research review

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 checks in with emotion-reading technology.  Essentially, businesses want to skip asking their customers how they feel about their products and instead want to take pictures of their faces and get the data that way.  Why is this relevant to autism?  These businesses are having the same problem reading faces that autistic people do, because a facial expression does not necessarily correspond to how a person is feeling.  

It\’s humorous to me that they\’re having to find this information out by trying and failing, rather than simply asking themselves whether this would work… but I guess this is another situation where neurotypical people just do things automatically, without comprehending what they\’re doing, how it works, and why it works.  

The examples they give in this research for why this technology isn\’t working are contextual, and that\’s the big hurdle for autistic people too.  We\’re taught in elementary school that a happy face means the person is happy, a sad face means the person is sad, and an angry face means the person is angry.  Simplistic, but you\’d think it would be accurate.  It\’s not.  You can\’t, in adult humans, look at a smiling face and presume accurately that they\’re happy.  

Are they: 

• on the job at a customer service counter or receptionist desk?  They\’re probably smiling politely rather than actually happy, because customer service jobs tend to drain your will to live but you\’re required to appear friendly.  
• looking at something on their phone?  They\’ve probably just read something funny.  This may entertain them for a few seconds, but their overall mood may not be happy.  
• in a situation where sadness would be a more appropriate response, like just after finding out their pet or family member died?  They\’re probably putting on a brave face because they don\’t want to publicly acknowledge or handle the pain right now.

You may have noticed all the \”probably\”s and \”may\”s in these scenarios.  That\’s because I\’ve studied people long enough to recognize that there is always Option C: the one you didn\’t think of.  People are complex, and there is no 100% perfect way to predict people.  No AI, no autistic adult with decades of practice, not even a naturally gifted and charismatic neurotypical human, can manage perfect accuracy.  

That\’s not going to stop marketing firms from trying to make such an AI, of course.  With enough refinement, they can probably match or even exceed what I\’ve done with my brain.  Having such an AI serve marketing and businesses makes me uneasy, but perhaps such AIs could also be used to teach autistic people how to read situations and faces more accurately.  

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)

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 is a step forward from a previously posted article.  Previously, scientists and programmers had created an AI to predict what anti-depressants would help a given person, based on their brain scans.  The success rate was pretty good at the time.

This technology has now advanced, and several more studies have happened.  They\’re now giving the AI DNA tests and blood tests in addition to brain scans.  More interestingly, and significantly more hopefully, they\’re embarking on what\’s called a longitudinal study, to test the long-term effectiveness of the AI\’s recommendations.  

Longtudinal studies are ones that span years- often decades.  These studies do not interfere with the participants\’ lives, but simply follow them across the years.  The idea is to see the long-term effects of a condition like depression.  In particular, these studies will assess the participants\’ rates and severity of depression.  

The hope, of course, is that this AI is nearly infalliable and its recommendations can serve as a much quicker, more accurate, efficient psychiatrist.  Instead of trying up to dozens of medications over years of depression, you would be able to submit your data to the AI, which would spit out a treatment plan. Follow the treatment plan (this medication, that form of therapy, or that type of brain stimulation) and your depression improves until perhaps you don\’t even qualify for the diagnosis anymore.  

The reality probably won\’t be quite so perfect, but considering how much guessing goes into psychiatry in the first place, I feel any improvement would be good.  I\’ll continue to keep my eye on this technology, with fingers crossed for continued good results.  It\’s more important than ever to treat depression quickly and effectively, given the increasing rate in the general population.  

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)

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 tackles the effects of cyberbullying on children.  Autistic and other neurodiverse children are more likely to be bullied than your average child, due to our innate differences and the miscommunications that can go with those differences.    

The effects are about what you\’d expect for something that includes \”bullying\” in the name: measurably higher levels of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, anger and dissociation from their lives and selves.  Cyberbullying is emotional trauma, and preventing that can\’t be done by keeping an eye out for bruises on a child\’s arms and legs.

Now, traditional bullying, the kind I experienced in elementary school, can come with a physical component.  I was kicked between the legs, for example.  But bullying usually comes with an emotional component as well: I was mocked verbally for my tendency to cry when upset as well.  Later, in middle school, people attempted to mock me for my lack of fashion.  Unfortunately for them, I was too angry to give a crap.  

Cyberbullying is a bit beyond the traditional bully-on-the-playground or mean-girls-in-your-class experience.  Why? The ever-present nature of the Internet.  At this point in time, most children have a smart phone, and perhaps spend some of their free time on social media or popular video games like Fortnite.  

