James Purser wrote “Stop Using Autism to Push Your Own Brand of Lunacy” about the organisations that use Autism for their own political agenda [1]. He references the ongoing vaccine issue (which didn’t even stop when Andrew Wakefield was proven to have engaged in fraudulent research) and a campaign of PETA.

PETA’s Claims

PETA claims that “many autistic kids improve dramatically when put on a diet free of dairy foods” [2]. They also speculate about the possibility of Autism being caused by dairy.

One thing that confuses the issue is the impact of stress on people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). Whatever you are trying to do you will probably do it less effectively if under an excessive amount of stress, and the background stress levels of people on the Autism Spectrum tend to be quite high at the best of times. So add in some extra stress from a food allergy and the ability to emulate an NT can decrease a lot.

There are people who make credible claims about significant behavior improvements in Autistic children after changing their diet. Eliminate foods that trigger a minor allergic response and the behavior of NT kids will improve too.

I’m sure that there are some Autistic kids who have a minor intolerance to lactose or casein who’s behavior would improve if they had no dairy products. There are probably just as many Autistic kids who have a minor allergy to peanuts who would get the same benefit from avoiding peanut butter. It’s not inconceivable that some Autistic people may be allergic to soy or wheat and find that they can cope better if their consume more milk, cheese, and steak and less vegetables!

Also some people on the Autism Spectrum have a better sense of smell than NTs, and it’s fairly common to be more “fussy” about the appearance of food. Force children to eat food that smells bad and their behavior might deteriorate.

The issues of diet and Autism are more difficult than those of vaccines because while people just imagine the vaccines to have a bad affect, there are people who are proven to get a bad affect from certain foods.

Some Ideas for Research

I think that the biggest problem with PETA’s research in this regard is citing a study of only 20 individuals and only testing the removal of milk. A proper study would involve more subjects (maybe 100) and separate tests of removing milk, eggs, wheat, rice, seeds, nuts, soy, fish, spices, and food colorings and additives.

It would also test various methods of reducing stress, having a more quiet environment etc.

PETA do deserve some credit for leaving this URL in the comments [3], it’s a study that disproves the link between milk and Autism. But it’s still a small sample size of 14.

Why They Target Autism

In spite of psychologists moving to define Asperger Syndrome and Autism as the same thing, the people who make such claims aren’t talking about people like me. They want to make claims about people who can’t refute them, such as people who fit the Rain Man stereotype. The Low Functioning Autistic (LFA) people have less ability to communicate and are easier to ignore, so if you want to make some stuff up about a group of people then they are an easy target.

Parents of LFA kids are often desperate and will latch on to any idea that seems to help. They can imagine that things have improved in spite of a lack of evidence and also fail to realise that children can improve rapidly just due to their natural development, 1 month is not much time for an adult but for a 4yo it’s 2% of their life!

Also any supposed research that includes testimony of parents should be regarded as rubbish. If you talk to any child psychologist they will tell you about how difficult it is to convince parents that their child is on the Autism Spectrum, a Google search for “autism” + “denial” also brings up plenty of hits. Parental denial doesn’t stop at refusing to accept a diagnosis, it includes wanting to reject it at any later time based on any shred of evidence that may be available. So when there is a diet change or some other supposed cause followed by some apparently better behavior they want to claim that Autism is cured.

I’ve written a document titled “Some Suggestions for Parents of Aspies” [4] which is largely based on the childhood memories and adult experiences of various Aspies. My document covers many issues and few kids on the Spectrum will benefit from all of them, but I think that there is something there that can benefit every child on the Spectrum – and probably a lot of geeky NT kids too. It seems to me that when dealing with Autistic kids it’s a lot better to seek advice from adults on the Autism Spectrum than from random Neuro-Typical people (NTs), particularly if those NTs happen to have an agenda to push. The sensible parents are the ones who seek advice from psychologists and people like me rather than from random unqualified NTs.

