At present, mind-body therapies (such as mindfulness and meditation) are often used with and by autistic children and adults. There are research studies that show the efficacy of mindfulness therapy adapted for autistic individuals. For example, mindfulness-based interventions can lead to self-reported improvements in self-compassion, and reduced levels of distress in autistic adults (Lunsky et al. 2022); a significant decrease in self-injurious and aggressive/destructive beh

Similarities and differences in conceptualisation, diagnosis and research Similarities: ASD and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative conditions that manifest themselves at different stages of life (two opposite ends of life span, i.e., childhood and old age) (Nadeem et al. 2021; Khan et al. 2016; Rhodus et al. 2020). According to the present trend, they both can be described as neurodivergent conditions. In fact, include both ASD and dementia

Overlaps in biological pathways, clinical features and behavioural expression Although Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and ASD are etiologically distinct conditions , there is growing evidence of significant overlaps in biological and neurological features, and behavioural expression of ASD and AD (and related dementias). Studies also suggest that there are common neurological pathways in both ASD and dementia, particularly involving the immune system and synaptic signaling. A gene

- 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

Is it a supernatural or natural phenomenon? It depends. For example, if we see ‘telepathy’ as something ‘unscientific’ and ‘not worthy’ of the investigation, we are quick to dismiss it, and all the reports of the cases that might illustrate it are considered ‘anecdotal’ (that cannot be replicated) and unreliable. But what if we look at it as a form of non-verbal communication? We may assume that non-verbal individuals who do not develop understanding of verbal language yet,

Arthur Clarke, one of the great predictors of future discoveries, whose non-fiction essays contain analytical analysis of past, present and future of human achievements, seems to make an error concerning his analysis of human abilities: “ There are some senses that do not exist, that can probably never be provided by living structures… On this planet, to the best of our knowledge, no creature has ever developed organs that can detect radio waves or radioactivity. Though I wou

The way we perceive the world affects the way we store and use information. The conscious mind is not the only way of receiving information. Subconsciously, we are perceiving all the time – whether we are aware of it or not, subconscious processes are there. For example, at an early stage of visual processing there is a ‘low-level map-like representation’ which most are not consciously aware of (Rensink 2000). It is only at higher levels of processing, where attention plays a

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