Autism and Fear

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

In light of this spooktacular week, I’ve decided to take a closer look at fear and autism.

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All of the Halloween themed memes floating around on social media this week have put me in mind of how strange some of my childhood fears were in comparison to those of my peers (in fact it’s estimated that as many as 41% of autists tend to have more unusual/irrational fears).

For starters, I was PETRIFIED of comedian Charlie Chaplin! 😛 Absolutely TERRIFIED- he haunted my nightmares for years and I was convinced if I lingered in a dark room for too long that he would come out from the shadows to grab me! In addition to this, I was also irrationally afraid of chemicals and overhead power-lines (so afraid in fact I was convinced just touching the wooden pole would kill you- it was an innocent time before I learned about science and insulators vs conductors!🤓).

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Fear has often been a dominant emotion in my life, fear of what people might think of me, fear of saying the wrong things, fear of losing my cool and melting down in public etc. According to world famous autist Temple Grandin, “the principal emotion experienced by autistic people is fear.”

But is there any scientific reason for this fear? Might autists be biologically predisposed to being more fearful?

When we experience a fearful situation, a biological fear response is triggered in the amygdala of the brain. Activity in this region when exposed to fearful stimuli triggers fear based changes in body functions such as sweating, shortness of breath, fight or flight, paralysis etc.

As discussed in numerous previous posts, changes/dysfunction in the amygdala are regularly attributed to autistic symptoms. So therefore it stands to reason that perhaps these changes in the amygdala may also influence/exacerbate the fear response in autists compared with their neurotypical peers.

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Other studies have also suggested that there is a muted fear response in autists which may explain the lack of perception concerning safety/danger often seen in young autists.

So there we have it, hope you enjoyed this post dear Earthlings! 😀

Have a great weekend! 🙂

Aoife

November 2, 2018 0

Autism and Smell

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

As I mentioned in last weeks post on taste sensitivity, this week we’re going to discuss sensitivity to smell in autism.

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As with other senses we have discussed, autists can be either hyposensitive or hypersensitive to odours. One autist may enter a malodorous environment without noticing anything amiss, another autist may wretch, or worse!

As a child, my nose was particularly sensitive to my environment (although judging by how I could taste the beer my friends were drinking yesterday evening from the fumes alone, this may still be the case on occasion 😛 ). Bad smells were especially trying- the smell of salads, fish, cigarette smoke, incense, even something so simple as a bag of popcorn could easily turn my stomach.

But it wasn’t all bad- this sensitivity comes with a heightened appreciation for pleasant smells too 🙂

Baking, chocolate, nice perfumes, the outdoors, the smell of metal (don’t ask me why I love this one so much- must be something to do with my taste in music! 😛 😉 )- in fact, such smells are not only a sensory sensation, but can also be used to help calm an autist.

As easily as an unpleasant smell could unsettle me, the right smell could calm me back down again as a child. I always kept a teddy or a blanket near at hand that I could smell to help soothe and calm me and to lull me off to sleep- I couldn’t sleep without one particular teddy until I was 16!

^^^^My teddy was a lot more raggedy than this…😬

So why does smell affect autists so much?

Interestingly, some studies indicate that there are no differences in sensitivity to smell between autists and their neurotypical peers, however, much research points to the cortex of the brain. This region is heavily involved in smell processing, and yep, you guessed it- the autistic brain shows signs of dysfunction in this region. In fact, the pre-frontal cortex shows signs of overgrowth and excessive linkage in the neurons (just like an overloaded plug), so no wonder sensory perception is altered in autists! This region is also associated with the formation and retrieval of long term memories, which could also explain why smells are often tied to memory recall in autists (which I will explore in more detail at a later stage 🙂 ).

One study also shows that autists may not inhale smells in the same way to their neurotypical peers. Evidence suggests that autists inhale deeply and intensely for both pleasant and unpleasant smells, whereas neurotypicals will tentatively sniff in the presence of an offending odour, which could further explain differences in scent processing.

In addition to this, research suggests that alterations in smell can influence social behaviours. A recent study in fact suggest that autists cannot smell fear and that there is a reversal in their response to fear. In this study, a group of autists were calm when presented with a sample of sweat from a skydiver, whereas their neurotypical peers exhibited classic signs of fear. In contrast, their fear levels increased when presented with the sweat sample from a calm individual!

In other words, an autists social behaviour may be affected by an inability to interpret social cues carried in odours- the mind boggles!

So there we have it dear Earthlings- hope this post didn’t ‘stink’ too badly 😛 😉

Enjoy the weekend everyone! 🙂

Aoife

February 16, 2018 2

Autism on Screen- Cube

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

Today I’m going to talk to you about the portrayal of autism in the 1997 Canadian sci-fi horror film ‘Cube‘ (not the fun TV show! 😛 ).

