Autism as an iceberg

Many researchers are starting to rethink how much we really know about autistic people and their abilities. These researchers are coming to the conclusion that we might be underestimating what they are capable of contributing to society. Autism is a spectrum disease with two very different ends. At one extreme are “high functioning” people who often hold jobs and keep friends and can get along well in the world. At the other, "low functioning" side are people who cannot operate on their own. Many of them are diagnosed with mental retardation and have to be kept under constant care. But these diagnoses focus on what autistic people cannot do. Now a growing number of scientists are turning that around to look at what autistic people are good at.

When Meredyth Edelson (a researcher at Willamette University), went looking for the source of those statistics, she was surprised that she could not find anything conclusive. Many of the conclusions were based on intelligence tests that tend to overestimate disability in autistic people. "Our knowledge is based on pretty bad data," she says.

This hidden potential was recently acknowledged by Laurent Mottron, a psychiatrist at the University of Montreal. In an article in the November 3 issue of Nature, he recounts his own experience working with high-functioning autistic people in his lab, which showed him the power of the autistic brain rather than its limitations. Mottron concludes that perhaps autism is not really a disease at all—that it is perhaps just a different way of looking at the world that should be celebrated rather than viewed as pathology.

Having live and work with autistic children, I have to say —Mottron's conclusion rings true. As I watched them move through the public schools, it became very clear that there was a big difference between what teachers expected of them and what they could do. Of course, their autism hindered them in some ways—which often made school difficult— yet it also seemed to give them fresh and useful ways of seeing the world—which often don't show up in the standard intelligence tests.

That is because testing for intelligence in autistic people is hard. The average person can sit down and take a verbally administered, timed test without too many problems. But for an autistic person with limited language capability, who might be easily distracted by sensory information, this task is very hard. The most commonly administered intelligence test, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) almost seems designed to flunk an autistic person: it is a completely verbal, timed test that relies heavily on cultural and social knowledge. It asks questions like "What is the thing to do if you find an envelope in the street that is sealed, addressed and has a new stamp on it?" and "What is the thing to do when you cut your finger?"

Every three years, through American public school system, children’s progress is re-evaluated as a part of their Individualized Education Plan—a set of guidelines designed to help people with disabilities reach their educational goal.

There is one example about this school re-evaluation which is related with small boy with autism. Story tells, that this year, as part of the test, the woman delivering the questions asked him, "You find out someone is getting married. What is an appropriate question to ask them?"

The boys answer: "What kind of cake are you having?"

The proctor shook her head. No, she said, that's not a correct answer. Try again. He furrowed his brow in the way we have all learned to be wary of—it is the face that happens before he starts to shut down—and said, "I don't have another question. That's what I would ask." And that was that. He would not provide her another question, and she would not move on without one. He failed that question and never finished the test.

A test does not have to be like this. Other measures, like Raven's Progressive Matrices or the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI), avoid these behavioral and language difficulties. They ask children to complete designs and patterns, with mostly nonverbal instructions. And yet they often are not used.

The average child will score around the same percentile for all these tests, both verbal and nonverbal. But an autistic child will not. Isabelle Soulieres, a researcher at Harvard University, explored this subject and find out, that schools are underestimating the abilities of autistic children all across the spectrum. Based on the test results, people come to the conclusion that autistic children cannot learn, when perhaps they do not learn the same way other people do.

Recognizing hidden talents of autistic people, rather than pushing them aside to focus on the drawbacks of autism, could benefit not just autistic people, but everyone else as well.

Just because a test says someone has potential, that does not mean it is easy to realize. Some autistic child’s teachers are convinced—and the tests confirm—that they have hidden potential. But in class, they often fall behind when trying to listen to instructions and gets frustrated when trying to catch up. It doesn't mean that it's easy for them in everyday life, or that it's easy for their parents or teachers, but it shows that they have this reasoning potential, and maybe we have to start teaching them differently and stop making the assumption that they won't learn.

More and more people are starting to wonder what gems might lie hidden in the autistic brain. And if our children are any indication, if we keep looking, we will find them. #ANCAAR #CRAIOVA #UNLOCKTHEWORLDTEM