idea. I also get great satisfaction when I can help a parent or teacher solve a problem with a child. When parents tell me that one of my books helped them understand their child and enabled them to work with them more effectively, it makes me really happy.

To be an effective teacher for a child with autism, you must explain to them the rules of living in a nonabstract manner. Do not say to a child, “Well, you have to be good because it is the right thing to do.” The words good and right are much too abstract for the concrete-thinking mind of the spectrum child. Instead, be specific and say, “You should take turns playing the game because, if another child was playing, you would want him to give you a turn to play.” Another concrete example would be something like, “Do not steal the other child’s toys, because you would not like it if he took your things.” Teach the Golden Rule, one specific example at a time. In plain language, the Golden Rule says, “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” Concepts such as good or bad are learned with specific examples put into categories. There can also be degrees of good and bad that are learned with specific examples. For example, robbing a bank is worse than stealing an apple. Murder is worse than robbing a bank.

I Am What I Do

Another reason having a good career is so important to me is that I am what I do instead of what I feel. For me, emotional complexity is replaced with intellectual complexity. My greatest satisfaction in life comes from doing things. My best social interactions always involve activities with others with whom I share a common interest, such as building things or animal behavior. Many of my friends either work in animal behavior, are involved with building projects, or work on the animal welfare issue. I also have lots of good friends in the autism community. My career gives my life meaning. This is the way many “techies” feel. To me, intellectual reason and knowledge are extremely valuable. This is why I was so upset twenty years ago when the library at our university was flooded. I was upset about books and knowledge being destroyed.

Over the several decades I have been involved with the autism community, I have learned that some individuals on the spectrum share my way of relating to life and the world, and others do not. There are individuals with autism who have a few more social-emotional circuits connected in their brain, and for them, feelings and emotional connection with others are a bigger part of their functioning. This also, however, produces a greater level of frustration in many parts of their lives, such as friendships and dating. The life of celibacy that I lead would not be right for them. This spectrum of emotional differences in individuals with autism became even more illuminated for me while working with Sean Barron on our 2005 book, Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships. It was a real eye-opener for me to learn that two successful adults with autism can relate to the world so differently and see where we are almost the same in many ways, and where we are so different. Sean had a girlfriend and a good romantic relationship in his life; that is not a choice that would work for me. Romantic relationships based on emotions are not for me. I have seen too many autistic women get into abusive relationships.

Sensory-Based Empathy

I can empathize through my senses rather than in a more emotional manner. When I see cattle in the mud, I can empathize with how cold and miserable they feel. One of the things I can empathize with is physical hardship. When the home mortgage mess in 2007 caused many people to lose their homes, it made me angry. The shoeshine lady at the Denver airport lost her home after she took out an adjustable-rate mortgage that she did not understand and was unable to meet the escalated payments. When businesses take advantage of the poor and less educated of our society, it makes me mad. I did not ask where she was living, but I visualized that maybe she was living in the tunnels under the airport. That would be really miserable.

People on the spectrum often have a strong sense of social justice. This sense is probably on a separate brain current from the circuits that are responsible for emotional relatedness between people. This sense of social justice is within me, too. Every time I read another article about people losing their homes due to unethical business practices, it makes me furious.

When I took psychology classes in college, I studied Maslow’s pyramid of needs. At the bottom are food, shelter, and safety, and at the top are the abstract ideals of self-actualization, a concept that remains nebulous to me. I am much more concerned about the bottom of the pyramid. These things affect people’s lives on a basic level. I want actual results, such as improving the handling of livestock or providing advice that helps an autistic adult get a job they really like. The only theory that interests me is that which results in real, tangible improvements happening on the ground level. In the autism world, that would be a theory that produces a good outcome for a child. A nonverbal child should have the opportunities to grow up and have a meaningful life in supportive living and possibly hold a job, depending on their level of functioning. There are some nonspeaking autistic people who can type independently and have normal or superior intelligence. To learn more, I recommend books written by nonspeaking autistic individuals such as Tito Mukhopadhyah and Naoki Higashida. People on the fully verbal end of the spectrum should be able to live independently, work, and contribute to society as their own interests and viewpoints dictate. For the really smart autistic individuals, a college education and a career is a reasonable goal. In my work with equipment design, I worked with metal fabrication shops that were owned by autistic people. They were brilliant and had many patents.

Some of the autistic individuals who feel emotional connectedness, who pursue not just social but romantic relationships, may find success in dating or marrying another person who shares their interests. Socialization through a shared interest, such as a science fiction or history club, are often where the first dates occur. I have talked to many neurotypical spouses who do not understand a husband who is autistic. They are concerned about his lack of social-emotional relatedness. The brain circuits may not be hooked up for emotional relatedness, but he can be a good provider, a good parent, and very loyal. These individuals often possess many good traits, such as honesty, dedication, steadfastness, and a sense of social justice, that can be good in a marriage. In my book Different Not Less, eighteen people write about their own experiences with getting diagnosed later in life. For many, it was a relief because it helped with personal relationships.