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I came across this (apparently) cult film last year when I was researching films featuring autism for a college assignment and decided to check it out.

The film focuses on a group of strangers who wake up in (surprise surprise) a giant cube comprised of a series of interconnecting rooms, each rigged with booby traps with the potential to kill the occupants of the cube. For example, there is a room that upon triggering a motion sensor will cause a wire grille to close in on the unwitting victim and slice them to pieces…

It’s a pretty grim film…

In order to leave, the group must work together to figure out how to escape their deadly prison and crack the puzzle that is the cube.

This film was definitely not my cup of tea (if I were a tea drinker! 😛 ), but hey if you’re into the sci-fi horror genre then check out the trailer and see what you think!

But what has this film got to do with autism?

Well, wouldn’t you know it, the invisible puppeteers who control the cube hand selected their prisoners so that they could combine their skills to navigate the maze, and who did they select? None other than an autistic savant…!

Why?!

This character is key to the prisoners escape as his mathematical skills enable them to calculate how the cube moves so that they can navigate their way to the exit in relative safety…or so they thought!

Buuut I won’t spoil it for you in case you want to see it! 🙂

Sooo aside from yet another stereotypical mathematical savant, how is this films portrayal of autism?

The actor is actually pretty good showing lack of eye contact, stimming and repetitive movements, colour sensitivity etc.; however, once again I felt as though I was watching the same stereotypical character I’ve seen in dozens of films before.

Autism is a spectrum, each character we see on screen should be unique; but I guess Hollywood has yet to get the memo!

These scriptwriters seem to be stuck in a repetitive cube of their own! 😛 😉

Until next week Earthlings! 🙂

Aoife

July 14, 2017 4

Autism and Phones

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

So a little bit different today- I know the title is unusual! 😛

But the prospect of talking on the phone is something that fills many an autist with dread!

But why does this seemingly innocuous device strike fear into our hearts?

My relationship with phones is complicated.

On the one hand, I enjoy chatting to my family and friends on the phone; on the other, talking on the phone feels soooo AWKWARD to me!

As if reading a person isn’t hard enough, but when you can’t see them? It really adds to your social anxiety. You can’t tell if they’re bored or if you’re cutting across them, not to mention dealing with heavy accents, bad signal and awkward silences- the stress is a killer!

Worse still when someone asks you to answer their phone!

I don’t mind answering too much if it’s someone I already know, but when it’s a stranger….

“What do I say?

What if the person on the other end thinks I’m them?

How long will I have to talk until they can take the phone away from me??”

AAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!!

It makes me feel beyond awkward answering someone elses phone!

Not to mention the awkwardness of dealing with telemarketers and scammers…I try to brush them off and don’t want to be rude… but then when they keep pushing their product on you, I feel too awkward not to listen! I just sit there burning up, waiting for an appropriate opportunity to tell them ‘no’ and run! 😛

Sometimes I just want nothing more than to throw my phone at the wall! 😛

I will do everything that I can to avoid calling someone, if at all possible. I will email, text, Whats App, Facebook etc. before I will ever go near my phone. If the phone rings in the house and I’m closest to it, I have been known to get up and leave the room for the bathroom to force someone else to pick up the receiver! 😛

This meme is a pretty accurate transcription of actual conversations I’ve had with my mother 😛

Over the years however, I have gotten more comfortable with the phone. When I was younger, I never really knew how to act appropriately on the phone. When someone asked to speak to another member of the house, I would freeze up and throw the phone at that person while the caller was still talking! 😛

Since then, I’ve gradually developed my phone etiquette and learned to relax a little more when answering the phone. Practice makes perfect I suppose 🙂

Making calls can still be a little tricky.

A lot of it is tied up in the anxiety of not being able to see the person on the other end. When you initiate a conversation in real life, you know if the person is amenable to talking. If I call them however, my brain starts worrying about disturbing them if they’re busy or whether they really want to talk to me or not.

And then there’s the added stress of “I’ll call you back,” and the panic that ensues when they don’t.

“Did they forget?

Did they not want to talk to me?

Oh God, do I need to call them back???!!”

But as you grow older, these worries begin to fade. You just have to take a deep breath, press call and go for it! 🙂

An email is not going to fix your internet (for obvious reasons 😛 ) or secure your hair cut! 😉

Top Tip: It helps to remind yourself when calling strangers that they can’t see you, they don’t know you so they can’t judge you if you say something stupid 😉

Have a good week everyone! 🙂

Aoife

May 15, 2017 2