[wersplectior]

>'Let’s pretend you are like me. You can’t talk, but you have a well-functioning mind'

I thought that one of the few genuine insights made about autism is that so-called autistic people have difficultly reading intentions (their own, or other people's) or even appreciating what minds and intentions are. Which is why they appear selfish, and why they're unqualified to make such statements.

Also sceptical that coercing people to behave in socially acceptable ways is necessary or desirable.

People who are basically happy and left to develop autonomously will tend to converge with social expectations as required. Maybe the spontaneous cures of autism are examples of that: happy children, perhaps shielded from bullying, whose parents supported them enough for this lengthy process to occur.

Whereas trying to train people like dolphins risks making them miserable and thwarting that development.

[dghf]

> I thought that one of the few genuine insights made about autism is that so-called autistic people have difficultly reading intentions (their own, or other people's) or even appreciating what minds and intentions are. Which is why they appear selfish, and why they're unqualified to make such statements.

I don't think this is wholly accurate. My understanding was that people with autism commonly have deficient cognitive empathy (they have difficulty discerning others emotions) but not affective or emotional empathy (they get upset if they hear about others suffering).

With sociopaths, it's meant to be the other way round: normal (or better than normal) cognitive empathy, but a lack of affective empathy -- hence their purported skills in manipulation.

[wersplectior]

My guess is that if there's no sense of self or other then there's no getting upset about others: there's just upset or 'upsetness' (which others may misinterpret as normal empathy).

[bitwize]

Some of us are hyper-capable at making educated guesses about people's intentions and even ulterior motives; where we suck is in generating appropriate responses.

Autistic "social skills", like everything else about us, exist on a wide-ass spectrum.

[wersplectior]

Before an autistic child, or any child, can make guesses about people's intentions, he has to know that such things even exist. If you learn this late then, sure, your responses are going to be different, even problematic (not guided by the inexplicit knowledge other children developed at an earlier stage).

[emodendroket]

> Also sceptical that coercing people to behave in socially acceptable ways is necessary or desirable.

Well that is the only way they could possibly live independently.

[wersplectior]

No, there are spontaneous and unexplained 'cures' which I'm guessing occur where people have been given the space and time to develop autonomously, without excessive interference. This applies proportionally to ordinary children to.