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I was diagnosed with autism at the age of 7.

Yuo, as an autistic adult this video makes me cringe just a bit. I admit, I’m curious how much things have changed for those involved since this was made.

He is right

I was born in the US, I was 3 days old when my father was stationed, and our entire family was move, to live in another country’s island. I was 9 or 10, as we were driving home from the city when my dad told us a friend in the US had read in the papers about a, Colored man who had been swimming when he was suddenly attacked and killed by piranhas. The second my father said “a colored man”, I immediately stopped listening as I was in absolute stunned AWE by beautiful images conjured up in my mind. I’d never seen a colored man, nor had I ever heard of the existence of colored man. Wow! An American man whose skin had every color there was on it. Like a red hand and a green hand, different and many different colors covering his legs, arms, entire body. After 16 years of living overseas , the mission my dad was working on was successfully achieved and the world celebrated. Soon after we were moved to the US, which I’d never been to before nor did I know anything about America at the time. I was really mad after, being in the US for 2 to 3 years, my father was talking about his work colleague and I asked who he was because my dad said he worked overseas at the same time dad did. He’s the gentleman who had a wife from Colombia and they have the daughter who’s a little younger than you. Lenny, you remember he’s a colored man. I was mad 😡 He’s not a colored man! His skin is brown all over! After my father explained the words definition to me I was extremely sad and wanted desperately to go back to my island 🏝️.

I am autistic and don't really care about puzzles or infinity symbols. My thinking is black and white and sometimes literal understanding can be an issue for me but most of the time it isn't. I had to learn how NTs think and even then it's sometimes not so easy.

Thank you!! 22 years, diagnosed at 21 and someone finally gets it

I find this information to be slightly informative, but the sad fact is this is only pointing out one tiny aspect of the autism spectrum. You’re not getting the whole thing. This is merely a small aspect of the spectrum. You’re in the right ballpark but the way you go about explaining it, just a bad taste in my mouth. I know I have certain deficits executive functioning and I have ADHD combined and this is a video from six years ago, but literally the factual information being out of date irritates the hell out of me and I just can’t help but feel so irritated by it. It’s like when something I have is not an orderl

I don't think you are autistic. You seem neurotypical and this is not how ,at least high functioning autistics, think.

You don't share awareness, you share stereotypes. Stop GUESSING how autistic people think and ASK them. No, autistic people don’t understand everything in black and white without grey areas. We prefer clear communication, often take words and expressions literally, and leave no room for guessing. Simultaneously, we can see many aspects and nuances at once, often more objectively than allistic people, because without the bias of "guessing" and thoughtless assumptions, we rely on available facts. This is why autistic people can be excellent scientists. The statement that autistic people don’t understand "if" statements is also offensive. Of course, we understand; we just don’t read minds. Messages must be explicitly stated. In the film example, the rule that a fire alarm suspends lessons and exams, and normal school behavior rules don’t apply during an alarm, was missing. Instead, they are replaced by the emergency protocol. The example of changing the time to go to school might concern something else entirely: sudden changes in plans can be difficult and stressful for an autistic person. It’s not necessarily a matter of understanding but rather of higher anxiety levels due to differences in brain structure. Sudden changes in routine or plans can cause anxiety. Of course, autistic people think abstractly-often better than allistic people. Autistic individuals think more logically; it’s simply logical to expect people to say precisely and exactly what they mean. Therefore, very logical individuals (such as autistic people) automatically process information this way. At the same time, autistic individuals often surpass neurotypical individuals in their ability to think abstractly, which is why they often excel in fields like mathematics that rely on abstract thinking. Let’s reverse the situation. Let’s adopt an equally biased narrative, but instead of centering on neurotypical people, let’s make an autistic person the point of reference. Here’s an explanation of the situation from the video: Misunderstandings arise because neurotypical individuals have difficulties with theory of mind (they judge the statements and behaviors of autistic people through their own way of thinking and perceiving the world, as they cannot imagine that someone thinks differently). They often have impaired logical thinking, a pathological preference for speaking imprecisely, and an irrational expectation that others will read their minds. They often mindlessly accept illogical messages without analyzing the consistency and clarity of these messages and expect the same from others.

Wow, what a terribly unrelatable video. It's clearly from an outside, non-autistic perspective. Hopefully because it's 6 years old and the creators have learned to get their information from actual autistic people by now.

80% of jobs will be taken by ai and 80% have nuerotypical disorder. the smart thing to do would be to wait till winter so the smell and discarding will be the most pleasant.