• [1] http://jamespurser.com.au/blog/stop-using-autism-push-your-own-brand-lunacy
• [2] http://www.peta.org/features/got-autism-learn-about-the-link-between-dairy-products-and-the-disease.aspx
• [3] http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64I6EZ20100519
• [4] http://doc.coker.com.au/aspie/suggestions-parents-aspies/

There have been some recent discussions about issues related to the treatment of women at Free Software conferences, I’ve written posts about Aspie Social Skills and Free Software [1] and Empathy, Autism, and Geeks [2] about this. But of course discussion continued on how Aspies supposedly cause problems that no-one seems to be noticing.

Lisa of Chaotic Idealism wrote an interesting post about the NT social bias [3]. In summary NTs seem to think that Autism Spectrum Disorders are only about socialisation, not realising that for many people on the Spectrum it’s sensory issues that are their main problem. Social problems are exacerbated by sensory issues and other causes of stress, so I think it’s worth considering ways in which conferences can be planned to be less stressful for people on the Autism Spectrum, people who have SPD [4] that isn’t associated with an ASD, and NTs who just get annoyed by loud noises etc.

What Autism Conferences Do

Autscape is one of only two conferences for people on the Autism Spectrum and the only one which clearly documents how they plan their conference [5]. The first noteworthy thing that they do is have badge colors to indicate what level of social interaction is desired by each delegate, I don’t think that this is relevant to Free Software conferences as people who don’t have sufficient social skills to suit at least a green badge probably won’t be attending. But I think that when attending a conference about Free Software or any other equally geeky topic (if there is an equally geeky topic) it’s worth keeping in mind the fact that there are probably a lot of people who would like to talk to you but lack the social skills to start a conversation.

The next thing that they document is a black circle badge which indicates that the wearer shouldn’t be photographed. Prior to reading that web site I wasn’t aware of this being an Autistic issue, I was only aware of it being an issue for women who don’t want zoomed-in pictures of themselves appearing on guys web sites (even pictures that aren’t up-skirt or down-blouse can be unwelcome). A conference policy that prohibited photographs that zoom in on one person without that person’s consent (or parental consent in the case of minors) would probably be a good idea.

Another thing about badges is that it’s a really good idea to have the delegate’s name on both sides of the badge if the badge is attached in a way that permits it to turn. People on the Autism Spectrum tend to have some difficulty in recognising people and in remembering names. I find it inconvenient when someone expects me to recognise them but has their badge turned around so I can’t see their name. Some people get really unhappy if they think that someone doesn’t recognise them.

Autscape has long breaks between activities and a leisure session each afternoon to allow delegates to recover from the stress of dealing with people. It seems to me that computer conferences in some cases could do with longer breaks between sessions. I find that a lot of the benefit of a conference is in what happens outside sessions and the standard practice of publishing videos of presentations makes personal meetings a more important part of the conference.

Autscape has designated quiet spaces. I think that for computer conferences which have hack-labs (which seems to be most Free Software conferences nowadays – even if they aren’t labelled as such) it would be good to have some lab areas designated as quiet zones. I think that it is a really good thing to meet people you’ve only known by email and then play some LAN based games against them and that this should be encouraged as part of a conference, but having that sort of thing separated from people who want to do some quiet coding is a really good idea. Whether people want to do quiet coding, read email, or just escape from the stress of a conference a quiet hack-lab would be a good place for it.

An issue that’s related to quiet spaces is the ability to escape from social situations. One of my pet hates is corporate meetings on boats, when the boat is in motion there is no escape. Corporate meetings that are only accessible by coach are also bad. Fortunately most conferences aren’t like that.

The Autscape web site states that they prohibit people from wearing perfume or aftershave to help people who are sensitive to smell. My observation of Free Software conferences is that encouraging everyone to have a shower every morning would be a good idea as there are stronger smells from unwashed people than from perfume.

One thing that’s interesting about the Autscape web site is that they have different color schemes available and have tested it in multiple web browsers – including Safari and Konqueror (which apparently don’t work so well). It’s interesting to note that they test with such a variety of browsers including free software ones – most corporations don’t do that.

Sensory Processing Issues

The main SPD issues related to conferences seem to be noise and light related.

For social events one difficulty that most people on the Spectrum seem to face is in listening to one person in a noisy crowded room. As well as that sudden noises and loud background noises can be very stressful. While it’s sometimes impossible to avoid crowds (which can be another problem) it is often possible to select venues that have less noise problems. A venue with carpet on the floor and soft walls (anything other than brick or concrete) will be a lot quieter than one with hard surfaces that reflect noise. It seems that a quiet venue will benefit NTs as well, there seems to be a strong correlation between the price of food at restaurants and the amount of sound absorbing material on the floor and walls – people who can afford a good dining experience seem to want it quiet.

