Simon Baron-Cohen: Autism and the male brain

A Stockholm Psychiatry Lecture held by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen: "Is Autism an extreme of the male brain?". Lecture held at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm Sept 26 2011. More lectures at / psychiatrylectures . Join us on / psychiatrylectures

[@shapesquishingsquirrelshif6385]

My brother confuses me. We are both autistic, but early on in life he was brain damaged. He's 19 and recently I've noticed him do things that don't fit this profile. Example: I was tired and went into my room, but it was very cluttered, so I sighed and walked out again. 5 minutes later he had taken all the stuff off my bed and came to tell me. Now, putting myself in his shoes, I wouldn't have even noticed that! But he knew, somehow, that I wanted to lie on the bed, when all I did was come in, sigh, and walk out again. Now, that's superior to what I could do, and he's supposed to be the damaged one.

[@mattiOTX]

Its because you seemed tense and came to the conclusion that the cloths might be what is causing the tension and therefore it was only logical to remove the clothes to make you not tense. Aspies can sympathize but empathy is the problem.

[@targoltran]

I live in Virginia and wish some of these intellectual professors would visit our universities in Virgina and provide lectures. It would be so nice to see them in person.

[@miracbarsusta1834]

informative and inspiring, thank you.

[@abbybluemusic]

The brain activity pics at 33:45, for those who clicked to see the scans

[@lynnstillwell2]

Fascinating. I'll have to try to find the Denmark collab study.

[@ney57e]

I bet the guy must be tired about being asked about his cousin. Imagine the family reunion, he will slap Sacha.

[@TotalRookie_LV]

Og course, he will, that how people great each other over there in Казахстан.

[@shinn-tyanwu4155]

Outstanding congratulations

[@carolinesteam1881]

This was a interesting video. Finally after waiting for 2 years I am getting assess my NHS for autism. Im 37 years old and I believe I had autism since I was a little boy but never got diagnosed with autism? Thanks to autism I have lost loads of friends because of my behavioural problems and people dont understand what I am going through. It always me making the first move all the time to contact friends or family and If I do that I get told off or ignore me. The only keeps me going is my big passion for Steam Trains, thanks to my hero my dear beloved late mum who got me interested in Steam Trains since I was a little boy. I miss her so much I want to be with her. Im so lonely and scared that no one hardly contacts me to see if Im ok or come and see me etc. Kind Regards Andrew

[@usa2342]

How about joining local volunteer/hobby club?

[@annak29]

I am so very sorry for your struggles. It is very confusing, lonely, and cruel to be isolated. The best thing is to maintain as much social connections as you can, such as Train club, church and small group/social gatherings, and keep a journal and work with a skilled, knowledgeable therapist who can learn about your particular difficulties and help you develop skills. If you don't engage socially, your therapy will remain "abstract" and not useful. It might be best to be patient with yourself and become a keen observer of self and others in social engagement. You can do a lot to increase your functioning and social-emotional self-management n and skills. As you deepen your relationships, you will learn so much more about others and yourself, and that in itself is a reward.

[@annak29]

To continue, one of THE best therapies is one that addresses the neurophysiological basis of autism. It's called "Safe and Sound Therapy" protocol. It requires simply listening to a particularly developed music for sessions of 30 minutes to 1 hour, for a total of 5 hours. The therapist must be knowledgeable in depth in how autism is neurological, and how to discern each individual's unique patterns, and then design an individual plan for each person to develop abilities and skills that increases their functioning. You can research it here: integratedlistening.com/ssp-safe-sound-protocol/ It's used with people of all ages, not just for autism but any neurological brain integration needs. God bless you on this journey. It will become a great adventure. 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@thereddemon4117]

Thank you, ANDREW, for writing this. We really need more of us speaking up, instead of letting the neurotypicals do the talking...

[@teslaandhumanity7383]

Andrew so sorry you lost your mom , you will meet again as the soul is eternal 😊

[@BinyaminTsadikBenMalka]

I do not think that we lack an ability for empathy in other ASD typed people, but we definitely lack it for NT people. And conversely NT people have a severe lack of empathy for the ASDs. Empathy is a relative term. Of course it is difficult for ASDs to empathize with different brain types. We see the same issues in men and women. It is hard for men and women to empathize with each other because they have different brain types. But I find that I am able to empathize far better with other ASDs because we have similar brain types. What the empathy data is effectively telling us, is that people who are closer to the majority brain type, generally have better empathy. This is because they have a similar brain type to the majority and can empathize with them more. The empathy test is also optimized for how a person would go about empathizing with a NT brain. Empathizing with a male, or ASD brain would require a different test and conditions.

[@PLPCPLAPD]

An important note is that he defines empathy in two major aspekts: cognitive and affective. Those within the autism spectrum have difficulties with the cognitive empathy, that is to read other peoples feelings and body language etc, while they have a well functioning affective empathy, meaning they can empathize with other people´s feelings and respond properly when someone is hurt etc. The opposite is found in psychopaths, who lack affective empathy but have an intact cognitive empathy, which enables them to understand other people, how they feel and react, yet they can't "feel with them", as per the affective aspect of empathy. This is according to Simon Baron Cohen.

[@BinyaminTsadikBenMalka]

Auzril Constructive comment, but "cognitive empathy" is not really empathy. And our "affective empathy" is more in tune towards other people with ASD. However, more basic and shared aspects between ASDs and NTs are easy to empathize with.

[@PLPCPLAPD]

Binyamin Tsadik I think that's the case with everyone though, I mean that you empathize with other people who are "like you" in some general way, rather than with everyone "just because we're all human". When it comes to empathy I'm no expert, so I can't really tell. As I understand it, empathy is both understanding the feelings of others, and "putting yourself in their shoes", which to me sounds basically like the way Cohen puts it, just that he separates the two usually intertwined aspects of empathy.

