The connection between alexithymia and ASD was initially explored in the 1990s through clinical studies on individuals with eating disorders, specifically anorexia nervosa (AN). The studies revealed the co-occurrence of eating disorders with deficiencies in social competence and identified some traits that were considered typical of ASD, [ 1 ] such as empathy problems, as well as some features considered typical of alexithymia, such as difficulty verbalising emotions, ide

The Diagnostic Difficulties Chronic pain is quite common in autism , yet it is often unrecognised (and undiagnosed). The diagnosis of chronic pain in autistic individuals poses unique and intricate challenges due to various factors. Overlap of autism symptoms with pain signs The overlap between autism symptoms and pain indicators can lead to the misinterpretation of pain signals. Careful consideration and comprehensive assessments are necessary to differentiate pain-related b

‘Autistic people don’t do metaphors’ Because of their literal interpretation, autistic children do experience difficulties in understanding figurative language. However, figurative language is a wide concept which means the use of words or phrases that deviate from their literal interpretation to achieve a more complex or powerful effect. It includes, for example: - s imile (a figure of speech that a simile compares two similar things using ‘like’ or ‘as’): many autistic ch

Overlapping symptoms and differences Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and ASD are two distinct condition. However, they share certain symptomatology that can lead to difficulties in differentiating between the two. NPD Note : The term "narcissism" comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, a guy who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. While the concept has been around for centuries, it wasn't officially recognized as a personality disorder until the 2

- Hello, where are you? - I am at home. - At home? Where? - I have one home, in England. Why? What’s happened? - Why did you leave without saying ‘goodbye’? It was great when you and your daughter came to see me. We visited friends and had fun. I was preparing your farewell party, but you left. You could have said goodbye… Thus began my conversation with my childhood friend (B.). We have be

Sometimes sensory hypersensitivities are misinterpreted as extrasensory perception (ESP) as ‘normal’ people not only fail to see, hear, smell or feel what some autistic individuals can, but also find it hard to imagine that these experiences are possible because ‘normal’ people are blind, deaf and dumb to the stimuli which are everyday experiences for some autistic individuals. However, there is nothing extrasensory about their ability to hypersense as some autistic people’

A painful truth Sensory stimuli can be experienced very differently by autistic individuals. Just because we may not feel something, it does not mean that they don’t. It’s something that is so simple to understand, yet not knowing anything about it makes you feel unable to help your own child. As he grew, I began to notice more and more my son’s very acute aversion to some things we would not think twice about. Seemingly mundane tasks such as getting his hair cut or his nails

There are other types of echolalia that are difficult to explain, for example, involuntary echolalia , when the person blurts out words...

Though echolalia can be non-communicative , in many cases it is used for communication. Parents of autistic children (with echolalia) can decode their child’s utterances. For example, for many years (up until he was in his late teens), Alyosha was echolalic and used set phrases to talk to us. Most of the time it worked because I knew his particular ways to let me know that he was hungry or wanted to watch TV, or to go for a walk. The problem is, however, that for others (neig

If it’s not for communication, what’s the point? As I didn’t know much at the time, I made a mistake thinking that as soon as my son started speaking, everything would be fine. However, though Alyosha did start talking at the age of seven, ‘talking’ is not the word to describe his verbal utterances. My boy echoed words and phrases that he had heard in the past, often irrelevant to the situation, or just ‘talked’ to himself. There seemed to be words which he especially liked,

The placebo effect can be defined as the power of the mind and the unconscious to heal in response to something (whether sugar pills or just a suggestion) that the person believes will improve his or her condition. Scientific studies on placebo focus on the effectiveness of new drugs or treatments, whereas they have confirmed the reality of a mysterious phenomenon – the possibility of thought influencing not only psychological but also physical states of people. The effect

The Intense World Syndrome and other ‘sensory theories’ Although already in the very first descriptions of autistic children, researchers...

Autistic people are said to be (severely) impaired in their ability to empathise with other people which is reflected in the ‘mind-blindness theory’ of autism (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, Frith 1985; Frith 2003). However, contrary to the belief of lack of emotional compassion in autism, autistic individuals may experience enhanced emotionality (along with enhanced perception) (Markram et al . 2007). There are different types of empathy: sensory empathy, emotional (affective) empathy

It is not as simple as ABC When we come across a behaviour that’s difficult, there’s a popular method that’s used to help parents and carers to analyse what’s happening and do something about it. You may have heard about it – or even used it. It’s called the ABC approach the idea of which is that you find a trigger for the behaviour ( A ntecedent), define the B ehaviour and provide the ‘ C onsequence’ (for example, ignore/ time out) for this (often deemed ‘inappropriate’) beh

Let’s start with linguistics: The way we label things around us means a great deal. Let’s look at the widely used terms in an ‘autistic way’, i.e., literally (without adding any personal connotation – neither positive, nor negative) – each word in this section has its dictionary meaning. - Autism Spectrum : Spectrum is defined as ‘the entire range of particular type of thing, arranged by degree or quality, etc.’; it is used to classify something in terms of positio

“[After the assessment] I was surprised to learn that most of [the infantile reflexes] were still present and uninhibited in me at the age of almost thirty in spite of having learned to compensate for and cover them up. One which was still present was an infantile reflex that babies have to assist them in passing out of the womb! It was also found that I had different infantile reflexes present in different quarters of my body and that some were partially inhibited and some n

April is Autism Awareness Month. 30 years ago, parents of autistic children were doing their best to bring autism awareness 12 months a year and their aims and activities were very different from now. I think many people of my age have their stories to tell about it. This article was written after another lost battle (but not the war!) with the authorities and “chief specialists”. All my anger was poured out on the paper. November 1994 Almost Classics A MODEST PROPOSAL For pr