I Am a Nerd

The way I see it, a huge mistake many teachers and parents make is to try to make people with autism into something they are not—turn the geeky nerd into an un-geek, for instance. That just won’t work. Teaching them to be socially functional is a worthy goal and one not to be overlooked. However, it would be in everybody’s best interest to remember that the world is made up of all sorts of individuals, and that geeks, nerds, and people with fully verbal autism are often one and the same thing. I can learn social rules, but I will never have the undercurrent of social-emotional relatedness that exists in some people. The neural circuits that connect those parts of the brain just aren’t hard-wired in me.

I have heard sad stories where a mother took her teenager out of computer classes that he truly enjoyed and placed him in situations to make him more social. That was a totally wrong thing to do for two reasons. First, it robbed him of the opportunity to develop a talent and interest that could lead to future employment. Second, the teen’s social experiences would more naturally unfold and progress with the other computer students—those with whom he has shared interests. Robotics clubs, working with animals, art, and theater also provide great opportunities to make friends. The happy geeks excel at their jobs and get to work in Silicon Valley, where they are appreciated for their brains. The unhappy geeks end up without activities to keep them intellectually stimulated and, instead, are forced into uncomfortable social situations that, more often than not, fail to achieve the goal of making them more social. The people in the world who think that social connectedness is the ultimate goal of life forget that telephones, social networking websites, text messaging, and all the other electronic vehicles that fuel their passion for socializing are made by people with some degree of autism. Geeks swoon over the new technology they create; social addicts swoon by communicating with the technology and showing it off as a status symbol. Is one “better” than the other? I think not. A big problem for some autistic adults is excessive video game use. An hour or two a day is OK, but ten hours a day is an addiction. I have talked to five or six former video gamers who were introduced to car mechanics. They discovered that motors were more interesting than video games, and they are now employed as mechanics. Video games were gradually replaced with more and more hours of mechanics. Two young adults who are now mechanics told me that motors are more interesting than video games.

The Autistic Brain Is More Interested in Things

Dr. Nancy Minshew, University of Pittsburgh, did a functional MRI brain scan on me that indicated that I was innately more interested in looking at videos of things than videos of people. When I did the scan, I had no idea of its purpose. A series of short video clips of people and things, such as bridges, buildings, and fruit, were shown. I immediately noticed that the videos were old and scratchy and looked like they came from the 1970s. This triggered my mind into problem-solving mode to figure out where the researchers had gotten these old videos. The pictures of things provided more clues to the origin of the videos than the pictures of people. When the things flashed on the screen, I looked for cars because I wanted to know how old the videos were. My brain reacted by giving more neural activity to pictures of things than people.

There is no right or wrong in the interests and ways of being among individuals with autism, provided they can function reasonably well within society. If they cannot, further social learning is clearly needed.

When all else is relatively equal, the way I see it, parents and educators should respect the innate interests of the child and nurture their expression. To develop interests that could develop into a career, autistic kids need to be exposed to many different things, such as art, Legos, and musical instruments. A big problem I see is parents and teachers often fail to broaden a fixed narrow interest. It is a shame when the Lego builder may never graduate to using tools. My mother broadened my drawing skills from drawing single horse heads to drawing things related to horses. A teenager’s interest in a single type of car could be broadened by joining a car club, doing math involving the favorite car, and learning how the engine works.

Not everyone in the world is highly social, and that’s a good thing. It’s the same within the autism spectrum. In another case I learned about, a boy with more severe autism was a great artist. His mother was so upset that he would never marry (her dream for her son), she was hesitant to help him develop his artistic ability. For this kid, art was his life. Fortunately, she was persuaded to start a business selling her son’s art. He is content to draw all day, and this gives his life meaning.

The autism spectrum is broad. Many individuals are blessed with a unique ability, while others do not have any special skills. But each individual, no matter what level of skills or social abilities, can become a contributing member of the community. This is what will give meaning to their lives. Our goal, therefore, is not to make these individuals find meaning in our lives, but for us to help individuals with autism find meaning in their own lives.

Additional Reading

Coutelle, R. et al. (2021) Autism Spectrum Disorder and video games: Restricted interest or addition? International Journal of Mental Health and Addictions, March 8, 2021.

Grandin, T. (2019 ) How horses helped a teenager with autism make friends and learn how to work, Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 2019, July 1;16(13):2325, doi:10.3390/ijerph16132325.

Grandin, T. (2024) Grandin Papers, Future Horizons, Arlington, Texas.

Grandin, T. (2001) Transferring results of behavioral research to industry to improve animal welfare on the farm, ranch, and slaughter plant. Applied Animal Behavior Science.

Higashida, Naoki (2017) Fall Down 7 Times, Get Up 8, Random House, New York.