[@BinyaminTsadikBenMalka]

Auzril The empathy that they test for is specific to reading eye expressions. People with Autism look at the lips because they put more of an emphasis on what is said rather than how it is said. We are unable to detect eye expressions because we have no experience looking at eyes. This is not a lack of empathy but a lack of experience.

[@PLPCPLAPD]

Sounds reasonable, although it may not be just/limited to a lack of experience, but rather feeling awkward and stressed looking into someone´s eyes while trying to listen to them. I guess it's quite individual as with most things.

[@hypocriticalpacifist]

Very Nice!

[@SuperSight]

Very interesting. 4:45am NZST 17 May 2022

[@lorreneseebach3210]

Good information

[@stoutlager6325]

Dr. Baron-Cohen makes a point about resistance to change in this lecture I have never read/heard before and I think it's correct. If autistic person prefers systematized lifestyle, the reason they are then resistant to change is that broad life changes violate the preference to keep routine consistent meanwhile experimenting with small individual changes from that baseline state. Having thought about it some just now, I believe this is exactly the case for myself. That is precisely why I avoid change or deal poorly with it if I had no choice in the matter. If change is great enough that my baseline is disturbed, I experience the whole gamut of meltdown associated reactions. Also, I think that multiple choice question about the wheel and handle assembly sucks. 1. No part of the question specifies whether the wheel is constantly rotating or only rotating in relation to a single movement of the handle assembly, and 2. 'move to and fro' is a non-specific answer that requires the testee to assume (1) is true in order to confidently select that answer. Otherwise the testee could easily assume the opposite, only one action of the handle assembly, and therefore select answer A-move to the right and stop. In order to avoid this, two changes are necessary: first, the arrow on the diagram must completely encircle the wheel to illustrate a full rotation. second, the answers should be right-left-right, or, left-right-left, or, move either direction once and stop (implying system has seized and cannot do a full rotation as designed).

[@masonnix9566]

Why is he speaking about autism? Why cant we have someone who is autistic talking about autism.

[@edwigcarol4888]

Exactly . Most of us must have startled on this quite confusing drawing... Information on the device construction in 3 dimensions is missing.

[@kubaniski]

You're missing the Professors point. Simply being male does not make anyone better at xyz. It's that males on the average will differ in distributions of ability at xzy because of differing male and female distributions of cognitive traits for the population whole.

[@jessejennings3828]

I dont think women are more empathetic. The abortion and circumsizion rates of this place is very telling. Besides ot males who give up their lives for others. So hes wrong.

[@drdaverob]

@@jessejennings3828 nobody understands what you're on about.

[@TheCrazyFinn]

@@drdaverob I understand exactly what he's on about.

[@pallaciccione7885]

@@jessejennings3828 wtf are you saying,are you implying that abortions are somewhat correlated to having low emphathy?

[@ashleigh3021]

@@pallaciccione7885Of course they are.

[@lindltailor]

How does an autistic spectrum person distinguish between man-made systems and natural? Wouldn't a human-made system or preference for pattern matching, be just another way of showing empathy for the rules and systems of society, i.e. showing empathy differently? Wouldn't a true definition of autistic preference or special interest be in nature, or say astronomy, metaphysics as a system where there are no formal rules? Or is that included in the definition of system along with: technical / engineering (finding patterns expressly for human society) vs. natural sciences / math (a curiosity for patterns of the unknown) ?

[@xia100]

Couldn't help but notice the hand checking their digit ratio at around 56:00

[@TotalRookie_LV]

Kindergarden. Kids are asked what does letter 'a' remind them. Many said a paddle lock. I said, if one turns it upside down and then looks in a mirror at that letter, it would look like "9". We were 5 or 6 then. The teacher didn't quite get my idea, which was a bit frustrating, I mean, it's obvious! Maybe I just suck at verbal skills and explaining. Now I think I should have dumbed it down, drop the turn around segment and leave just the mirror part, which would result in digit "6". XD

[@Balloonbot]

2:34 9:1 is also the ratio to blonde people to non-blondes at this lecture apparently.

[@fruitingbody409]

i mean its in sweden

[@lasie1550]

Related with brain masculinization of the Fetus, is there any relationship with gender dysphoria diagnose of a woman?

[@stuttgurth]

Given that in beginning of the talk he discusses that female brains develop earlier and that this might and likely correlates to hormonal surges, then couldnt the amniocentesis study be skewed by how old the children were and perhaps females have a surge earlier. To me, the variability seen with the male data is eerily reminiscent of the hines 2003 study in that depending on when the testosterone was tested you could get large variations. These amnios were likely taken at varying times of pregna

[@joeypleasants4014]

I have been around cigarette smoking my entire life. My mind has synasteshia so my mind connects the Ssss sound to someone holding a cigarette

[@helenal3956]

Sasha as a side kick. That would have been fantastic!

[@wilfredarasaratnam]

My brother had a lecture by this guy. I joked to him that my brother should have come in dressed as Ali G but I bet he gets that all the time!

[@marciagrilo677]

Hello, I'm female and I always felt more inclined towards boys activities, especially lonely ones such as puzzles. Never been a good solver though because I also have ADD. I hated when people offered me dolls just because I'm a girl. I looked at dolls and they looked stupid and dumb and useless. Anyways... I dont think I'm autistic but I believe to be asperger. I'm all right with it. I remember feeling deeply disturbed when another kid cried. I couldn't understand why they were crying and such emotional display made me feel very uncomfortable. However I felt sorry for them. Oh well, I'm just rambling now. Nice to hear you.

[@Mcfreddo]

Good for you!

[@LeCarla]

I’m reading your comment and laughing as I’m sitting down on the floor in front of my child’s Harry Potters 3D puzzle trying to sort it out compulsively 😂

[@BendyLilZebraBabe]

Asperger's is Autism!

