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>incapable of empathy or love for its parent Autistic people are not sociopaths, they are not incapable of empathy or love, they just struggle to understand wh

by spazx 7y ago

>incapable of empathy or love for its parent Autistic people are not sociopaths, they are not incapable of empathy or love, they just struggle to understand when you're expressing it, or to express it in appropriate way. Your fear of being unable to communicate with your child is valid, but autistic people are not "broken".

detritus 7y ago
You seem to be, by choice or haste, missing the conditions in my post - profoundly autistic people at the ends of the spectrum are, by societal standards 'broken' and are indeed incapable of empathy or love. It's not a nice thing to say or admit, but it is .. well, true. I have an autistic uncle who is not profoundly so, but is hard to communicate with and has problems existing by himself, often getting into trouble that is hard for the rest of the family to understand the logic of.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  We know how kids who really might be "incapable of empathy or love" behave, and it's not the sort of stuff autistics do. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_defiant_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_defiant_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conduct_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conduct_disorder Autistic kids are demonstrably not "incapable" of empathy as commonly understood. They may be impaired in their expression of it, but that's something quite different.
  - 4ec0755f5522 7y ago
    There's debate whether ODD even exists or is just PDA profile of ASD. I think it's PDA but not expert in this area by any means. I should say-- I think it's often PDA misdiagnosed as ODD. Which is very sad for those ASD kids not getting the help they need (because the "treatments" for ODD are probably not going to work well on a PDA kid).
- 4ec0755f5522 7y ago
  "Lack of empathy" in ASD people does not refer to love of other people. It simply means ASD people have a hard time predicting the behavior of others. That's it. They can love just fine. It's a pervasive myth, unfortunately. Indeed ASD people often suffer from extreme empathy e.g. towards animals or something upsetting on the news (war/famine/etc.)
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    There's some ambiguity between cognitive and affective empathy. There are people who seem to be quite lacking in affective empathy and the pro-social emotions, that one might definitely call incapable of love. But autism is not like that, indeed it's very different; at worst, autistic folks might be said to have impairments in cognitive empathy, and AIUI even that's disputed to some extent.

by spazx 7y ago

detritus 7y ago

You seem to be, by choice or haste, missing the conditions in my post - profoundly autistic people at the ends of the spectrum are, by societal standards 'broken' and are indeed incapable of empathy or love. It's not a nice thing to say or admit, but it is .. well, true. I have an autistic uncle who is not profoundly so, but is hard to communicate with and has problems existing by himself, often getting into trouble that is hard for the rest of the family to understand the logic of.

zozbot234 7y ago
We know how kids who really might be "incapable of empathy or love" behave, and it's not the sort of stuff autistics do. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_defiant_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_defiant_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conduct_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conduct_disorder Autistic kids are demonstrably not "incapable" of empathy as commonly understood. They may be impaired in their expression of it, but that's something quite different.
- 4ec0755f5522 7y ago
  There's debate whether ODD even exists or is just PDA profile of ASD. I think it's PDA but not expert in this area by any means. I should say-- I think it's often PDA misdiagnosed as ODD. Which is very sad for those ASD kids not getting the help they need (because the "treatments" for ODD are probably not going to work well on a PDA kid).
4ec0755f5522 7y ago
"Lack of empathy" in ASD people does not refer to love of other people. It simply means ASD people have a hard time predicting the behavior of others. That's it. They can love just fine. It's a pervasive myth, unfortunately. Indeed ASD people often suffer from extreme empathy e.g. towards animals or something upsetting on the news (war/famine/etc.)
- zozbot234 7y ago
  There's some ambiguity between cognitive and affective empathy. There are people who seem to be quite lacking in affective empathy and the pro-social emotions, that one might definitely call incapable of love. But autism is not like that, indeed it's very different; at worst, autistic folks might be said to have impairments in cognitive empathy, and AIUI even that's disputed to some extent.