Comments on: Mirror Neurons, Motor Ability, and Empathy

By: Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:24:58 +0000

I think you are on to something because I am like that too. And I have AS.
Direction is a good example I almost have to get lost a few times and then I suddenly got it despite the quality of the directions.

By: daedalus2u

daedalus2u — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:06:16 +0000

Melody, sorry my explanation was too simplistic.

Any thing complex such as emotion requires an equally complex neural structure to generate and an equally complex neural structure to understand. Body language is complex because it requires the entire body to generate. To understand body language, one must emulate that body language in one’s own neural structures. One must emulate (on some level) the entire body motion that generates body language and then impute (or rather back-calculate) the emotional state that produces that body motion.

These are very big and complex neural tasks that require large neural structures to compute. Looking at very simple things isn’t going to be able to capture effects in very large and complex things.

Uta Frith’s work looks at very simple systems. Spell checking a book may tell you that every word is spelled correctly, but if they are arranged randomly the book is meaningless. The amount of data that people process to communicate is very large. We don’t appreciate how much data that is because our brains process it all automatically.

By: Marcie

Marcie — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:25:56 +0000

For anyone interested, here’s “Imitation and action understanding in autistic spectrum disorders:
How valid is the hypothesis of a deficit in the mirror neuron system?”

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~antonia/HamiltonBrindleyFrith_NPsy_2007.pdf

By: Melody

Melody — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:34:33 +0000

Also, I’ve never been in a behavior or social skills training for body language recognition, though I’ve been determined to have poor non-verbal communication comprehension, mainly because I cannot reliably give the signals I perceive and because I have difficulty with naming things, and also confusing similar-sounding or similar-meaning words (while I understand the distinctions in my head, I can say or write the wrong thing and not at all notice it, as evidenced from many a humorous interaction).

By: Melody

Melody — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:31:49 +0000

“The “lack of empathy” that ASDs have is the inability to sense another’s emotions as accurately as an NT can.”

And even that’s not universal – while not exactly typical of autistics, I perceive the emotions behind body language quickly and accurately compared to my NT friends, though I have major difficulties communicating it, particularly with complex emotional states. That’s because of language, though.

“The more successful way would be to say “What a great exhibit we saw!” ”

Unfortunately, there are so many ways to interpret alternative meanings behind comments like that, it’s impossible for me to tell if someone making such a comment wants me to respond or is simply giving their opinion. The confusion of trying to decide on one interpretation over many others in terms of response can lead to a sort of silent overload in my head, and it’s WAY worse with things like test questions at school (in eighth grade I calculated it out that I averaged missing 10% of test questions because of this).

It just would never occur to me unless prompted in some way, whether through words or body language or gesture, that a response is wanted. Usually the most I would respond is with a slight nod as an intermediary solution, though often my body language gets completely missed by others, so I either am not noticed or I must learn to almost painfully exaggerate my expressions, because my natural inclination is to be either subtle or explosive, but rarely in between.

Automatic responses are indeed very good friends of mine. Echolalia too.

By: Robin H. Morris

Robin H. Morris — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:45:59 +0000

I haven’t read the Uta Frith study, it does sound interesting.
I understand the argument about prompting, and subtle set ups, but it is very important not to prompt with infomation that a person with autism knows you already know. For instance, if I tell my son to “tell his grandmother about our visit to a museum” it is setting him up for an automatic response. The more successful way would be to say “What a great exhibit we saw!” Hopefully, in time he would volunteer independent information.
xRobin

By: daedalus2u

daedalus2u — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:56:01 +0000

“Empathy” is a very large and very complex concept. It has a lot of baggage when used to describe people. The definition can include the ability to sense another’s emotions and also the ability to sense another’s emotions and then reciprocate appropriately. A lack of “empathy” could be used to denote someone who doesn’t notice another’s pain but would care if they did noticed and also someone who does notice but doesn’t care, or someone who notices and deliberately makes that pain worse.

The “lack of empathy” that ASDs have is the inability to sense another’s emotions as accurately as an NT can. That is a neutral type of lack of empathy. Many NTs exhibit the behavior of sensing another’s emotions and then using that information to hurt them, as in bullying. That is an evil type of lack of empathy. That is the lack of empathy that John Best exhibits.

These are completely different types of lack of empathy.

By: Why I Don’t Hold Charlie’s Hand All the Time Now (But Still Sometimes)

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 05:04:22 +0000

[...] seeming to move eight paces back for every seven forward, continues. I’ve noted his evolving emotional awareness; it’s not only in the pool that he can walk by himself, but also on the sidewalk and even in [...]

By: Marcie

Marcie — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:32:30 +0000

I agree with Melody. Though it seems like there are some very good thing about RDI, making subtle suggestions to speak wouldn’t have worked. Someone had to explicitly tell me, as an adult, that I was not responding to people. I try to keep that it mind, but that doesn’t mean I can come up with a response.

Ironically, on (non-autistic) e-mail lists, I have trouble getting people to respond to me because I “comment” instead of asking questions.

By: Marcie

Marcie — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:28:48 +0000

It seems to me like their are certain basic assumptions (about autism) and that the theories (such as this) are built on those assumptions. But no one bothers to questions the assumptions (at least not the researchers), like the idea that autistics lack empathy. If your interested, I managed to take the whole thing apart in my own revamping It’s unfortunate that it came out as long as it did, but I had a lot of info:

http://www.autism-society.org/site/DocServer/Interpretations_of_the_Mind.pdf?docID=9343