[@BendyLilZebraBabe]

I do not know what diagnosis is look like in your country but most of the world has already accepted that Aspergers is on the autism spectrum. The term Asperger's is not used as it is the name of the Austrian doctor that worked with the Nazi regime and even that doctor acknowledged that what he was looking at was a form of autism! There are many advocates for autism many of whom are autistic combated many things that this specific doctor has put in the medical sphere of supposed knowledge. Showing with actual medical data that many of his thoughts on the subject of autism in neurodiversity has a clear signs of sexism as well as continuation of misconceptions about the condition that have been proven Incorrect and outdated.

[@Goreface69]

From ASD to ASMR.

[@richiepropster4313]

ASMR is not my favorite of stimulation. ASMR is weird. But, to each their own. I just enjoyed learning about his studies!

[@turnertower]

Except the background constant coughing is triggering nowadays...

[@majdavlk649]

I found the cube in around 5 seconds :D

[@jasonofcompsci]

@TheJonMaster I say the same thing about ADD. The population with ADD is too large to consider a disorder. Rather it should be regarded as a grouping of similar personality. It's sad that society tries to fight it. It's like if society said that people with a high empathy quotient had a disorder, the argument could almost be fair (it's not), after all niche made the case and many took the argument.

[@smashy_smasherton]

Am I the only one who can see that the box diagram couldn’t possibly make that box? Details, please!

[@SoyoyoS]

Grande Simon

[@NameLast-wm5je]

Interesting. I would be ecstatic to learn how these studies and understanding holds up in view of studies of completely asexual creatures, or ones without hormonal variations. That is to say: Is it really driven by neurochemical states brought on by external factors? To what degree should humanity endevour to excell at developing benefitial neurochemical responses from birth? Is that key to a brilliant species instead of just a few brilliant individuals?

[@MarianoBulaBlackOrpheus]

let's see what dr.baron-cohen has to say!

[@RanaFiansa]

Is he somehow related to Sacha Baron Cohen? They have the same surname and have similar smirks and similar voice type?

[@aacra]

+Farras Fiansa He is his cousin.

[@alanastone5241]

Anybody knows that.

[@MarianoBulaBlackOrpheus]

Science does matter

[@edwigcarol4888]

A nagging Question along the whole presentation on EQ, SQ differents scores between males, females and AS. Do the latter have no Gender?? How their Gender influences the score? And is it then an advantage being an Aspie female getting more chance to balance the EQ and the SQ... reason why they are less women and girls diagnosed properly...

[@zeldatreasury6519]

I can’t deal with the Ssssss on every word

[@natalieedelstein]

Literally same. I had to turn the audio off and play with closed captions.

[@ascgazz7347]

Yup it’s ANNOYING AS FUCK.

[@ascgazz7347]

LotSSSSS of his talkSSSSS SSSSSSSound like thiSSSSSSSS

[@joeypleasants4014]

Yes it is annoying

[@joeypleasants4014]

Have any of you ever noticed that the sssss sound can be emotionally triggering?

[@MrDukemeister]

What happens if you have Aspergers and you fall somewhere in the middle of the chart, that is to say you're not that empathetic and you're not that great at seeing patterns and systems? Where does that leave you?

[@davidbudo5551]

As an outlier of the condition. Everything exists on a bell curve.

[@zenithquasar9623]

One thing I am very curious about the child spontaneous play experiment is to know what kind of context the kids come from. If at home they were given and conditioned to play specific types of toys. We already know there is a separation of boys and girls at toy/department stores. So, it might be so that these kids already have some comfort level with specific toys therefore in spontaneous play, they start playing with what they know. For example, my toddler niece does play both with diggers, fire trucks, and dolls almost equally because she got exposed to both sides. We tried not to limit, and we even mostly followed what she might be attracted to.

[@edwigcarol4888]

Yes this study is a joke.. the conditioning has still occured... spontaneous!?!

[@thecontinental4049]

He never does Borat. Lame.

[@yvonnebarash9373]

He is not the actor who does Borat, his brother is.

[@agrotta1650]

He isn't Sasha Baron-Cohen

[@alanastone5241]

@@agrotta1650 anybody knows that

[@agrotta1650]

@@alanastone5241, Really? Apparently they don't. Maybe you should think, before you type...

[@BUSeixas11]

Yvonne Barash cousin

[@mattiOTX]

Belief systems is what my interest lies in.

[@Musicch-gi8ej]

How does testosterone inhibit empathy?

[@TheJonMaster]

@drgdrf literally i can be anything. such as me i understand detail more than i do simplicity.

[@SHANZHAI]

A deEsser for Baron

[@TheJonMaster]

all autism is is another way of thinking. i have PDD and all i can say is that at most it affects sensory and you focus in on other things people do not.

[@ikaeksen]

8m 08s left image so look like a human holding his hands *temporal lobe|* under his feets and his head is the cerebellum.

[@SmokeyMcPot42087]

Where is that damn triangle?

[@MrDukemeister]

I would love to be able to have these empathy tests and brains tests done to me to see where I fall.

[@MecanicalEnd]

Why does Simon keep smiling when he talks? You can see these slight, half a second long smirks and wide smiles he often makes at the end of sentences.

[@Vaalferatus]

Mikko Mikkonen Because he is happy and cool.

[@SLRist]

+Mikko Mikkonen He's anticipating the Feminist community throwing their dolls out of their collective pram.

[@cherylspottedbear6513]

so like smilings a bad thing.

[@Cas77b]

I combine the idea of brain growth as a cause of some autism supported by Dr. John Rubenstein of the mind institute, and the fact that it is considered a normal part of development effecting mostly boys by Simon Baron-Cohen. Extrapolating this trajectory there should be a counter condition effecting mostly women, and Borderline Personality Disorder fits it perfectly. In other words its their feelings not yours.

[@amberhale460]

Except that BPD does not include obsessive interests, logical and literal thinking, synesthesia, analytical thought processes in relation to social interaction to be able to understand situations. It´s so easy for you males to lump females into the mentally ill category, unfortunately its not that simple- also BPD can occur in males. Yours sincerely a female, diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Condition.

