r/MadeMeSmile • u/bendubberley_ • 16d ago

Wholesome Moments Autistic non-verbal boy speaks directly to his mother for the first time.

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u/lawl-butts 16d ago

I wonder if there's like a disconnect between discerning you're actually saying it out loud instead of thinking it in your head and "hearing" that voice.

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u/Fantastic_Top_2545 16d ago

There is.

Source: Experience.

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u/Maelstrom_Witch 16d ago

I have to ask my husband if I said something out loud or not. It’s like 50/50 and I never realized this was a “thing”

Am “lightly” diagnosed as neurodivergent. I keep learning things about my brain all the time.

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u/Fantastic_Top_2545 16d ago

I was thinking of how to reply, then I got distracted by fixing Star Wars lore, so I forgot the reply.

So have this instead: Did you know that Pandas eat for 14 hours a day?

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u/Consistent-Primary41 15d ago

If it means anything to you, my experience working with kids who have ASD and my own background at university (psychology), I put ASD, ADHD, and Tourette's in the same category now.

They are nothing more than input/output disorders.

I used to work in IT and when I got into neuroscience I really appreciated just how similar computers/programing and the brain are, even the way that it wires and fires.

If you think of ASD is primarily an I/O disorder, it makes a lot more sense. With ASD, the brain program can't handle all of the inputs, so it gets overloaded. Which causes errors.

ADHD is the opposite. The brain computer outputs so much superfluous stuff that it isn't able to handle any data inputs.

Thus, for a kid like this, you have to think of there being a co-morbidity between ADHD and ASD. If it were me writing the DSM, I would not have them as separate disorders.

Because of the amount of stimuli he's getting, he can't output properly. He gets stuck on the same routine. Which is actually a feature of ADHD. There's so much crossover and overlap that what really differentiates the two is whether inputs or outputs are more acute.

And kids like this who are nonverbal I would classify as being acute in both input and output issues, which would mean both apply. But ADHD isn't usually given as a diagnosis for those with Level 3 ASD.

I'm a teacher and I work a lot with kids like this and it's critical to try and understand that they are thinking it and just can't connect the GPU to the monitor because the cable is not plugged in.