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2:13am October 14, 2014

Oh by the way

Don’t try to tell me that having one’s first words be non-social in nature isn’t a sign of autism in some kids. The vast majority of kids, including many autistic kids, speak social words as their first words. Words that have to do with people. There is a reason that the diagnostic criteria for autism have often included a delay mot specifically in speech, but in “speech as used for social communication”. So yes, in my dad’s case, saying “see the moon” as his first words instead of mama or dada, is completely relevant to the fact that he’s autistic. I think his mother actually felt cheated that his first word wasn’t mama like it was “supposed to” be, and resented him for it in a way that makes no sense (how do you resent a toddler?). There’s the fact that the words aren’t social, there’s the fact that it’s a sort of phrase or sentence instead of a single word, and there’s the fact that it refers to an object.

Those things aren’t by any means necessary for a person to be autistic (they weren’t true of me, for instance) but when combined with multiple other signs of autism… Let’s just say that if Leo Kanner were interested in Okie farm boys instead of rich kids, my dad could’ve been in his first paper, easily. As could my brother, as could I… But my dad was actually born at the right time almost, to have been one of Kanner’s patients. And he easily falls under the realm of autism that Kanner was defining at the time. At least, he would have fit in with the group of people Kanner was seeing – how Kanner would’ve interpreted him is up to Kanner, who was very subjective and vague about the impressions he got about his patients and where he got them. He’d write things down as fact that were just conjecture, you have to read really carefully to find the actual observations, versus the guesses he made on the basis of those observations.

Anyway I’m not going to argue this any further, I’m just annoyed because with the amount of reading I’ve done on autism, and the amount of autistic people I’ve known directly and indirectly, I really think I do know what I’m talking about when I say that non-social first words can be a sign of autism. They don’t have to be non-social, but when they are, it’s a sign, especially when taken together with lots of other signs. Sort of like stiffening when held is typical of autistic infants, but is not universal. Molding yourself into your mothers body completely is another typical autistic trait, but you don’t hear about it as much – it’s less bothersome to both parents and doctors and can convince them that you are being social and snuggly and comfortable whether you are or not. Similarly, aloofness is common in autism, but passivity exists too. (I was and remain socially passive for the most part, and I molded myself to my mother when she held me. These things are also typical of autism, they’re just not talked about as much. But they have been talked about for a long, long time in the autism literature. I should know. I’ve actually read it.)