In terms of visual issues the relevant problems seem to be related to sudden transitions and lecture halls that are extremely dark. The only thing that can be done by conference organisers is to seek to have the lights in the lecture halls as bright as possible without preventing the viewing of the projector screen, this is usually done anyway.

For social events the whole binge drinking at crowded bars thing doesn’t work too well due to noise, poor lighting, crowds, and the smell of vomit. But there’s no shortage of reasons to discourage binge drinking at conferences.

Food

Psychology Today has a good article about preferences for food and “picky eaters” [6]. Lots of people on the Autism Spectrum have similar issues. The thing to do when arranging a conference meal is to have things neat and without needless combinations. Think about making food look more like what you would expect to see in a Japanese restaurant and less like Paella. Also having some very plain food on offer is a good thing, I think that bread-rolls for dinner and ice-cream for desert makes a viable meal. But any dish with a word like “hash” or “mixed” in it’s name isn’t a good option. Finally some combinations are really bad, I always find rare steak and potatoes on the same plate to be rather disgusting – potato that’s blood-stained doesn’t appeal. The majority of conference meals satisfy these criteria.

Autscape provides options of eating outside the main dining hall for people who can’t tolerate the noise. For a Free Software conference it might be a better idea to provide seating outside the main area for people who are going to make noise. I don’t mind people who want to get really drunk at the conference dinner, but I would prefer them to be in a separate room. Also when assisting a drunk friend to leave the venue before they cause more problems it would be convenient if there was a good place to take them to. The one occasion when I had to strongly encourage a friend to leave a conference dinner to reduce his embarrassment the next day (and reduce the annoyance for everyone else) there was no good place to take him – so he just came back!

Conclusion

I don’t expect that anyone will make any significant changes to conference plans after reading this post. I have tried to focus on things that would benefit NTs as well, but there are practical issues that get in the way such as the cost and availability of venues that are large enough. But there are some smaller ideas that can be implemented with relative ease.

I hope that the people who are making claims about Autism and conference behavior will refer to this in future. If you think that there is a problem with the way people on the Spectrum act at conferences then the solution will more likely involve the suggestions I make here than anything else.

• [1] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2010/12/03/aspie-social-skills-free-software/
• [2] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2010/12/08/empathy-autism-and-geeks/
• [3] http://chaoticidealism.livejournal.com/88097.html
• [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_processing_disorder
• [5] http://www.autscape.org/experience/autisticneeds
• [6] http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201101/accounting-taste

LWN has a recent article titled “The dark side of open source conferences” which concerns sexual assault at conferences [1].

There are a significant number of comments with attempts to derail the discussion in ways that can really only be interpreted as attacks on Autistic people. The claims seem to be that the problem is not violent sexual assault at conferences, but guys on the Autism Spectrum who hit on girls when they don’t want it. Naturally no supporting evidence was made for such claims. But that doesn’t stop the discussion which has a logical end-point of excluding people like me from conferences.

The Irony

I think it’s ironic that those who are making claims about what they call “empathy disorders” have failed to be Empathic by not realising the following things:

