Autism As Synesthesia?

Is autism really a form of synesthesia, with those afflicted literally "feeling" words instead of viewing them as abstractions and mental constructs as the rest of us do? Could be. From a NIH press release: In contrast to people who do not have autism, people with autism remember letters of the alphabet in a part of the brain that ordinarily processes shapes, according to a study from a collaborative program of the National Institute of Child Health and

Human Development of the National Institutes of Health.
The study was conducted by researchers in the NICHD Collaborative Program of Excellence in Autism (CPEA) at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. It supports a theory by CPEA scientists that autism results from a failure of the various parts of the brain to work together. In autism, the theory holds, these distinct brain areas tend to work independently of each other. The theory accounts for observations that while many people with autism excel at tasks involving details, they have difficulty with more complex information.

The study and the theory are the work of Marcel Just, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Nancy Minshew, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and their colleagues.

The study is scheduled for on-line publication November 29 in the journal Neuroimage, at http://www.sciencedirect.com.

"This finding provides more evidence to support a promising theory of autism," said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of the NICHD. "If confirmed, this theory suggests that therapies emphasizing problem solving skills and other tasks that activate multiple brain areas at the same time might benefit people with autism"....cont'd

http://www.sciscoop.com/story/2004/11/29/155126/23

... what we're learning about the human brain using today's imaging techniques? To actually SEE the brain at work, in a living, breathing, THINKING person! Just astounding. :)

Some scientists say it has to do with problems within the vestibular system. I remember when I was a kid I was told to turn around in circles really fast and then sit down, and the result would be something akin to how my (autistic) little brother feels all the time.

If that was the case, I might wonder if some had childhood perpetual motion sickness. I had an attack of vertigo that lasted two weeks once. I wouldn't have been able to learn to talk or anything else under those conditions.

I am more comfortable in the jobs i have had like being a Jeweler, locked up in a small room with wonderful tools, being able to Focus 110% on rearanging matter into another form.. making people happy.

i "see" things, i am very visual and artistic, a mechanical and scientific 'savant'.

I have an IQ in of 164, but read at about the 6th grade level, i am functionally illiterate. I have made others Millions of dollars, but am unemployable. while working for manpower i standardized a "Major Spice corporations quality control system, they said i solved long standing problems their PHd's couldnt and increased production in all 284 processilng plants world wide, then layed me off the nest day... story of my life. I worked for boeing and did 'special Projects'.. saving reengineered boards, they billed themselves $58 dollars an hour for what i did, and paid me $8 hour. The Hot Shots in Seatle and California making 4X+ what i was couldnt do the work..so they sent it to me.. this was work that was done under Sterio Microscopes and saved dozens of boards worth over $100,000. then they layed me off because a mentally ill alcohollic manager was harassing me.. my immediate supervisor told me i was the best and most valuable worker she had ever had in her 32 years as supervisor and she couldnt figure out why i was being fired..
she lied.. but it was OK, i liked her. Boeing is just Really just Fucking Mean to the people that make them their money..period, a belligerent and cruel supervisor is an effective, highly trained and valuable supervisor. they had a Bunch of them that couldnt do their jobs, so they just moved them around to different departments..but they were all the same. curel stupid and mean

the way people behave and think is a real mystery to me, i have had jobs in production where i produced 50x to 100x that of others and got layed off.. and they hired 4 people to replace me, and were still behind, and ended up shutting down 2 lines.

I have a serious disability in that i understand how things work because i "SEE" how they work, it is like i am One with them.. it is lilke palying an insturment.. it feels good.

One reason some people are biased against intelligent people with asperger's syndrome is due to a perceived "coldness".

I was diagnosed with PDD and while I am not cold I am sometimes perceived as being mean or rude when I never intended it.

For instance, I have 2 with autism. One of them is sensitive to sound, can hear things that I can't, probably is completely overwhelmed by sounds that I consider loud; the other is overly sensitive to touch and being touched. As an infant, if I picked him up he'd cry until I put him down.

under- or oversensitivity to various stimuli such as light, noise, movement, and touch. Many who aren't technically autistic have problems with sensory integration too, though not to the same crippling degree. Both of my kids (especially my older son, who has speech and motor delays) have some difficulty with sensory integration. I'm very curious to see what brain imaging shows us about these sensory issues.

It's too big a topic to get into here, but there are some good links at http://www.comeunity.com/disability/sensory_integration/

Are there not studies showing that some Austistic children find it easier to communicate by singing? Sounds related...