Mukhopadhyah, Tito Rajarshi (2008) How Can I Talk if My Lips Don’t Move? Arcade Publishing,New York.

Wikipedia (2024) “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.”

Vermeulen, P. (2012) Autism as Context Blindness, Future Horizons, Arlington, Texas.

Insights into AutisticSocial Problems

An interesting study by Dr. Ami Klin and associates at the Yale Child Study Center is helping to explain some of the social problems in people with autism. Both normal and autistic adults were fitted

with a device that electronically tracked their eye movements, allowing the researchers to determine what the person was looking at. Subjects wearing the eye-tracking device were shown digitized clips of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a movie that contains a high number of instances of social interaction between people in a living room setting. (It is the kind of movie I find boring because of its social nature.)

The first finding was that autistic subjects fixated on the mouths of people instead of on their eyes. I think one of the reasons they do this is because of their problems hearing auditory detail. I have problems hearing hard consonant sounds. If somebody says “brook,” I know the word is not “crook” if it is spoken in the context of a picnic. Looking at the mouth of the person talking makes hearing the correct word easier. I find that when I am in a noisy room, hearing is more difficult if I look at a person’s eyes. I tend to point my good ear toward the person, in order to hear better.

Amy Klin’s study also showed that a normal person’s gaze rapidly switched back and forth between the eyes of the two people conversing in the movie. This happened with less frequency in a person with autism. In one particular test, the subjects viewed three people conversing. The autistic person’s gaze switched only once, while the normal subject’s gaze moved at least six times among the three people on the screen. This can be explained by attention-shifting delays and the slow brain processing speed that is often present in autism. Research conducted by Eric Courchesne in San Diego has shown that autistics take much longer to shift attention between two different stimuli than their normal counterparts. The inability to shift attention quickly may explain some of the social deficits that develop within this population. Even if a person with autism was more aware of social cues that go on between people, their inability to quickly shift focus would prevent them from catching these short, silent messages that people frequently use to communicate nonverbally.

Problems Caused by Slow Brain Processing Speed:

Difficulty with rapid multi-tasking jobsSlow to respond when asked a questionRapid back-and-forth conversation is difficultPoor working memory for sequential instructions presented verbally (recommend written checklists)Auditory processing problems, such as not hearing hard consonant soundsInterrupting conversation because the pauses in the conversation go by too quickly.

Processing the meaning of eye movements requires many rapid attention shifts. This may partially explain why people with autism may not even be aware of subtle eye movements that often occur during conversations. I did not know that people communicated with their eye movements until I read about it in a book in my early fifties. All my life I existed unaware of this part of communication. As a child, I understood that if a person’s head was pointed toward me, they could see me. But I did not notice smaller eye movements. Many adults with autism have commented that they finally discovered at a later age that normal people have a language in their eyes; however, they could never understand it. Not being able to rapidly shift attention may be the reason why.

I went back and re-read the Ami Klin paper. There was another clip from the same movie where the autistic gaze was quicker. It was a situation which could be dangerous. One of the characters went to the closet and unwrapped a gun. I also react quickly to danger. When a candleholder on the wall started a fire that flared up the wood panels, I jumped up and threw water on it. Mother thought I overreacted. It is likely I may have saved our house. The brain also has a quick low road circuit. It enables both people and animals to make almost reflexive responses to avoid danger. The circuit bypasses all the higher brain functions. Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist, called it the “low road” and “high road’ brain circuits.

Masking Can Be Exhausting

Devon Price, in her book Unmasking Autism, explains that autistic people will compensate and act more “normal” by masking. They may “camouflage” to obscure autistic traits or compensate to appear nondisabled. Continuous masking and covering up autistic behaviors can be exhausting and may lead to depression or anxiety. Samuel Arnold and colleagues in Australia studied autistic burnout. This may occur when masking becomes too exhausting. One lady on the spectrum told me that if she was exhausted at the end of the day, she had done too much masking. I have difficulty following rapid-paced back-and-forth conversation. My brain’s slow processing speed cannot keep up. Following stand-up comedians who talk fast is extremely difficult.

My approach to masking is a small amount of it is necessary, but I will never be the purely social person. I have learned to be polite and not bore people with endless conversations about my favorite subjects. Fortunately, I have some friends who like to geek out and discuss the same favorite subject.

Avoiding masking must never be used as an excuse for really rude behavior. Some examples would be pushing and shoving in line at the grocery store or walking up to strangers and calling them swear words. I actually had an autistic man do this to me at an autism meeting. All this does is close channels of communication and alienate them from others. There are some social “niceties” that you should always do, such as saying “please” and “thank you.” They require very little effort.

Additional Reading

Arnold, S. et al. (2023) Confirming the nature of autistic burnout. Autism (In Press).

Andeou, M. et al. (2020) Theory of mind deficits and neurophysiological operatives in autism spectrum disorders: A Review Brain Sciences 10(6), 393.