• Women who start a discussion about serious sexual assault probably aren’t going to be happy if someone starts talking about chat-up attempts. While unwanted chat-up attempts are unpleasant they are in a different category and mixing them seems to be diminishing the significance of violent attack.
• Most members of a minority group (in this case women in the Free Software community) probably don’t want discussions of how to help their group diverted by discussions that attack another minority group. What looks a lot like a “divide and conquer” attack against minority groups isn’t going to be appreciated by members of either group – and probably members of other minority groups who see what’s happening aren’t going to like it.
• There is no reason why people should require significant exposure to members of a minority group to treat them in a decent manner. The claim that we need more women at conferences so that men can get used to them and not treat them badly is ridiculous. Among the many stupid aspects of that idea is forgetting the fact that women comprise 52% of the population in first-world countries and we all deal with women every day. Women at IT conferences are not fundamentally different from women in the rest of society.
• When most people interpret your writing in a way other than what you intended it seems to be a reasonable assumption that you failed to explain things clearly. Telling everyone who disagrees to “get therapy” is unlikely to help convey your point. Telling people to “get therapy” is particularly likely to get a bad reaction if you are discussing something that actually involves dealing with psychologists.
• When there is an obvious resource on the Internet relating to a topic it’s a good idea to read it instead of just making stuff up. Failing to do so will be taken as an indication that you aren’t trying to be Empathic. The Wikipedia section on Autism Spectrum Disorders has a lot of useful information [2]. Please read it before making comments about Autism and Empathy.
• Having to be told how other people feel is not inherently a sign of a lack of Empathy. Asking people how they feel because you can’t work it out is a sign of Empathy as it indicates an acknowledgement that other people have different emotions and you probably don’t understand them all. The people who know that they can’t understand other people and listen when told are probably better than average when it comes to Empathy.
• Finally what people say about themselves and their own experiences should be taken seriously.

Some Final Points

Instead of talking about how some other people should be more Empathic it seems that a better idea would be to try and demonstrate Empathy. Set a positive example.

I did a Google search for “Empathy Disorder” and found this interesting article [3]. It’s about how Neuro-Typical people (people who aren’t on the Autism Spectrum) can learn to be more Empathic, it’s probably more relevant to the issue of Empathy in the free software community than discussions of Autism.

I think that the experience of a lot of people on the Autism Spectrum is similar to mine. It’s not that we can’t work things out it’s just that it takes a lot longer. For things that can’t be worked out in real time we have rules based on past experience. Naturally the rules include “don’t touch people” and “don’t try to chat up women at conferences“.

Here is a link to my previous post on this topic [4].

Update: I’ve clarified some of the writing and added an extra point about having to be told how others feel.

• [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/417952/
• [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy#Autism_spectrum_disorders
• [3] http://articles.cnn.com/2008-06-18/living/o.empathy_1_empathy-friend-disorder
• [4] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2010/12/03/aspie-social-skills-free-software/

LWN has an article by Valerie Aurora titled “The dark side of open source conferences” [1] which is about sexual harassment and sexual assault at Free Software conferences. Apparently some conferences create such a bad environment that some people won’t attend, it’s a well researched article that everyone in the community should read.

The Autism Derailment

The comments have the usual mix of insight, foolishness, and derailment that you expect from such discussions. One derailment thread that annoyed me is the discussion about men on the Autism Spectrum started by Joe Buck [2]. Joe seems to believe that the 1% of males on the Autism Spectrum (and something greater than 1% but a lot less than 50% in the Free Software community) are a serious part of the problem because they supposedly hit on women who aren’t interested in them – in spite of the fact that the article in question is about women who are “being insulted, harassed, and groped at at open source conferences“. The article had no mention of men who try to chat up women – presumably this was a deliberate decision to focus on sexual assault and harassment rather than what Joe wanted to talk about.

In response Mackenzie made the following insightful point:

I don’t think any autistic person who is high-functioning enough to A) contribute to open source B) want to be at an event with so many people and C) carry on any sort of conversation is low-functioning enough not to understand “stop” or “no.” If you can understand “your patch has been rejected,” you can likely understand “don’t do that again.”

Understanding how Other People Feel

Bruce Perens claimed “What they [Aspies] don’t understand is how the other person in the situation feels“. Like many (possibly most) people Bruce doesn’t seem to get the fact that no-one can really understand how other people feel. The best logical analysis of this seems to be the Changing Emotions article on Less Wrong [3]. While Less Wrong deals with Male to Female conversion as the example (which may be relevant to the discussion about the treatment of women) the same logic also applies to smaller changes. Anyone who even thinks that if they would always be able understand how their identical twin felt (if they had one) probably hasn’t considered these issues much. As an aside, having a psychologist diagnose you as being on the Autism Spectrum and therefore by implication thinking differently to 99% of the population really makes you consider the ways in which other people might have different thought processes and experiences.

Every time we have a discussion about issues related to sexism in the Free Software community we get a lot of documented evidence that there are many people who are apparently neuro-typical (IE not Autistic) who don’t understand how other people think – in many cases they go so far as to tell other people what their emotional state should be.

