Autism and the Predictive Mind, Absolute Thinking in a Relative World: Practical Implications for Communication

Description

Many ideas about the autistic brain are based on conceptions about the human brain that are outdated. The computer as a metaphor for the brain, with its input, processing and output, has been very useful in the past, but seems to be incorrect in the light of recent discoveries in brain science. The brain is not a computer: the brain is guessing more than it is computing. . In order to make these smart guesses, the brain has developed a unique characteristic: contextual sensitivity. The brain uses context to predict the world. This is known as the predictive coding account of human information processing.

But what if your brain is not so talented in using context? What if your brain does think in absolutes? This is the case in autism. Difficulty seeing and understanding context can explain why people with an autism have difficulties with communication, social interaction, sensory stimuli, and flexible thinking and behaviour in daily living.

We will explain the concept of absolute thinking (reduced contextual sensitivity in predicting the world) and explore the implications for communication with autistic children, youngsters and adults.

Topics that will be covered are:
– What is so difficult in communication? Vagueness and ambiguity. Words don’t have a fixed meaning. Whatever we use to communicate, it requires contextual sensitivity.
– What are autism-friendly forms of communication? Why is using visuals not necessarily autism friendly? How to make your visuals easy to ‘read’?
– Learning to ask the right questions. How to support autistic people in understanding what you want them to express? What are autism friendly questions? How to have conversations with autistic individuals?
– Absolute thinking and communication issues in autism. Pushing the context button makes your communication autism friendly. How can you push the context button?