People understand us but pretend to not understand and everyone takes advantage of that and 70% of autistic people for last 20 years in nih gov study are suicidal at any given time and now we have 988 number. not worth sharing earth with neurotypicals anymore. theyt only know how to kill anything that walks. dont need that anymorre

As a potential (because undiagnosed) autistic, this was hard to watch, not just because of the sped-up/pitch-shifted voices that were really annoying to me, but because I think some aspects of autism were badly represented, and probably misunderstood to some degree. Autistics are often ESPECIALLY GOOD at abstract thinking, which you said they're incapable of. By that I mean understanding abstract systemized concepts, like molecules, or scientific models in general, because they consist of clear cut rules. I think autistics are also especially good at thinking of if/when scenarios, as in causality. What they're not good at, is picking up on unspoken rules, like in your example, realizing that a fire alarm introduces an exception to the very rigidly communicated rule "never get up during an exam". That makes it seem like autistics don't understand such exceptions. They DO understand, however, IF they're told. What they're also not good at, is guessing from the often complex context which meanings of words the speaker means (literal thinking). Like when somebody asks "are you and your brother close?", it's not necessarily obvious to them that the speaker is talking about a metaphorical emotional distance, rather than a physical one. The latter example is what many people might call "abstract", but I think that descriptor is potentially misleading (as I've pointed out above), and a better one would be - as I've used it - "metaphorical" So all in all I think it comes down to 1) autistics being very focused on and usually quite good at understanding rules (not just social, but scientific, mathematical and all kinds of rules), and 2) autistics being bad at recognizing supposedly obvious exceptions to those rules (including multiple meanings of words), because they are rarely explicitly verbally communicated.

I’m an Autistic 33 year old and I’m exactly like this still. It never gets any easier.

“How do you fix autism?” “You don’t; you accept it and show love, patience, and empathy towards those who have it.”

I have autism and I used to have that literal black and white way of thinking, but I did speech and occupational therapy growing up. One section, I learned figurative speech with these fun little cartoon comics. I’m a fast learner so I picked up on it pretty quickly. One time while having lunch at home I tend to unconsciously open my mouth a little while eating which makes noise that bothers my family members. My mom keeps reminding me to chew with my mouth closed. This time, she did this by saying “watch your mouth.” I knew she meant it literally, but I made a joke in response: “What did I say that was wrong?” She started laughing and said “THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!!” After a good laugh, she said that was a good one. 😂😂😂😂

Dude why is your paper so bright

I have autism, it’s just something that I have. It doesn’t define who I am; God does! 😊

I have autism and meltdowns are thankfully quite rare for me; mostly because I’m almost always around the right people. What I have in my mind is what I’m totally fixated on. If it gets abruptly changed last minute, I become distressed. I used to go to this day program and I had a lot of moments that are embarrassing to look back on. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great program; it just has rules and regulations that are contradictory to my personal needs. My last specialist was caring and empathetic, but she made a few mistakes that didn’t go well and other times, she did something that her hands were tied on that caused a meltdown. It didn’t always result in a meltdown, but it always causes me distress and anxiety. The program’s higher ups didn’t understand even though my specialist did. When I was told I would be dropped off at home first, that’s what I expected. Change that plan at the last minute, and I did NOT take it very well. Another time, during drop offs, I was listening to my music and the specialist told me to socialize instead. This got me all sour and this led to an argument that was stressful for me and made me feel unheard. The overall situation there didn’t get any better so I chose to leave. That was the right decision. I’m much better off now than I was before I left; my anxiety has subsided. Soooo what you said about the autistic mind is true.

The way I see it, it’s not whatever you cuss or swear or not, it’s the intention behind what you say. It’s also best to respect rules and boundaries regarding swear words.😉

I have autism, and while I doubt this is autism related, but I fart a lot.😋

“Is autistic” rather than “has autism”, please. It’s not like I can leave it home when I want to.

Autistics don't get "if" conditions. Autistics are also quite often proficient coders. And this is no contradiction. The puzzle pieces in the beginning tell you so.

Mom should've never let that happen. Melt downs are highly stressful for Autistic children, for what? To teach the step dad a lesson about hubris?

I have a lack of sympathy for the mum wanting to leave 20 minutes early.It's already for moring what's getting brutally cut from the schedule? Even if it's a cartoon he thought he'd get to watch ten minutes ago. A heads up the afternoon before would be much more helpful.

This is typical of what happens when non-autisic people "explain" us. While there is some truth here, the presenter engages in portraying us in the same black-and-white way he claims we use 100% of the time. Non-autistics, PLEASE just stop. There are plenty of autistic content creators out there; your well-intentioned disinformation is not just annoying, it is positively harmfull.

Autistics talk directly without all the mind-games present in pragmatics embedded by hierarchical societies because they cannot encode and decode them instinctively. Every time mental health professionals talk about getting rid of toxic gender roles, talking honestly and directly, not being passive-aggressive, not labelling people and being driven by judgments, etc. as the best way of communication, they are saying that autistic communication is the best way of communication. Yet, the western mental health field keeps on insisting that it's a disorder. Idk. Seems like systemic DARVO to me.

When I was maybe 7, my mom told me "Don't tell your friend Emi she's adopted, she might not know". And I was like ????? why would you think I had that information to begin with? Who would have told me? Years later I understood that Emi was Asian and her parents were white, and that people give birth to children that look like they do. But at 7, I had never had a biology class. Kids don't just know these things! Nothing to do with autism.