You see, I was safe when I got home.  The cruelty of my classmates couldn\’t follow me back to where I slept.  Today, bullying can follow you anywhere.  If you have classmates on social media, then you can have cyberbullying.  If you\’re playing the same online game, you can also have cyberbullying.  Heck, it doesn\’t even have to be classmates.  You can be cyberbullied by random terrible people on the Internet that just took a disliking to you.  

Actually, cyberbullying has one additional difference from traditional bullying.  This article doesn\’t talk about it, because it\’s more interested in explaining that cyberbullying exists… but because the Internet allows for anonymity, it is possible for a child to cyberbully themself.  It\’s a form of self-harm, like more traditional cutting.  Here\’s a NPR article about the phenomenon.

Needless to say, I hope, it\’s a subject that should be taken very seriously.  Emotional pain may be harder to spot than bruises or scars, but it\’s just as painful as physical pain.  Sometimes moreso, because of how invisible it is.  You can silently suffer and no one notices or seems to care, for years.

You can find resources to help you and your child fight cyberbullying in a lot of places, but here and here are good places to start.  Bullied people can also get help immediate via text to the number on this website or call the numbers listed on this website.

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)

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 talks about a thing I\’m pretty sure isn\’t covered in most biology classes, yet is incredibly important when talking about autism, depression, anxiety, or even drugs: the blood-brain barrier. 

\”What the heck is that?\” you might ask.  It\’s kind of like a sieve.  The brain and the bloodstream are connected, with this sheet of picky cells dividing them.  The cells allow things like sugar and oxygen through, but they block germs and most drugs from messing with your brain.  Which is good, because your brain is very fragile! 

People with depression, autistic people, and others with more fragile systems can sometimes have weaker blood-brain barriers.  When that\’s the case, the person\’s brain may not function as well as it should.  It may be harder to think, or harder to think on a high level.  Planning your day might be harder.  It might feel like you\’re thinking through a fog. 

Systemic inflammation can also weaken the blood-brain barrier, and that can be caused by being ill, having allergies, being asthmatic, eating dairy, and other things.  So then more bad things get to your brain, and you do worse. 

The point of this particular study is to note that the blood-brain barrier might be what your typical pharmaceutical regimen is missing.  In some cases, depression might not be a neuron problem, it might simply be a \”too much icky stuff getting into the brain\” problem.  So strengthening the blood-brain barrier would improve the person\’s wellbeing and happiness. 

Granted, they\’ve only done this study on mice, and mice are not humans.  But it\’s an interesting avenue of study.  I hope to see more on it in the very near future. 

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)

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 snapshots a self-sustaining cycle found in schools and other groups.  Honestly, I wouldn\’t limit this to young people, that area of life just happens to be where this research was focused.  It\’s more obvious with younger people, because younger people usually haven\’t learned to be as subtle or diverse about their exclusion.

The cycle can start at either point.  A person comes into a social group, like a grade at school.  Perhaps they have additional challenges, like autism or ADHD.  Perhaps they\’re simply from a different culture, or speak an additional language.  They may or may not be suffering mental illness at this point, but the other people in the group don\’t understand them, and so avoid them or even mock or bully them.  

This person is thus excluded.  The exclusion is emotionally painful, causing depression and anxiety as the person tries to make their way in the group.  Over time, and with repeated failures, mental illness develops.  The mental illness makes the person even more different than before, which alienates them further from their peers…

And thus the cycle repeats.  It doesn\’t actually matter if the newcomer has mental illness to begin with.  Given a typical group, this cycle repeats forever.  It needn\’t do so.  Influential individuals within the existing group can halt this cycle before it begins, or even after it\’s gotten into full swing.  Diversity training and anti-bullying training can help change the group such that all the group members are more tolerant of differences.

In truth, the latter situation is what I\’d prefer.  Teaching people that differences aren\’t scary, that skin color isn\’t something to be worried about, that other languages are just new opportunities to learn to say things you couldn\’t otherwise say, and that different people have different strengths, is the most important thing I think people should know.  
  
(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)

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 underlines the unheard voices in the autism community.  The rates for autism in black and Hispanic communities are at least as high as in the general populace.  Historically the rate of diagnosis has lagged, possibly because of the expense of a formal diagnosis.  The article also notes cultural differences and communication barriers may play a role.  Implementing universal screening, where every child is given a cursory check for autism by a certain age, would help eliminate some of those differences in diagnostic rates.

I have mixed feelings about universal screening.  On one hand, getting the answer to \”why am I so weird?\” young can be extremely helpful.  You spend less time wondering and more time actually learning how to co-exist with people who are different than you.  You can also get specialized help with your specific issues, rather than being left to flail and succeed or fail without support.

On the other hand, our current school system sometimes decides autistic children have to be segregated for their entire school experience.  Even children that would do fine in a standard classroom with just a few or even no accommodations.  Part of the reason I got as far into life as I did was because I didn\’t have that answer to \”why am I so weird?\”  I was simply expected to perform in a general classroom, and I did, because I was fortunate enough to have the family stability and resources to allow that to be an option. 