What Really Happens

Nix said “However, in that situation our natural reflex is to *get out of there*, not to jump on women like some sort of slobbering caveman” which is a really good summary.

In more detail, I think that the vast majority of guys who are on the Autism Spectrum and who are able to do things like attend computer conferences (*) realise that chatting up a random girl that they meet is something that just isn’t going to work out. Generally people don’t attempt things that they expect to fail so I don’t think that Autistic guys are going to be hitting on girls at conferences.

(*) Having never met any Autistic people who aren’t capable of attending such conferences I can’t speak for them. I really doubt that the Low Functioning Autistic guys are as much of a problem as some people claim, but lack evidence. In any case the actions of people who don’t attend conferences aren’t relevant to a discussion about things that happen at conferences.

Update: It Keeps Going

Dion claims that the misogyny at conferences is due to socially inept people, he also casually switches between discussing people who misunderstand when someone is flirting and people who hire almost-naked booth-babes (two very different classes of action) [4]. Several people asked for supporting evidence, naturally none was provided.

In response njs posted a link to Marissa Lingen’s blog post “Don’t blame autism, dammit” [5]. Marissa points out that people who offend other people due to lacking social skills will tend to do so in times and places that are likely to get a bad reaction – if you don’t know that you are doing something wrong then there’s no reason to hide it. If someone offends a senior manager at a corporate event then it could be because they are on the Autism Spectrum (I’ve apparently done that). If someone offends junior people at a times and places where there are no witnesses but is always nice to managers and other powerful people then it’s not related to Autism.

One final note, I have little tolerance for anyone who claims to be an Aspie when they do something wrong. You are either on the Autism Spectrum all the time or none of it. Anyone who wants any sympathy for me for an occasion where they stuffed up due to being an Aspie can start by making a clear statement about where they are on the Autism Spectrum.

Update2: Yet More from Bruce Perens

Bruce wrote “IMO, the kind of men who go in to software engineering suffer a lack of healthy interaction with women who are their peers, and it may be that the high incidence of empathy disorders in our field is involved” (which seems to be part of the inspiration for Joe Buck later in that thread) and now claims “Nobody here was trying to connect Asperger’s or autism with the touching incidents or violent crime“.

Matthew Garrett responded to that with “If you weren’t trying to say that the high incidence of empathy disorders in our field was related to a lack of healthy interaction with women who are their peers, and that that has something to do with incidents of sexual harassment or assault at conferences, what were you trying to say? Because that sounds awfully like ‘We wouldn’t have so many problems if it weren’t for all the autists’“.

Bruce’s latest comment is “If you choose to read something that nasty into my writing, that’s your problem. Get therapy“.

Through this discussion I’ve been unsure of whether to interpret the statements by Bruce et al the way Matthew does or whether I should consider them as merely a desperate attempt to derail the discussion. I can’t imagine any possible way of interpreting such comments in connection with the discussion of sexual assault as anything other than either trivialising violent crimes against women (suggesting that they are no worse than asking out someone who’s not interested) or claiming that anyone who lacks social skills should be treated as a violent sexual predator. It’s just not reasonable to believe that every single person who wrote such comments referring to Autism was misunderstood and really meant something nice.

As a general rule I don’t think that it’s the responsibility of other people to try and find a non-offensive interpretation of something that one might say. I don’t think that all the people who strongly disagree with the most obvious and reasonable interpretations of Bruce’s comments should get therapy. I think that Bruce should explain what he means clearly.

• [1] http://lwn.net/Articles/417952/
• [2] http://lwn.net/Articles/418209/
• [3] http://lesswrong.com/lw/xe/changing_emotions/
• [4] http://lwn.net/Articles/418281/
• [5] http://mrissa.livejournal.com/746160.html

The AEIOU Foundation

The AEIOU Foundation [1] is a support and advocacy organisation for people on the Autism Spectrum, note that they clearly say Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) on their About page, some of what they write would be less wrong if it was claimed to apply to only non-verbal Autistics or people claimed to be Low Functioning Autistic (LFA). But in regard to the Autism Spectrum they just don’t seem to know much about it, a lot of their web pages seem to be based on the assumption that anyone who is on the Spectrum will be lucky if they can ever live independently. However it seems that most people who can be diagnosed with an ASD have typical social skills by the standards of the IT industry and can get by without any special assistance. The entire site seems to be written about people on the Spectrum by people who know little of their experiences and contains hardly any information that matches what I’ve read from various people on the Spectrum (of course there are a wide range of experiences that differ greatly).