[@aichpvee]

So I found the "3d shape" in like 5 seconds... am I the most autistic?

[@schande]

could the spoon-fed idea that boys need to take care of themselves and girls can always fall back on assistance have anything to do with this condition? for being able to totally focus on one and one thing only regardless of whatever stimuli, seems more like a virtue to me, for that's the place where magic is born.

[@MrWaterbugdesign]

25:05 "to and fro" makes me think these tests were written by people who themselves need to be tested. I thought it meant forward and backward which would be a wrong answer. I looked it up and it has several meanings most which are very general: "activity involving alternating movement in opposite directions", "from one place to another", "back and forth", "from one place to another", "toward and away", etc... It seems to me "right and left" would have been a much more clear answer. I'm old and have taken a few of these types of tests in my life and I've always thought what was being tested was at what point the person would stop. It's obvious the correct answer is always whatever the test creators said were correct, not what was actually correct. Still makes me mad.

[@TheCatholicPrius]

or multiple choice questions where the questions is worded in a way that makes 2 answers true but the teacher only accepts one... fun times

[@pistilliproductions2930]

Why do we always have to add caveat to guard against stereotyping. If you don't understand the ideas of average and also the idea that the exception confirms the norm, then please get out of stem all together.

[@crystalwhitaker2679]

amen

[@Daimo83]

It took him 10 minutes to make the case for the existence of biological sex. Such a waste of time and brainpower.

[@jlall4467]

He has a lot of critics, so he has to do that to reduce criticism

[@stuttgurth]

I spoke somewhat too early there was the one study that gave positive results. But the other 3 or so figures still show no correlation between hormone and behavior without clumping males and females.

[@Daimo83]

If women are better at detecting emotion from eyes why do we think women are underdiagnosed?

[@witchcraftandlizardry]

Because we are. Yes I adapted better and learned to mask better because of this but at a great psychological cost.

[@derekjeffries3720]

I am autistic and when I took the eyes test they said I had above average social intelligence.

[@gouverneur2001]

I got twenty seven out of thirty six of LabInTheWild. Though, again, it's probably a different test from the one Simon meant.

[@Myusernamerulez]

Do you have gender dysphoria?

[@Felipe2009cvb]

so that's Borat's brother uh?

[@DiNozzo431]

The whistling noise every time he does the "s" sound, I find quite annoying.

[@Sam-cp6so]

You and everybody else, why don't you try to focus on the meaning instead of surface level aspects involving the frequencies at which he vocalizes certain phonetics?

[@DiNozzo431]

Sam How do you suppose I do that when there are surface level aspects in his speech which contains said phonetics? And every time the frequency with which he vocalizes them is really bothering me. Also, I made no mention of not focusing on the meaning and content beyond that of which I mentioned. Add to that my, at the time, undiagnosed and unmedicated ADHD - which made focusing even harder and reacting to meaningless external stimuli that much easier. I am worthy of more than your preconcieved notions about my inability to focus or that I am focusing on the "wrong" thing, for even making it halfway through.

[@DiNozzo431]

I would like to add to my statement before you feel the need to get into it; I don't intend to argue or debate this with you.

[@Sam-cp6so]

dude just don't watch the video. don't be a bitch, the internet has enough of this shit already.

[@ianhamlett8839]

sssssssssssibilance

[@pistilliproductions2930]

Size matters

[@fionagregory8078]

yes with penises only

[@TheJonMaster]

@jasonofcompsci i completely agree. i mean this society as too many classifications and regulations. many people say ADD is not a disease. if your kids go crazy its not an illness just smack them up the ass. i mean look at what they teach people. now being autistic i can get very nervous and very hyper around certain people(such as attractive women) but does that classify anything? well thats what they call kids with ADD who do that. people just dont think anymore.

[@AurelieWaa]

1-About systems & differential interests, I wonder if the identification of what is called a system is not biased with a male perspective. Studying people to understand their behavior is like trying to handle a very complex system. However, it is more usefull in your daily life, in particular when autistic :) . 2-Should autism criteria be sex dependant (more sensitive for women) ? because a number of disabilities and difficulties might result from a gap btw what you are supposed to be able to do and what you can do (men meet less expectations regarding social interactions). 3- Hasn't no one ever had the idea to put a control to understand what is socialy induced or not? Eg girls preference for pink is cultural (not found in other cultures and associated to boys at middle age) and could be such a control in occidental cultures to see how environment impact preferences at each age. Plus this would allow to test wether its a matter of masculinisation (in that case why aren't all aspergirl lesbian, or become trans men?) or just being hermetic to socially induced determinism (-> agenderity) or a mix.

[@inconvenienttruths1045]

No, medical philosophy shouldn't be rigged just to get an equal quota of female "autists." The reality is that far more men suffer from autism than women do, so effectively the remainder of females do not suffer from autism. If you never have symptoms of a disability, you do not have that disability. If anything, this disparity in suffering should make society reflect on how men are mistreated.

[@edwigcarol4888]

I am happy particularly about the first point you made. Baron-Cohen blacked out totally the life-systems. The exquisite mind-blowing complexity of the smallest singe cell.. Mechanic is a joke compared to that. And theses life-systems follow laws, nevertheless evolving changing with their life time. Ex cancer-cells All studies seem flawed here. But this was 2011... Neuroscience and life sciences have developed exponentially since.

[@Andy19565]

Simon Baron-Cohen's theory provides a small glimpse as to why most, if not all cultures and society's are patriarchal. In that 'everything' which makes up a society (eg inventions, science, technology, institutes, architecture.......everything) is underpinned by systematic (male) rules and principles.

[@linros187]

That's only if you judge ' everything' that makes up society as being technology, science etc and not on it's social structures, how it's inhabitants care for it's sick and elderly, nurtures it children and young people, understands and values empathic traits that enables the people in that society to look out for, and support each other.

[@manlyadvice1789]

That only applies while the civilisation is growing. Feminisation of a society tends to happen right before the collapse of its civilisation. You can look up Dr. Camille Paglia's work on this if you care.