The ideal answer is probably \”implement universal screening,\” \”change the schooling system so it teaches relevant and necessary skills as well as academics,\” and \”change the school system so full inclusion is the norm.\”

That\’s neither an easy task nor a simple one, so the last thing I\’ll leave you with is an idea I saw on Twitter in the last couple days.

A friend once shared what she called the Parable of the Choir: A choir can single a beautiful note impossibly long because singers can individually drop out to breathe as necessary and the note goes on.  

Social justice activism should be like that, she said.

That\’s stuck with me.

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)

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 doesn\’t have to mention autism to scream its relevancy to our lives.  It\’s another example of a systemic change that might benefit autistic (or other neurodiverse) people most, but has benefits for everyone.

Before I continue, a note. Autistic people don\’t necessarily have low emotional intelligence.  We\’re often empathic, sometimes painfully so.  The disconnect can be that we don\’t understand why a person is upset, even if we can tell they\’re upset.  This can occur because we sometimes react differently to situations than neurotypical people might.

For example, my spouse and I are currently learning that we have vastly different priorities while resolving a conflict. I prefer to immediately figure out where the miscommunication or disagreement occurred, and try to modulate my emotional response and next steps appropriately, ignoring hurt feelings until this is cleared up.  He prefers to address those hurt feelings immediately, regardless of their appropriateness for what actually happened, and worry about the actual issue after the upset has been handled.  Obviously, this isn\’t an unworkable difference, but it does require some very serious changes to both our operating procedures when conflicts occur.

I\’m pretty sure, for all that my good IQ tests, that if they\’d given me an EQ test or some other measurement of emotional intelligence in school, I probably would have scored very poorly.  Maybe not \”here\’s your dunce hat, there\’s the corner, go sit\” poorly, since I have a painfully overtuned sense of empathy, but poorly enough to drive my point home.

So, that said: I don\’t know how you teach emotional intelligence, but I\’d really like a class on it, even now.  I think, now that I\’m in my 30s and have spent so much time studying people, that I might score okay on a test.  But I\’d rather take the class and find out it\’s review than go through life unsure.  If you know of a such class, especially a free one, please do let me know.

The benefit of this training for autistic people, as for anyone, is reduced operating burden.  The less you have to puzzle over and suffer through conflicts, the easier handling the rest of life is.  Autistic and neurodiverse people simply tend to have higher operating burden than others due to our differences, like sensory sensitivities, motor dysfunctions, learning disabilities, etc.  Reduce the operating burden, and the person can learn more and do better work.

In an age where schools keep slashing non-academic budgets because grades and test scores are all-important, I\’m uncertain that implementing something so important will happen on a wider basis.  One thing I\’m certain of, though?  Teaching emotional intelligence to everyone would benefit us all.  I can\’t count the number of apparently neurotypical, yet emotionally-clueless idiots I\’ve run across in my life.

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which  has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)

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 is both a significantly valuable activity for autistic people and others, and at least some scientists\’ attempt at understanding the benefits of mindfulness.  This is a meta-analysis, which is to say that instead of doing their own science, these scientists instead reviewed the existing studies on the subject.  Such studies are done in hopes of locating an overall trend in the data, and to help direct future research.

It\’s been known, at least unscientifically, that yoga is good for you.  It hasn\’t been known precisely how.  Practitioners themselves have opinions, of course, but nothing you could show on a graph, brain scan, or chart.  Apparently some of the studies that were reviewed here included brain scans, so various parts of the brain have been called out here as being affected positively by the practice.  

Effectively, yoga apparently helps you develop a more efficient, effective brain.  Mostly what they focus on here is how the effects are somewhat similar to aerobic exercise, which is unusual since yoga doesn\’t usually have much in common with jogging, swimming laps, etc.

My best guess?  This is an intensive world we live in.  Distractions abound.  We don\’t get enough exercise.  Participating regularly in a structured form of mindfulness strikes me an as excellent counterbalance to our society\’s normal.  Practicing mindfulness on a regular basis can improve your ability to handle stress (which autistic people usually have more of), anxiety (same deal), emotions (sometimes difficult for us), and self-awareness (also sometimes difficult).

It\’s something I\’d like to do better with, and I\’m trying daily journaling on an app on my tablet in hopes of starting the process.  I\’m a little overwhelmed with the sheer variety of yoga classes available, and the last time I tried a proper class at a friend-recommended place, it wasn\’t a beginner\’s class and I exhausted myself and finished the class frustrated and angry about being so terrible at it.  So perhaps I should do more research and find someplace that actually offers beginner classes…

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn\’t get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)