NeuroClastic

This is my favorite article of the topic: https://neuroclastic.com/is-aba-really-dog-training-for-children-a-pro… Ethics are, sadly, totally unquantifiable, so they must always be some level opinion. But if dog trainers are held to a higher standard regarding ethical training of dogs than ABA providers are held to regarding ethical treatment of Autistic children, I think we have a pretty persuasive argument right there that ABA is totally unethical. It's also notable that Autistic academics like Devon Price, a fairly famous professor of social psychology, also believe ABA is unethical.

One of the lesser discussed aspects of ADHD is rapid eye movement. This exercise brought mine into focus. Every ~18 seconds I noticed the circle jumped to another size as my gaze was rapidly averted and reset. I tried it a few times and focused intensely and had the same outcome. It’s one of the ways neurotypical folks can intuitively use to (subconsciously) discover our traits and deem us untrustworthy. Shifty… If you find that last statement to be outlandish, please take a look at these resources. https://neuroclastic.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Thin-slice-judgeme… https://www.nature.com/articles/srep40700 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-41654-9

I think you missed this excellent article that was posted to HN a few days ago. You are describing a gradient, not a spectrum. Autism spectrum means something different. https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29682917

It "works" by forcing people to hide who they are. It's like saying that you got rid of people with brown hair by making them dye it something else, only instead of hair color it's a fundamental part of who they are and it greatly increases the risk of PTSD and it only works if you're measuring the wrong thing and instead of basing it on the autistic person's ability to be okay it bases it on society's expectations and it's child abuse and just no. When autistic people are speaking[1] out[2] en[3] masse[4] against[5] it[6], would you ignore what they say? When they say[7] it's[8] bad[9] and[10] unethical[11] and[12] abusive[13] do you say that it isn't? When a woman goes to a police station saying that she is a victim of domestic violence, should the police say it works way better than the alternatives? Should they reject her statements that it is harmful and bad? If a child comes up to you and says that their parents are beating them and screaming at them if they do poorly in school, would you say that it works way better than the alternatives? Or is it only okay when the person is autistic? [1] https://a4aontario.com/2018/05/24/why-we-oppose-aba-in-any-form/ [note: a lot of these are personal blogs] [2] https://autisticselfadvocatesagainstaba.wordpress.com/2020/04/13/probl… [3] https://neurodifferent.me/@joshsusser/111495271981897561 [4]…

It´s a spectrum https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/

This site helped illuminate the use of the word 'spectrum' for me:" https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/ > But when people talk about autism they talk as if it were a gradient, not a spectrum at all.

It sounds like what you are thinking of is a spectrum more in the sense of a range, where one end is "least" and the other "most". There was an interesting article[0] making the rounds a few years ago arguing that it's more like the color spectrum. While there is an underlying linear value to the color spectrum in the wavelength, you don't really talk about red being "more" of a color than blue just because it has longer wavelength. Instead, we talk about combining, and sometimes mixing, colors. The article author argue that the autism spectrum is like that; it's made up of individual traits that make a whole. As I understand it, diagnosis is in part looking at the number of those traits that a person exhibit. Severity would then be a perpendicular axis to the spectrum of traits. [0] https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/

no, the nuance is not about rules, the nuance is about right and wrong. It’s wrong for someone to walk around with an animal that could be dangerous or could harm other people or itself. In this case, the rules aligned with my moral understanding. Ashan sense of right and wrong is not based on outside rules, but it are internal perception. This is why many of us have anti-authoritarian tendencies. https://neuroclastic.com/autism-and-responding-to-authority/?amp

I know what you mean by "mild autism" but an article [1] that was recently discussed here [2] explains that "mild" vs. (say) "severe" does not quite capture the nuance of the condition. Just pointing it out here because I found it interesting. 1: https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/ 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29682917

https://neuroclastic.com/exploring-the-inner-worlds-of-autistics/ This link isn't what I was referring to, but it is a different thing that could be described as a "rich internal experience". What I was referring to is hard to explain, but it is apparent after a few hours of observation and conversation. I'm not saying allistics are in some sense lesser,¹ but you can tell, when talking to them, that most allistics just… don't have anything going on between the ears except future plans, the occasional daydream, and worries about their positions in status hierarchies – that is, when they're not actively engaged in a task. (When they are, they can have insights into what they're doing as deep as anyone else.) Most allistics need to explicitly meditate in order to pay attention to anything beyond their narrow internal subjective experience – and, not coincidentally, most allistics who sing the praises of "meditation" and "mindfulness" actually have no clue what it is or how it works or even how to do it. ¹: Yes, I am being deliberately provocative. No, this isn't an acceptable way to talk about entire categories of people, but in my experience, most allistics don't notice what they're doing to other people until somebody does it to them. The Golden Rule is, it seems, a heuristic that they have to deliberately and consciously employ, rather than something they have an intuitive understanding of: undeliberated-upon allistic morality is "do unto others what your neighbours are…