[@smartiepancake]

25:20 - the correct answer is a)

[@thefreedomguyuk]

Jagshemasz!

[@tomgoldswain3]

Imagine trying to do this ten years later 😅

[@user-hd8ej8yx9p]

Sascha Baron-Cohen’s cousin

[@biologicalmachine4850]

7

[@jean-pierredevent970]

He seems to be a strong systemizer himself.

[@gouverneur2001]

Fucking Duh, he's a scientist.

[@jean-pierredevent970]

@@gouverneur2001 Exactly and he is really on top of all the systemizers. You have empathizers who like people and the systemizers who like systems but he is a third category: he looks at people and sees the system in them. He and all the psychologists and psychiatrists are the alpha males of the extreme males who study "systems in people". (My evidence is that Freud, Jung, Adler, Piaget, Maslow etc..were all men. ) They must have been exposed to off the scale testosterone and so I see them as having a Neanderthaler brain. I hope nobody sees this as insulting.

[@nichomarpaunk]

Testosterone thing might be true.. my little cousin is autistic and he have abnormally long ring finger (i checked because this video lol).. not the typical "low" ratio on males, its even lower. Other thing i noticed is he is 6 yrs old but already got peach fuzz mustache like i was in middle school... also when he came to my place for swimming he took of his shirt and he got HAIRY chest and back.. and he is 6 YRS OLD! His mom smoking like crazy when she carried him, and once try to abort him maybe thats why the hormones are out of whack lol

[@Cas77b]

Have you considered the prospect of a spectrum going from Autism more common in boys to Borderline Personality Disorder more common in girls. Based on the long neuron growth allowing neurotipical people and borderline personality disorder people to quickly adjust to one another’s emotional state, but at the price of bypassing the reasoning and memory areas of the mind. Conversely, autistics bypass a very tactile ability to perform and puppet for them leaving them with feelings of apathy.

[@BendyLilZebraBabe]

Your ideas are NO LESS HORRID THAN THE HORRID IDEAS put forth by this "dr" and it makes females harder to diagnose than they already are and they're not as hard as medicine makes it it's just that as much as you feel autistic males are emasculated autistic females are often raped molested and abused or at the very least bullied into whatever form that those around her wants her to take on whether it's overly effeminate overly sexual which is what it usually winds up being or overly strong which will only read as masculine and if you are a tomboy when I grow up that could have added a whole new level of bullying or terrorizing to the equation and in this day and age you'll be forced to feel that you must take on not a gender conforming role but quite the opposite and told that you are born wrong...

[@BendyLilZebraBabe]

As far as females being better at emotional autistic females we are just better at understanding and recognizing patterns even patterns in emotional clues that most neurotypical people would not pick up on. So we're better at adjusting our behavior is needed. I will give you a couple of examples. When I was young I was I was given an IQ test and scored quite high. As soon as I started school it was a private school with a horrible environment can I shut down. All the teachers meet my parents have me tested again because they believed I was slow. Mind you this was the reason I was being tested in the first place. And the doctors told my parents verbatim there was no way I could repeat Autistic or have any type of learning disabilities because my IQ is too high. I was basically a genius. So when she took me back to the same testing facility and I attempted to fail the testing this time because I thought this would get me out of the school. The doctor eventually figured out what I was doing and yelled at me. This freaked me out so bad that I started failing the test quite sincerely. Which only made the doctor yell more. When the doctor told my parents that I was trying to fail the test or I cheated the first time. Because there's no way for it the test speed this dramatically different. One test says I'm a complete moron one says I'm an absolute genius not prodigy. The emotional testing that he gave for the eyes I got that completely wrong. Many of the things that he gave could have given any number of results depending on when it was given to me how old I was and how much experience I've had with the scenario. And what answers I thought would keep someone from hurting me if I was young no matter whether I knew the answer or not. When I was young I would have chosen to play with toy cars construction Cars Legos putty I love to run around and play in the dirt climb trees to all the things that was typical of a tomboy or a boy anyway. But I was made to feel like I was some type of mutant or evil or bad or wrong for this. The things were done to me because of this I don't even want to get into. So eventually it caused me to start to ensure I presented feminine. And I mean Super feminine in what I thought was the expected realm. Now mind you that these changes started to be made and noticed in me by the time I was five! So on average the kids they're looking at since females brains do develop faster we do have better emotional intelligence. We can pick up when people are weirded out around us. We can pick up on the little kids that most autistic males don't seem too. And since not doing so can after me being molested raped or worse by family members never mind strangers! I speak from experience! And many of the autistic females that you will speak to specially with the ones that were diagnosed late in life will tell you the same exact thing never mind the fact that some of us grew up in socio-economic situations where we wouldn't have been diagnosed what does autistic we would have been diagnosed as schizophrenic or some other type of mental condition. Don't think that because your male you escaped that! Because it is only been within the last few decades I'm talking about since the early 1980s that autism was even profoundly diagnosed. Before that it did not matter whether you were male or female you're mostly going to be diagnosed with some type of mental condition. You're only saving grace with if you were born in a middle class or upper affluent family especially a rich family. Not only could you for the resources to get your job properly diagnosed but you also could afford to ensure misdiagnosed. Never mind the fact that medical science is only even attempted to care about the medical health of females within the last 70 to 80 years and I'm being very generous with those numbers. And that's not just no some female hysteria. I'm far from being anything that anybody would call A feminist! That's just accepted knowledge. You do know that it was not until maybe like the 1950s or 60s that medicine even acknowledge that a female can have an orgasm or even care what was really going on up in her female plumbing. And now back to the diagnosing issue....... I can assure you that it would not matter whether you're a male or not. You can ask my male family members who were born in the 1960s and before that were diagnosed with schizophrenia bipolar or any number of the mental conditions that you would pause it or more synonymous with female traits! By the way my stepdad who was a mechanic recognize that I was quite good with building things I started working on electronics at the age of three. By the time I was five my family trusted me to fix our TV's and VCR's. By the time I was 10 there were very few cars I did not know and very little about the inside of a car I did not know. My knowledge of cars was one of the things I used to bond form with males when I started dating. Because I did not know anything else period and what else was taught me or traumatized to engrained in my psyche probably was not proper. My stepdad also try to teach my sibling and I to shoot where we were young. She hated it I took to it very well and it was very good at it. I only pretended not to be good at it because I did not want to shoot animals. But he really only stop allowing me to train because I stopped in the middle of target practice one day and told him that I like the mice. I don't want to shoot the mice. And I asked him why can't I shoot the kids that were standing up on the hill I thought he was probably concerned I couldn't make this shot. So I insured him I could make the shot. Thankfully he took the gun for me before I could show him. Because I did not understand what I was asking to do. I understood enough and I did not want to hurt the animals that I liked and I thought were not problematic. But I did not understand why I could not shoot the humans that were problematic. When it was explained to me. I felt horrible that I wanted to do it. But I felt horrible still because I still thought that would have been the more logical choice (three of the boys terrorized me one of the females bullied me and one of the boys was sexually molesting me...). There are many advocates for autism many of whom are autistic combated many things that this specific doctor has put in the medical sphere of supposed knowledge. Showing with actual medical data that many of his thoughts on the subject of autism in neurodiversity has a clear signs of sexism as well as continuation of misconceptions about the condition that have been proven Incorrect and outdated.I do not know what diagnosis is look like in your country but most of the world has already accepted that Aspergers is on the autism spectrum. The term Asperger's is not used as it is the name of the Austrian doctor that worked with the Nazi regime and even that doctor acknowledged that what he was looking at was a form of autism! There are many advocates for autism many of whom are autistic combated many things that this specific doctor has put in the medical sphere of supposed knowledge. Showing with actual medical data that many of his thoughts on the subject of autism in neurodiversity has a clear signs of sexism as well as continuation of misconceptions about the condition that have been proven incorrect and outdated. Also the postnatal so called study he references was flawed by more than just waiting 24 hours! That's so disingenuous is almost akin to lying.

