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 answers as least one question I had when I was growing up, and highlights two different trends regarding stress while growing up. The question that this article answered was: "Why did I seem so much more mature in a lot of regards, compared to my peers? Was it just the autism?" Apparently, it was not.
These scientists did a longitudinal study, which is one of the very best kinds of studies for understanding people and getting good data. It also takes a lot of time and money, because the scientists literally check in with their research participants once in a few years. Sometimes they even repeat the entire set of tests from the very first part of the study each time they see the participants. This particular test studied 129 one-year-olds, paying attention to life events and how much stress each child went through, at what times in their lives.
It seems that children who went through negative life events (major illness, parents getting divorced) tended to mature faster when it came to key portions of the brain: the prefrontal cortex (which is linked to our personalities), the amygdala (which helps regulate emotions), and the hippocampus (which is involved in memory-forming). Interestingly, if the stress held off until the teenage years, the opposite was true: the brain tended to develop more slowly when that was the case.
Personally? I remember being told, often, that I was a very mature child. I found it easier to speak to adults than I did other children. I remember being annoyed by the antics of my classmates. And strongly, I remember being dubbed "the cool freshman" in my first year of high school. Where most high school freshmen were hyper, I was calm. Most said exactly what they were thinking without a care for context or others, I kept quiet, listened, and spoke rarely. This was noticed, and approved of by, the small group of high school seniors that I hung out with. When I was a high school senior, I dubbed a similarly chill freshman with the same title.
I always kind of assumed I simply had a different mindset than my peers, because I was always kind of odd. Based on this study, it's quite possibly safe to assume my brain was simply further along on its developmental path than the brains of my peers. I do wonder how this research plays with the research that says that autistic people's brains don't develop as quickly, or do neural pruning as much.
Today's article answers as least one question I had when I was growing up, and highlights two different trends regarding stress while growing up. The question that this article answered was: "Why did I seem so much more mature in a lot of regards, compared to my peers? Was it just the autism?" Apparently, it was not.
These scientists did a longitudinal study, which is one of the very best kinds of studies for understanding people and getting good data. It also takes a lot of time and money, because the scientists literally check in with their research participants once in a few years. Sometimes they even repeat the entire set of tests from the very first part of the study each time they see the participants. This particular test studied 129 one-year-olds, paying attention to life events and how much stress each child went through, at what times in their lives.
It seems that children who went through negative life events (major illness, parents getting divorced) tended to mature faster when it came to key portions of the brain: the prefrontal cortex (which is linked to our personalities), the amygdala (which helps regulate emotions), and the hippocampus (which is involved in memory-forming). Interestingly, if the stress held off until the teenage years, the opposite was true: the brain tended to develop more slowly when that was the case.
Personally? I remember being told, often, that I was a very mature child. I found it easier to speak to adults than I did other children. I remember being annoyed by the antics of my classmates. And strongly, I remember being dubbed "the cool freshman" in my first year of high school. Where most high school freshmen were hyper, I was calm. Most said exactly what they were thinking without a care for context or others, I kept quiet, listened, and spoke rarely. This was noticed, and approved of by, the small group of high school seniors that I hung out with. When I was a high school senior, I dubbed a similarly chill freshman with the same title.
I always kind of assumed I simply had a different mindset than my peers, because I was always kind of odd. Based on this study, it's quite possibly safe to assume my brain was simply further along on its developmental path than the brains of my peers. I do wonder how this research plays with the research that says that autistic people's brains don't develop as quickly, or do neural pruning as much.
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