Went for a guest lecture by Dr. Trenesha Hill, Asst Prof at U Nebraska Medical Center.
What caught my attention was atypical/autistic anxiety (vs non-autistic-anxiety) as being related to core characters of Autism. Especially the suggestion that hypersensitivity (ie: sensory differences) was a main factor distinguishing autistic-anxiety from non-autistic anxiety. Totally worth investigating the sensory aspect which I wish this study had done.
Dr Hill's work looked at neuroimaging of amygdala (fear, predictable threat, short lived response, flight/fright) and BNST (anxiety, unpredictable threat, sustained response, hypervigilance/avoidance) for threat anticipation in autistic children. Results showed positive correlation between anxiety and BNST, BNST also showed higher activation than amydgala in response to unpredictable threat and in the case of older children. (There was no NT control group in study).
Some recurring themes in terms of study exclusion criteria in most autism studies including this study.
1. Exclude autistic children with "challenging-behaviors." It is ironical that many behaviors in these autistic children maybe be anxiety-induced; anxiety being very thing being studied So how we study anxiety in this group, so that this group can benefit from solutions. (I'm in this group so very vested in solutions)
2. Exclude IQ < 70. Again same point, how can we come up with research-based solutions for the IDD group, if they are excluded from research.
1. Exclude autistic children with "challenging-behaviors." It is ironical that many behaviors in these autistic children maybe be anxiety-induced; anxiety being very thing being studied So how we study anxiety in this group, so that this group can benefit from solutions. (I'm in this group so very vested in solutions)
2. Exclude IQ < 70. Again same point, how can we come up with research-based solutions for the IDD group, if they are excluded from research.
I call this the the problem of how do we"Expand the Zone of Testable Autistics" so that all autistics are included in research solutions, instead of same narrow band of oversampled 30% autistics.
Another stereotype trope I saw was in one of the statements describing the autism characteristics of a case study.
The autistic child's parent had reported that "sarcasm was a hit and miss."
But, "hit-miss sarcasm" is equally true of the NT population, not everyone gets sarcasm.
Sarcasm is not an autistic identifier and this idea seems to derive from another misconception; that ALL autistics must be only literal thinkers.
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