[@BendyLilZebraBabe]

Also the timeframe complaint had more to do with it was commonly thought that autistic kids were created by refrigerator moms that is mothers that were cold and caring or not as emotional with their child and since it had been proven that seem to show a bit more nurturing aspects towards they're female newborns than their males that only tied into their biases and beliefs. But since we know that refrigerator moms have nothing to do with autism but there is some possibility that early stimuli even something as simple as being held soon after birth how long after birth you're held etcetera these things can have very key outcomes and effects on cognitive development and emotional intelligence.

[@BendyLilZebraBabe]

No! And outdated ideas like that and this male in the video only makes females harder to diagnose than they already are and they're not as hard as medicine makes it it's just that as much as you feel autistic males are emasculated autistic females are often raped molested and abused or at the very least bullied into whatever form that those around her wants her to take on whether it's overly effeminate overly sexual which is what it usually winds up being or overly strong which will only read as masculine and if you are a tomboy when I grow up that could have added a whole new level of bullying or terrorizing to the equation and in this day and age you'll be forced to feel that you must take on not a gender conforming role about just the opposite and told that you are really avoid trapped in a female's body

[@BendyLilZebraBabe]

Oh and about the eye contact I was literally traumatized into being able to make eye contact with people but because of that I also got accused of staring but that was because I didn't know when to break eye contact so I just held your eye contact as long as you were looking at me talking to me or in my looking in my general direction and then there were times I was actually zoned out my own mind somewhere looking at a general direction but people thought I was looking at them and making eye contact and once again got accused of staring females are better at being able to adjust to I contact the males not because we're Psychopaths but because we're often abused by Psychopaths so yeah being able to protect ourselves against Psychopathic Behavior maybe that is what is innate

[@livics610]

The idea is: could male brains like female brains, is it possible to live together, to love?...

[@dalelane1948]

Great lecture, hope the SJWs don't get it taken down. Talking about the differences between S's is dangerous territory.

[@ethandeister6567]

what?

[@aidanteall7186]

dude just shut up no one wants that here

[@Oskoreii]

Funny how "borat" is among the tags

[@adrianflo6481]

Ahhh how the times fly. The eugenics institute is no more, now its just a genetics institute.

[@divyabasuti]

😂

[@pccalhoun]

@BaltoLoneWoolf "Not every male relies on pattern, structure, and lacks empathy, so that has nothing to do with autism and a male brain." Except he's clearly talking about the biological sources of average differences, not outliers.

[@BendyLilZebraBabe]

Except most of what he's saying has been proven to be completely false so there's that

[@amberhale460]

I believe the problem is Simon Baron Cohens inability to actually understand Autism from an Autistic person´s perspective. I also have no doubt that men and women have their biological differences, however the criteria for Autism has always been based on a male gender bias, therefore leaving out fundamental traits that present in Autistic girls and women . All Autistics have special interests however those interests will normally be in a field corresponding to their gender/personality/upbringing, more simply put, a boy with Autism will naturally be more inclined towards maths and may become obsessed with numbers but that doesn't mean that Autism is all about Maths and Science and all things masculine. Us women suffer equally from Autism, the only similarities would be in the Logical thinking, need for truth, obsessive interests and difficulties with social interaction.

[@sciencetroll3208]

Well said. Especially your first sentence.

[@Mj783980]

"Us women suffer equally from Autism" Does this mean that the number of affected women and men are equal? or that the amount of suffering experienced by men and women with autism are equal?

