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> The condition is found in around 50% of people with autism Oh please, journalism . Wordless about emotions? Maybe. Not knowing the words for emotions? Maybe
by derrida 11y ago
> The condition is found in around 50% of people with autism
Oh please, journalism .
Wordless about emotions? Maybe. Not knowing the words for emotions? Maybe. Emotionless? Ha. Spend time with any group of people with autistic spectrum disorders & tell me 50% are emotionless. Confusing words with the phenomena & further contributing to the barriers they have to express their inner life, not on.
To say it matter of factly like this in science journalism with no sense of the controversy to popular perception or those who have relationships with neurodiverse people, or motivating <with references> the point of view behind a scientist, but instead, reporting as fact. This view is surely contravertial in the scientific community, let alone with the public in contact with autistic people - and the worse thing is, if you tell an autistic person, they could believe it.
The only basis I have for saying "this is surely controversial in the scientific community" is 1. my faith in that community 2. my experience of the emotional lives of people on the autistic spectrum. 1 says they'd find out about 2 because it's a real thing.
They have empathy & emotions - like colonization - the one's trying to 'help' can sometimes be the cause of the most harm.
- jazzyb 11y agoThe article doesn't characterize the disorder as being without emotions. It quotes researchers as saying that while sufferers display the physical signs of emotions, there is some sort of breakdown either in the expression (as you mentioned) or self-awareness of emotions.
- greatthanks 11y agoThe title refers to the inability of feeling emotions - which is the same as "being without emotions".
- nostrademons 11y agoAlexithymia literally means "no words for emotions", and the article makes it clear that people with the condition do feel emotions, they just lack conscious awareness and the ability to verbalize their emotions. The title refers to the experience from the point of view of the subject - being outside of their conscious awareness, it is as if emotions do not exist for them, even though they still trigger the appropriate physical responses.
- WhitneyLand 11y agoI don't think you've discredited the 50% statement. I spend a lot of time with people on the spectrum and my experience tends to match yours, however that's all anecdotal. It would be interesting to know where that number came from. Have you asked the author for a citation?