They have a link to “Autism Related Sites” which starts with “Autism Speaks” (the Wikipedia page about Autism Speaks is worth reading – note the section about immunisation research which has been repeatedly debunked and the section about legal action against a young autistic blogger). There are many good reasons why Autism Speaks is so widely hated among people on the Spectrum. I think that recommending Autism Speaks is a sign of willful ignorance of almost everything related to Autism.

In their page about describing Autism to NTs they say “Imagine if you suddenly woke up in a foreign country, did not speak the language and had no way of effectively communicating with the people around you“. I’ve been diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome by a psychologist who considers that to be the same as High Functioning Autism (HFA) and I’ve visited more than a few countries. I find the comparison of the Autistic experience to visiting another country to be so strange that I don’t even know where I would begin if I was to comment on where it went wrong.

Finally they have a scrolling bar listing their advertisers at the bottom of ever single page on their site. If someone was going to design a web site specifically to annoy people on the Spectrum then such a scrolling banner would be a good place to start.

Now they probably do some good things to help families with children on the Spectrum. But their ability to do good is really hindered by the lack of input from people on the spectrum, Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg (leader of the Vermont Chapter of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network) wrote an interesting post about AEIOU and noted that none of the people who run AEIOU are Autistic [2].

The Communication Shutdown

Someone got the idea that Neuro-Typical people (NTs) should try and understand what it’s like to be on the Spectrum – which is a reasonable idea. But they decided that the way to do so is to have them refrain from Internet based socialisation and not use Facebook and Twitter for one day. It seems to me that most people on the Spectrum primarily socialise via the Internet, so ceasing Internet based socialisation is likely to make their experience less like that of people on the Spectrum. I’m getting a mental image of a bunch of NTs deciding to go to a night-club for their Internet free evening and then imagining that they are somehow empathising with the experience of people who can never enjoy a night-club.

As an aside, a web site which has anything at all related to disabilities shouldn’t rely on Flash – the Communication Shutdown site totally fails in this regard.

No Stereotypes Here has an interesting analysis of this situation, among other things they comment on the irony of having someone ask them to stop using twitter as part of this campaign [3]. One thing that they suggest is for NTs to have a day without any communication at all.

Some Suggestions for People who Want to Understand

As a communication exercise, try going shopping without speaking, just use hand gestures. For bonus points try doing so in a foreign country where you don’t know the language so you need bidirectional non-verbal communication – with some luck you can complete a transaction without the shopkeeper realising that you are a foreigner. This won’t actually give you much of the Autistic experience, but it’s a good exercise in understanding how communication works.

Someone who wanted to know the down-side of being on the Spectrum could find a sports bar where most patrons support one team and then enter the bar while wearing a jersey indicating support for an opposing team. I don’t recommend doing this because it really wouldn’t be fun, but for a quick approximation of the experience it would probably work well.

It seems to me that paying $5 to a charity and then boasting about doing so on your Facebook page for a day is an easy thing to do. A harder task would be to spend a day reading about the experiences of the people in question and then giving $5 to a charity that is well regarded by the target group.

Another possible way of gaining some understanding would be to have a party where everyone brings their laptop and uses only electronic communication – no speaking at all. This is in fact fairly close to what some of the Geekier (possibly Autistic) members of the IT community do.

• [1] http://aeiou.org.au/
• [2] http://www.journeyswithautism.com/2010/10/22/speak-up-on-november-1st/
• [3] http://nostereotypeshere.blogspot.com/2010/10/real-communication-shutdown.html

The Problem

I was asked for advice on buying headphones to protect students who have medical conditions that make them sensitive to noise, such headphones would have to allow them to hear human voices.