[@amberhale460]

Various studies are finding the gap to be smaller, however nothing is conclusive. We are yet to prove if Testosterone really plays a role in Autism development, (that may explain the ´tomboy´ characteristics of many Autistic women, however it is not true for everyone) I meant in my statement that we find it just as hard to cope as males with the same condition :)

[@jesseward568]

Good point

[@D00kerT]

Amber Hale where does he say that boys suffer more and why does one have to experience autism to study and understand the condition. A doctor doesn't have to have cancer to correctly treat that disease? Also, he continuously noted that what he is referencing are statistical averages. He never stated once that autistic women won't be interested in math. Finally, the sheer number of men vs women who suffer from autism certainly lends validity to his hypothesis that it is related to in utero exposure to testosterone.

[@christianschneider5385]

hello, i have a Question, could you imagine, that a Person, with autism lost its Spezial skills, when i get into conversation, with the expectations, from the normally People, and try to be "normal", i mean, when this Person, Needs all its autistic intelligence, for beeing like the usually People? , this is often a Risk for developing psychiatric Problems, like schizophrenia and Paranoia, because the person, lost its real personality, in a second world, or from the beginning of its life, when the parents, dont have enough thime, for developing, Special autistic skills? for example, when they are traumatised, i say, an autistic Person, who tries to be normal, could develope Paranoia and schizophrenia, because than, it losts its first personality, on the others, are less intelligence, they use and lost its own autistic intelligence, for beeing like them thanks.

[@pccalhoun]

@BaltoLoneWoolf You make no sense...

[@scottishcommunist1364]

Autism spectrum disorder has make it difficult for people with different types of autism to get the specific help we need

[@jlall4467]

Ikr. "grouping different types of autism is problematic but grouping people as autistic or not is totally ok"

[@BendyLilZebraBabe]

People who are recognized as severely autistic at the same help as ever before there have been studies into this. Matter of fact more help is going to lose than going to people who are considered not as autistic mild autistic Etc things that science is beginning to understand is bs! A person can present as supposed I need a whole lot of support much of which those in that category don't get! But those in that category historically have not gotten that help! It's generally neurotypical people that don't understand how this work and especially parents were afraid of getting blamed for the kids autism so they can't have someone that looks different from their kid being called autistic as well. But the thinking like yours actually keeps people like that not only undiagnosed but as some of the largest abused traumatized neglected quantity of the autism spectrum! Oh and cute side note when I was a teenage female in high school of trying to get on my school's wrestling team and had to have the prerequisite High School physical that all athletes had to go through they discovered I actually have a higher amount of testosterone than not only most females but then what a female should have at all. And so much that they forced me to wait from being able to get on my sports teams until I could be tested again at a later date to see whether the levels were the same and then I had to be sequestered and have blood drawn several times just to make sure that the results were correct. They finally figured out that I just produce a lot of testosterone that was normal for me and they couldn't keep me off of the team because of it. I wouldn't have my hormone levels tested again until my early 40s because of suspected early menopause. And well as I said yes I was already in the throws of menopause at this point hormone levels were what they were so who knows whether I head high testosterone levels throughout my life or not. But I also have polycystic ovarian syndrome. But unlike what this misinformation that is disguised as a medical discussion says I started my period early I grew up fast early! I had large breasts most of my life! I had a body that was considered well more developed for my age early! So yeah a lot of this is bs. Actually most of the autistic females I know the ones that were develop mentally challenged enough with comorbidities to actually get an Autism diagnosis back when I was a kid but even the ones that were diagnosed late. Every single one of them started their periods or started sexually and hormonally developing early not late he's using skewed outdated or just completely incorrect data to confirm his own prejudicial confirmation bias!

[@thereddemon4117]

People are weird, they invent new words every day. Such as the word "neurotypical". First they say "Neurotypicals don't have autism or another pervasive developmental disability, pervasive developmental difficulty, pervasive developmental disorder or PDD, because those are neurodivergent conditions". And then they say "Neurotypicals don't have bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia or psychopathy, because those are neurodivergent conditions". And then they say "Autism the exact opposite of Neurotypicalism, like how the colors black and orange are the exact opposites of the colors white and blue, because Autism is caused by an extreme male brain pattern, whereas Neurotypicalism is caused by an extreme female brain pattern". But how can they say that when you have these boys who, because of autism, get emasculated, are viewed as effeminate and experience an inability to regulate their powerful autistic emotions as the result of neurotypical social constructs of masculinity and femininity and neurotypical patterns of communication being more socially dominant? See, the neurotypicals say "Autism is caused by an extreme male brain pattern and Neurotypicalism is caused by an extreme female brain pattern" but when boys get emasculated because of their autistic symptoms, like when they have meltdowns or get bullied in school, it looks like Autism is caused by an extreme female brain pattern and Neurotypicalism is caused by an extreme male brain pattern. Because the neurotypicals don't say what they mean, they say one thing and then they do something that completely contradicts it. Basically they lie and manipulate

[@BendyLilZebraBabe]

This is no less of an extreme and ignorant view than this crap doctor is putting forth it makes females harder to diagnose than they already are and they're not as hard as medicine makes it it's just that as much as you feel autistic males are emasculated autistic females are often raped molested and abused or at the very least bullied into whatever form that those around her wants her to take on whether it's overly effeminate overly sexual which is what it usually winds up being or overly strong which will only read as masculine and if you are a tomboy when I grow up that could have added a whole new level of bullying or terrorizing to the equation and in this day and age you'll be forced to feel that you must take on not a gender conforming role about just the opposite and told that you are really avoid trapped in a female's body

[@BendyLilZebraBabe]

YOUR IDEAS ARE NO LESS HORRID THAN THE HORRID IDEAS put forth by this "dr" and it makes females harder to diagnose than they already are and they're not as hard as medicine makes it it's just that as much as you feel autistic males are emasculated autistic females are often raped molested and abused or at the very least bullied into whatever form that those around her wants her to take on whether it's overly effeminate overly sexual which is what it usually winds up being or overly strong which will only read as masculine and if you are a tomboy when I grow up that could have added a whole new level of bullying or terrorizing to the equation and in this day and age you'll be forced to feel that you must take on not a gender conforming role about just the opposite and told that you are really avoid trapped in a female's body

[@stuttgurth]

Interesting. When you look at the data closely with the correlational studies looking at testosterone levels versus behavior. There is no correlation when you simply look at males only or females only. The correlation only works when females and males are clumped together. A huge flaw in his hypothesis if you ask me.

