ABFH Gernsbacher is not the only fish in the pond when it comes to confounding the earlier studies into ToM from the linguistic viewpoint, there are studies that have tried to eliminate any confusion there and the further from a task requiring specific levels of understanding in instruction, the more equivocal the results get.

As for ToM we all know one of the great progenitors of the Thery, SBC who took the notion from Premack and Woodruffs study of Chimpanzees in the first place, has moved on in search of another great oversimplification of autism.

He has moved on but his bloody book still finds reprints and new editions. Just as much as Happes repudiatiated study of autitistic autobiography is still in print in the latest edition of Friths book which apart from the translation of Asperger’s original paper is well out of date now.

That’s the problem, the cutting edge moves on but for the more scientifically inclined general reader, or beginner into a course of study on autism, the old stuff is still out there perpetuating a particular meme, based on a shallow understanding of what empathy is or might be.

I have long had this contention with thery of mind, in that all it is is a trope, a literary fiction, a philosophic position and no real thing in itsef at all. It’s no more than a thery of unicorns, because the whole notion of mind is in itself up for grabs.

Mind is essentially in itself a construct that allows the manipulation of certain kinds of data for social interaction, but can’t necessarily be said to exist as any kind of entity independant of the brain and body, and consciousness is no less elusive as a concept either, it may be nothing more than the momentary shift in attention between a series of motoric funtions, which begs the question whether there can even be such a notion that is described as experience.

That very much seems to be the position of a lot of cutting edge neuroscientists anyway, at least those who understand philosophy, rather than the more down to earth ones who just write no more than scientific journalism.

At a mundane level however we do have to come down from the high flown philosophy to adopt a pragmatism, fictive though a lot of it may be.

Just as Dr Johnson metaphorically kicks his toe against hard matter that is not at all what it appears to be at a higher level of resolution.

In other words, theory of mind may be partly a result of a pruned right hemisphere, a condition, the current common default condition, that also results in language facility.

http://psych.wisc.edu/lang/pdf/Gernsbacher_autistic_modules.pdf

She points out that language impairment is a major confounding factor in theory of mind studies, thus rendering any conclusions about lack of theory of mind highly questionable, and that brain imaging studies have not shown any structural deficits in autistic brains with regard to theory of mind.

I’ve been saying for quite awhile as long as autism is diagnosed on behaviors alone, and the clinicians are subjectively judging it, with bias playing a role, that we’re a far cry from where we should be. Reliable and accurate brain models are where it should head, if we have to have a diagnosis. We either recast this as personality differences (which do appear to be a function of neurology) and so remove it from a medical and psychiatric model, or we move it entirely to a medical (neurological) model.

However, I don’t think that for most people on the spectrum it belongs as a medical model. And for those it would, it is a combination of factors, of neurology, creating the severe disability and not autism alone. Never mind you’ll never convince diehards of this, those who would take all the symptoms their severely disabled child has and call it autism or those who would conceive of their children as vaccine-damaged.

The landscape is a 3 dimensional terrain with peaks and valleys, rivers etc.. which one can inhabit or move around in the fourth dimension.

It’s natural boundaries are geographical but the labling is political, in that the landscape is arbitrarily divided into countries that bear no great relationship with the actual physical terrain.

For example I could be an autistic flatlander who lives close to dyslexic flatlanders but on the other side of the river that divides the country into two.

Going down river I might find that the border swerves to carve out another community of tourettic flatlanders who live on both sides of the river.

I could move into the mountains as I grow older, or move back to the desert, or the forests or whatever.

The larger issue isn’t so much any one reason people may be forced behind a mask, but rather *that* anyone would be *forced* there in the first place — rather than just *make use* of masks in the everyday utilitarian way that makes society “work.” The larger struggle then is to make all instances (not just in the case of autistics) of this sort of involuntary, enforced mask-wearing visible, along with the means and source of that enforcement. Sunshine being the best disinfectant and all that. A tall order, and I’ve not yet had breakfast. But I think that’s pretty much the agenda, or should be. If society *can’t* “work” under that much sunshine, then it’s society that needs to change, not us.

I don’t dismiss the difficulty in wearing that mask, in putting it on each day and navigating the social waters many of us have no choice but to swim in. Some of us do this with far greater ease, but with no less a soul-cost.

And others find a way to be true to who they are and a place where they fit or are free not to fit. The internet is a great equalizer in allowing us to be fully ourselves; we may face flak, still, but we at least are able to find others who are like-minded and are able to build a network of friends, a community of our own (and I say this as someone who is an uber-nerd/geek; it’s only been here, on the internet, and with my family, where I’ve been free to me, to not keep parts hidden).

These masks are things my two youngest on the spectrum can be taught about, will undertand the rudiments behind and will be cognizant of how different they are from the neurotypical ideal. Of course, they are also taught that the NT ideal is hogwash and they should be aware of how to navigate the world successfully while still being true to who they are. My bright boy has no conception of, nor basis to understand, the wearing of social masks, and no awareness of not fitting into the NT world, and because he does navigate the NT world, but is instead in settings with others with disabilities, he has not faced the rejection or scorn he most likely would have.

About the facade, that’s a long-running observation and experience of mine as well. Few–sometimes starting with autistic people themselves–are willing or able to consider what a complete or misleading disguise an autistic’s working facade can be. It gets all the more complicated when people do not wish to let go of the you they know — especially when “you” may have been a much more expedient, tractable, or reassuring presence while in and near that state of “barely able to think.”

“given that autism is diagnosed solely on the basis of observed behavior,”

That’s kinda like when Larry Arnold often quotes the “If a tree falls in a forest, but there’s nobody around to hear it”, currently there’s usually nobody around to observe any “behaviors” on my part. There are no “meltdowns” no misunderstandings, no sturm und drang, no tribble atall, yet here I sit, trying to convince my cat that the food he left from breakfast is still good, and he should eat it before I feed him again. I wonder what I’d be doing now if I were born NT?

I like the “swan syndrome” image, but I’m thinking on another one, though I don’t know what to call it. A majority of the time, I was barely able to think. I operated on a very superficial level, and so thought on a very superficial level. It was only special moments that “brought me to myself” that I was able to consider any real meanings, and enjoy being myself. I guess that’s why I was attracted to pot so much. It was the only way I could get there.

Speaking for myself only, I was just lost for my first 53 years, before diagnosis. Turns out that I’m as introverted and Aspie as they come. I suspect there are many in the same situation I was.