Due to the significant differences in hearing issues (including physical damage and sensory issues) it seems unlikely that getting identical headphones for all students will give an ideal result. The person who asked me the question didn’t explain what type of students are being taught. If it’s an adult education class then getting everyone the ideal headset wouldn’t be particularly difficult. If however it’s the special needs class in a high school then students would probably want the most shiny headphones rather than the ones that are a best match to their hearing issues.

Also some combinations of hearing problems and ambient noise can’t be addressed by such headsets. A friend who developed Noise Induced Hearing Loss from shooting tells me that he really can’t stand brass instruments. But the high frequencies from such instruments tend not to be filtered well by noise canceling headphones, so any student who has such a problem would probably need hearing aids that filter out high frequencies – I believe that such hearing aids are available but don’t have any particular knowledge about them.

Test Results

I did a quick test on my Bose QC-15 noise canceling headphones [1] which cost me $320US including tax and my cheap Bauhn headphones from Aldi [2] which cost me $69AU (and which apparently could later be purchased on special for $35AU to clear stock).

I found that when not playing music they seemed to perform about equally well in terms of allowing me to hear people speaking, although I admit that just having a conversation with the nearest people wasn’t the most scientific test. When I was playing music I found that the Bose headset made it significantly more difficult to hear people speak than the Bauhn headset. This is an advantage for the Bose for it’s intended use, and I expect that students who need a headset for medical reasons won’t want to listen to music while studying so it’s never a disadvantage.

In both cases, if the headphones are used for just canceling unwanted noise the speaker shouldn’t need to raise their voice significantly to be heard. In some situations the noise canceling headphones make it easier for someone with good hearing to hear what people are saying, for example a conversation in a car or plane could probably be held at a lower volume if all people involved were wearing suitable noise canceling headphones. If however the students have damaged hearing then I can’t make any prediction as to whether the teacher could speak at a lower volume or whether they would be required to use a higher volume if the students wore such headphones.

The Brookstone on-ear headphones that I tested [3] seem particularly noteworthy in this regard due to the way they canceled the melody of the store background music and just left the singing. If someone wants to buy headphones for people with physical damage to their ears then the Brookstone product is really worth investigating. If however the target market happens to be people on the Autism Spectrum then they may hate anything that presses on their ears (as I do) in which case the Brookstone product can’t be considered. The Brookstone price of $150US (presumably $160 including tax) was also the best price I saw when shopping in the US – but I presume that I could have found something with a similar quality and price to Bauhn in the US if I looked hard enough.

Conclusion

The big advantage of the Bose for this use is that it blocks a wider range of frequencies than some other noise canceling headsets. They all work really well on regular low frequency noise such as car engine noise (whether a car passenger or a pedestrian) but to stop certain higher frequencies such as those from air conditioning systems the Bose wins hands down. I guess this may depend on what noise is to be blocked, if a class was held in the same room every time and noise canceling headsets were purchased specifically for that class then it would probably make sense to ensure that the acoustic capabilities of the headsets match the unwanted background noise and the hearing issue that each student has.

Here’s an Amazon link: Bose® QuietComfort® 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® Headphones

I’ve been reading about Sensory Processing Disorder. I’m sure that some children are doing poorly in the default school system because they either have an undiagnosed case of SPD or who don’t have enough symptoms to get a diagnosis. I think it would make a good experiment to try noise canceling headphones on some of the difficult children, I wouldn’t expect a high success rate – but if it worked in as little as 5% of cases and did no harm to the children who didn’t benefit then it would be worth doing.

• [1] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2009/12/20/bought-the-qc-15/
• [2] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2010/03/25/bose-bauhn-aldi-noise-canceling-headphones/
• [3] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2009/12/04/testing-noise-canceling-headphones/

Diagnostic Changes for Autism Spectrum Disorders

Currently Asperger Syndrome (AS) is one of a group of conditions that are grouped into the category Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).

The American Psychiatric Association plans to merge “Asperger’s Disorder” into “Autism Spectrum Disorder” [1] in version 5 of their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Apparently a primary reason for the change is the difficulty in assessing people into the various categories (AS, Autism, and PDD-NOS) and some variation in diagnosis between regions.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen (a leading researcher on Autism and Asperger Syndrome) wrote an insightful article about this for the New York Times [2]. He suggests that while genetic research about the causes of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) is in progress there should be no change. If it turns out that AS and Autism have the same genetic cause then that would be good evidence to combine them into a single diagnostic category. If however they turn out to have different genetic causes then they would need different categories and he suggests that changes should be delayed until this issue is resolved. Simon also raises the issue of the status of people who have already been diagnosed, this is one of the social issues relating to a change in diagnostic criteria.