I'm autistic and I couldn't make it halfway through this video. The sound effects, the different volumes, the interjections that derail the content, the premise that "they" don't understand things the way "we" do... Did it occur to you that autistic people might watch this?

I remember when I peed myself in class because the teacher didn't want anybody else going out to ease themselves. I was 6. A lot of students were asking to ease themselves and the teacher started to think they just wanted to escape the class and go play. So she forbade anybody else. I heard that and thought there was no other choice. When she realized, she was like why didn't you tell me. I'm not diagnosed yet, but what baffles me about normies is how they go blaming you for obeying their instructions when it fails instead of acknowledging that it lacked foresight. As to what made me pee on myself- fear, nutured by the previous blames when you tried disobeying.

I was exactly like that as a kid. Im high masking now but it took a brutal process of trial and error.

This is literally how I think

So literally true!

The moment i heard “they” i stopped watching, it makes sense you have it so rigidly wrong and disconnected from what its like to be a person also, i don’t wanna hear someone speak about someone else’s experience, and get it wrong.

"No if-then thinking". That sheds some light on things, thanks!

I once ate an entire loaf of bread because I wasn't allowed to leave my seat till I finished my homework while I was left home alone. I was awful at math, so couldn't finish without help at 11 or 12 y/o. NO ONE thought to look into why anyone would do that. Over 30 years later, I've only recently been able to self-identify my autism. I still don't think my family fully believes my assessment. I'm just glad I used the bathroom before sitting down!

Autism doesn't abstract because it's pathogenic etiology is postpartum psychosis (wish for the child to become "unborn"). So concrete thinking is the only defense against a psychotic mother's delusions. Using the blacksheep child to regulate one's emotions works out to the benefit of the other children. Child sacrifice is endemic to civilization because intraspecies predation is the inevitable consequence of civilized society's obviation of our omnivorous need to hunt. So masks of sanity are maintained by directing irrational barbarism toward culturally approved outgroups (usually by way of fixed religious or political delusion). That's why disturbed parents use their children to enhance their own image. Kinda like Psycho Abe used Isaac to overcorrect damage to his reputation from schwarzeneggering his maid during the era of animal sacrifice. Clearly Ishmael was the one induced to autism. And since the adoption of a child signals rejection to one's natural children his autistic literal thinking was a defense mechanism against parents who thoughtlessly inflicted trauma onto him. Remember Rachel Dolezal? Probably still trying to be black because her parents scapegoated her but doted on the black kids they adopted. So no your autistic stepkid isn't stupid, he's naive which is an evolutionarily adaptive defense strategy groomed by his exploitative guardians.

My ex partner is ASD. He sees no utilitarianism in being particularly nice to anyone. so he’s not. Hence, my ex.

The idea of autistics using black and white thinking is flawed. I am nearly always perplexed by all the possible meanings a neurotypical person may mean when they say something. Some how other neurotypicals see only one possible meaning. I feel like most neurotypicals are grossly ambiguous in their speech. How do I pick the particular shade of gray that a neurotypical intends when speaking as if they were speaking plainly in black and white language? I feel like neurotypicals wear blinders that prevent them from seeing all the shades of gray in what they say, then they ridicule those who point out their imprecise speach by asking for clarification. 😢

Well, when people say a person with autism looks "normal", they mean they don't look like full-on Sheldon or an ASD 3 case. Which is also a totally valid autism demographic. People just need to know more about higher functionism autism. The fact that it's all bundled into "autism" or ASD, instead of called Aspergers as before, doesn't help either.

It feels like am watching animation 😄

The autistic community has gone too far. Constantly feeling like it's okay to ask strangers for accommodation. 😂 Sure, maybe the music's too loud, maybe they shouldn't use puzzle pieces, but like, why do you have a right to like, complain about that stuff? This is a video you get access to for free, it's ridiculous. I get coming from a place of not feeling understood. It feels good to be able to be autistic and not have to mask, but at the same time, if you want other people to accommodate you, you have to accommodate them. 😮

as an autistic person the audio in this video is hard for me to listen to. The construction noises were painful and the constant pitch shifted voice is extremely distracting and hard to understand

Great video!! Covers everything, LOVE THIS

Hi I went to a general practitioner, I was told not to pursue it because there is no benefit to being labelled. Outside of that, they said because I can make eye contact and not take idioms literally, there's a low chance that I have mild autism. Is it true because of these 2 factors there's no need to pursue a diagnosis.

Okey so why dont we have a similar video about neurotypicals?

I am subscribing because this is cute....

This video does a lot of things right, namely by not pathologizing autistic ways of thinking. However, this video repeatedly frames these differences as a lack of understanding in autistic folks of neurotypical ways of thinking and communicating. Such framing is an example of neuronormativity, i.e., the centering and normalization of neurotypical ways of being. For this reason, it would have been better to frame these differences as, well, exactly that: differences. The misunderstandings that result from communication and thinking differences between autistic and neurotypical folks is a problem that cuts equally in both directions, and should be represented as such. Thank you for your commitment to spreading awareness about autism. I hope my feedback provides insight that you will find helpful in continuing this important work.

😊😊😊