Autism and Skill Regression

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

This week I’d like to discuss a common autistic experience that many people may be unaware of- skill regression. I know, it sounds more like something from a video game, but rest assured it’s a thing!

Skill regression is exactly what it says on the tin- the loss of previously acquired skills and abilities such as motor skills, speech, social skills etc. It primarily occurs in early childhood between the ages of 15-30 months, but can also occur in adulthood in times of extreme stress and burnout. Many late diagnosed adults also describe skill regression post-diagnosis either from burnout or simply by learning to unmask for the first time in their lives. Regression is usually short lived, but sometimes skills do not come back or are more difficult to access.

I have personally experienced skill regression at numerous points in my life. After I was first diagnosed, I was so hyperaware of my differences that I struggled to mask during that adjustment period. Whenever I’m under intense stress, I’m less able to socially function as my masks and filters slip resulting in my saying or doing things socially that I wouldn’t ordinarily do. On a more creative and academic level, I used to excel in my childhood at crochet and long division. Fast forward a few semesters and I suddenly was unable to do either. I never did manage to get long division back, but I still try crochet every now and again (but it’s quite hard to tap into and has not come easily since). Also, in one particularly hilarious incident following a sleepless night, I completely forgot how to draw a graph in my Physics lab in college!

So why are autists prone to skill regression?

Generally speaking, regression occurs due to overwhelm where the brain starts shutting off areas it deems to be low priority- like low power mode on devices where background apps and features get turned off to stay alive. In the body when the fight or flight response is triggered, it temporarily shuts down digestion, healing, and immune functions, diverting blood to the muscles to allow for quick movement in response to threat. The brain does something similar by cutting off non-essential skills to survive in a state of overwhelm. This occurs through a process call synaptic pruning where the synapse (the connection between neurons) is broken down or temporarily switched off if a particular neural pathway isn’t being used or isn’t needed. It can be mistaken for laziness, but it’s a neural response to a perceived threat.

As I’ve discussed previously, synaptic pruning is thought to be dysregulated in autism as the brain doesn’t tend to trim off excess brain connections in childhood as happens in the neurotypical brain. Similarly, there is also an over-pruning theory of autism where the brain over actively cuts back brain connections. This dysregulation could explain why skill regression tends to occur more in overwhelming situations in the autistic brain versus neruotypicals. If skills do not return or are harder to access after the period of stress, this can happen as the brain rewired itself through pruning to cope, strengthening important connections and pruning less important ones. The skill may not be gone, but the neural route to access that skill may be less efficient (I wonder what stressor messed up my brains crochet pathway😂).

If you want to understand skill regression a bit more, this video summarizes things very well:

Hope you enjoyed this post dear Earthlings! 🙂

Have a lovely weekend!

Aoife