Social Issues related to Diagnosis

Unlike some disorders listed in the DSM, many (possibly most) people with AS really care about such things. I think that a common reaction to being diagnosed with Aspergers is to make the study of ASDs a “Special Interest“, which therefore makes it impossible to ignore what the psychologists are doing in this regard.

The biggest problem with changing the diagnostic criteria in this regard is that AS has a good reputation. Some people even think that it’s generally a good thing and seem to imagine that every child who is diagnosed with it will end up working for Google! This means that parents will be less likely to reject a diagnosis and therefore will be more likely to try and create a good environment for their child and seek appropriate therapies (such as social skills training and occupational therapy). I expect that a child who is diagnosed as Autistic but who doesn’t obviously conform to the worst stereotypes will likely have their parents reject the diagnosis which will lead to a bad result for everyone concerned.

The contrary view in this issue is that people who are on the spectrum but who insist that they aren’t Autistic are prejudiced and they should embrace the Autism Spectrum label as a measure of solidarity [3], while that’s a reasonable point it’s not going to happen in the short term.

Also there is the issue of adult diagnosis of AS, there are lots of adults who could benefit from being diagnosed and obstacles to such diagnosis (such as associating it with a label that is not well accepted such as Autism) are not going to do any good for anyone.

Is Asperger Syndrome really that similar to Autism?

Roy Richard Grinker (Professor of Anthropology) wrote a positive article for the New York Times about the diagnostic changes [4]. He seems to think that because in some cases it is difficult to distinguish the difference between Autism and AS they should be in a single diagnostic criteria. Based on that logic you could say that no-one should be diagnosed with an ASD because there is never a clear dividing line between the Neuro-Typical and those who are on the spectrum! Some people are clearly on the spectrum, some clearly aren’t, and some are near the border.

Roy cites his daughter and Temple Grandin as examples of Autistic people who have greater ability to relate to animals than someone who is Neuro-Typical (NT). I don’t have any particular skills in terms of relating to animals. Animals have smaller brains than humans and have thoughts that are less complex and more related to short-term issues, this makes them easier to predict in some situations. I do have significantly better skills in figuring out how to operate machines than most NTs, and this doesn’t appear to be uncommon among Aspies. I’ve read some of the material that Temple Grandin has written and watched the video of her TED talk, and I get a strong impression that she isn’t like me. Even the Aspies who are the least successful in terms of their career (IE quite unlike Temple Grandin) often seem to be like me, I can understand the way they think and recognise that the problems they face are similar to mine but merely more severe.

It seems to me that there are significant personality differences between people who have an affinity for animals and those who have an affinity for machines, maths, and engineering.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was discovered that Autism and AS had different genetic causes, and this might mean that someone could have both sets of genes. It is obvious that the dividing line between Autism and AS is not that clear. It also seems that part of the diagnosis as implemented by psychologists may be based on the ability to act like an NT and succeed by objective criteria – IE earn a good salary in the case of adults. One thing that Roy does get right is that he notes that among people diagnosed with AS and Autism there are both “high” and “low” functioning individuals.

One thing that Roy gets wrong is the implication that Autistic people can become Aspies. An adult who is assessed without background information on their childhood may get a different diagnosis. If someone was reassessed as an adult with the full facts about their childhood available then (barring DSM changes) the same diagnosis should be returned.

Conclusion

It appears that this DSM change is going through regardless of the opinion of the people who are affected. While there is a logical basis for giving more weight to researchers than to the research subjects (who are bound to be more biased) it seems that there are some things you can’t properly understand unless you live them. When a good portion of the research subjects feel compelled to share their experiences with anyone who will listen it is disappointing that so few of the researchers appear to be listening.

• [1] http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=97
• [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/opinion/10baron-cohen.html
• [3] http://chaoticidealism.livejournal.com/76484.html
• [4] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/opinion/10grinker.html