[@cyberau2023]

Deesser OMG. Couldn't listen to this: (

[@fdevlin5932]

Can’t get past the constant whistling

[@noemadbeatz2773]

Does he mention societal influences regarding sex roles?

[@davidbudo5551]

This comment section shows clear evidence that some people are much better at understanding systems than others, and most of these people are men.

[@fionagregory8078]

bollocks

[@manlyadvice1789]

You are correct, sir.

[@David-ln8qh]

It's almost like your environment shapes much of your behavior.

[@davidbudo5551]

@@David-ln8qh , environment has some influence on genetic expression, but what you're built with dictates how you will respond to any stimuli. You can't underplay either until you understand both at a fundamental level and how they interact.

[@David-ln8qh]

@@davidbudo5551 "You can't underplay either" Absolutely

[@demiseruin8043]

lol. i feel so manly now.

[@sciencetroll3208]

Like Amber said before me, the problem is busloads of neurotypical ' experts ' giving authoritive lectures and making diagnostic rules, when none of them understand us. You fail to understand at the base level, very much in the way that a Windows computer makes absolutely no sense of a Mac program. But you are the majority, and so you are right . . . . . . . Why don't you make use of your training and study that strange huge trait of humans ? Anyone who wants to understand us, give up, it won't happen. If you want to know how to interact, the place to go is the many videos done by Aspies. Judging by them, female Aspies outnumber males by about 5 to 1. Is Autism an extreme of male ? Respect for considering that, I'm Aspie and very male, broad shoulders skinny hips big hands and somewhat outlaw, but no, I think that's a red herring. I've been watching dozens of vids daynight all week and spotted something . . . many of the female Aspies see themselves as part male. Look at the surface and you might think there's a link. Look a bit deeper. They are more logical than other females. Logic is seen as a male trait. So they feel male. They're not, look past the cropped hair and most of them are real honeys. What's better than a good looking woman ? A good looking woman with lots of logic.

[@amberhale460]

Nicely put!

[@HammerheadGuitar]

So you are judging Apsergers by your own anecdotal experience? That's pretty much the exact opposite of what someone who actually has Aspergers would do. People with Aspergers tend to have a very hard time thinking in anecdotes and find it very easy to think it terms of statistics. ''female Aspies outnumber males by about 5 to 1'' People with Aspergers would never make a statement like this and mean it since all statistics show that the overwhelming majority are men. Aspergers and autism are called extreme male brain because of the reduced ability to empathize with others but the increased ability to remember information and use unemotional logic to solve problems.

[@mattiOTX]

I'm sorry but a doctor does not need to be a child to treat children. As an aspie I would logically expect you to understand this as its pretty straightforward. It almost seems as though you are taking the current west coast philosophy of the us with the idea of cultural appropriation in scientific study. Science does not care who does the test and research as long as its sound. He is not stating his opinion but stating simple interpretations of information. Please stop trying to be outraged for the rest of us. If you don't agree then state your argument but stop trying to shutdown information that I understand and agree with because I'm an aspie and disagree with your critism.

[@mattiOTX]

Why are you stating an emotional argument without providing counterpoints? You are not approaching this logically at all and you simply state its all a red herring and scientific appropriation. Stop with outrage culture, its not logical and I would expect another aspie to not fall into the same issue nt people have. In fact I would say your ideas on this are nothing more than a bigoted approach because you simply dismiss his ideas because he does not have asd. In fact I think that's nothing more than an emotional response and I don't think you have asd as people with asd don't care about who has what because logically it does not make sense. If you are dealing with someone who deals in systems then as long as the system is sound and is driving truth then its acceptable. Also if you want an aspie doctor ill post you a link that supports Simon's claims. Just enjoyed the 4 hour lecture myself.

[@mattiOTX]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/p6HMpaZ3YpWjeLM He also has a part 2. Stop acting like a bigot. Its unbecoming of aspies and paints us all in a bad light when you act in a way that you speak for all of us. Either speak for yourself or say nothing. You are not stateing any truths just breeding contempt. In fact some of what you are saying are untruths witch are very close to lies and aspies should not lie or rather hard time doing so and we definitely are not mistaken.

[@Crimsonking3]

The reason autism is more common in males is that they have lower levels of glutathione, the key detoxification protein in the body. They are therefore more susceptible to brain damage from mercury, lead and other toxins which are rapidly increasing in our environment.

[@HammerheadGuitar]

The main cause of autism is high levels of testosterone when they are still in the womb.

[@Myusernamerulez]

Even if this is true... how does it debunk the information presented in this lecture?

[@oman2555]

o lordy this lecturer is very borin ZZZ one thing I have to dissagree on is not all ppl who are aspie are super smart I for one am an aspie and I hated academia in school and college still do that why I chose to study for a BA in fine art instead and I love it.

[@BinyaminTsadikBenMalka]

Being successful in school is not dependent only on intelligence.

[@PLPCPLAPD]

When does he claim that all aspies are super smart? All I heard him say was that aspies have average to high intelligence, not that all of them have higher than average intelligence or are smarter in any such way, though they are generally better att systemizing than "normal" people.

[@BinyaminTsadikBenMalka]

***** Not everyone was born in a country that speaks English. Speaking English is not a measure of truth, accuracy, or intelligence.

[@BinyaminTsadikBenMalka]

***** He will only look uneducated in front of intolerant people that don't really matter.

[@PLPCPLAPD]

It is a twisted universe in which the accuracy of a statement is dependent upon spelling and grammar.

[@pccalhoun]

@BaltoLoneWoolf "Not every male relies on pattern, structure, and lacks empathy, so that has nothing to do with autism and a male brain." Except he's clearly talking about the biological sources of average differences, not outliers.