Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl
the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects,
then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and
observations.
Today's article shows for certain that autistic adults can learn new skills and increase social awareness and abilities. Researchers put together a "virtual learning platform" (ie: a website), which they paired with clinician help. Participants showed both improved social skills and brain changes, which apparently surprised... someone. Hopefully not the researchers, too much.
Reading this article further for the reasoning made me extremely miffed. Apparently, in some circles, it is assumed that old dogs cannot learn new tricks, but only if they're autistic. In other words, the song and dance that you should start therapy as young as possible has reached a fever crescendo, and it's assumed that if you don't do that early intervention for autistic people, we're just kind of stuck at whatever level we got to when we hit adulthood. For the rest of our lives. Sounds kind of grim.
Here's a bucket of cold water for that: Learning and change stop when you're dead. That old saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is crap. It's harder for literal old dogs to learn new tricks, just like it's harder for older people to learn new technologies... but they do possess the capability to learn. The brain has a feature called "plasticity" which basically means it changes over the course of a lifetime. This assumption that autistic people stop being able to learn in adulthood is just a dreary continuation of the assumption from the early 20th century that people in general stop being able to learn in adulthood. It's been debunked, and quite a while ago. Please everyone, catch up with the times.
On a personal note, I can safely say that if my brain had been frozen in my early 20s or whatever the cutoff for "adulthood" is, I would be flatly unable to be writing this blog, let alone managing a life outside of a school setting. I would never have figured out why small talk is emotionally important to neurotypical people. And I certainly would never have managed to marry my spouse. I didn't develop a good amount of my flexibility until the safety of a school setting was gone, and I was required to manage my own apartment and all my meals and activities. If I'd been stuck at, say, age 22, I wouldn't have ever managed to share a room successfully with another human being. Even one as patient as Chris.
So yeah. It is NEVER too late to get help for yourself or your kid. You/they are never too old. And Now is always the best time to start on things that will take a lot of time.
In all honesty, the biggest complicating factor here not age, but motivation. After years of being attacked or avoided by other people, the idea of doing it more to become better at it is not even slightly appealing to many older autistic people. But that, at least, is a changeable thing, whereas age is absolute.
Today's article shows for certain that autistic adults can learn new skills and increase social awareness and abilities. Researchers put together a "virtual learning platform" (ie: a website), which they paired with clinician help. Participants showed both improved social skills and brain changes, which apparently surprised... someone. Hopefully not the researchers, too much.
Reading this article further for the reasoning made me extremely miffed. Apparently, in some circles, it is assumed that old dogs cannot learn new tricks, but only if they're autistic. In other words, the song and dance that you should start therapy as young as possible has reached a fever crescendo, and it's assumed that if you don't do that early intervention for autistic people, we're just kind of stuck at whatever level we got to when we hit adulthood. For the rest of our lives. Sounds kind of grim.
Here's a bucket of cold water for that: Learning and change stop when you're dead. That old saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is crap. It's harder for literal old dogs to learn new tricks, just like it's harder for older people to learn new technologies... but they do possess the capability to learn. The brain has a feature called "plasticity" which basically means it changes over the course of a lifetime. This assumption that autistic people stop being able to learn in adulthood is just a dreary continuation of the assumption from the early 20th century that people in general stop being able to learn in adulthood. It's been debunked, and quite a while ago. Please everyone, catch up with the times.
On a personal note, I can safely say that if my brain had been frozen in my early 20s or whatever the cutoff for "adulthood" is, I would be flatly unable to be writing this blog, let alone managing a life outside of a school setting. I would never have figured out why small talk is emotionally important to neurotypical people. And I certainly would never have managed to marry my spouse. I didn't develop a good amount of my flexibility until the safety of a school setting was gone, and I was required to manage my own apartment and all my meals and activities. If I'd been stuck at, say, age 22, I wouldn't have ever managed to share a room successfully with another human being. Even one as patient as Chris.
So yeah. It is NEVER too late to get help for yourself or your kid. You/they are never too old. And Now is always the best time to start on things that will take a lot of time.
In all honesty, the biggest complicating factor here not age, but motivation. After years of being attacked or avoided by other people, the idea of doing it more to become better at it is not even slightly appealing to many older autistic people. But that, at least, is a changeable thing, whereas age is absolute.
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