1. Why are autistic guys so good at math? What probably is their ultimate destination after they’re done with school?
The answer to the first question tends to appear simple and it’s what you might be guessing: Many guys with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) tend to pay attention to small details and have mathematics as their special interest. That’s all there is to pass the subject as far as I am concerned though some other factors may come in play. I have given a simple answer based on my understanding but experts claim that:
Some children with autism show unique patterns of brain activation while solving math problems, particularly in a brain region normally used for face processing, suggests a study published 15 August in Biological Psychiatry. They also seem to use more sophisticated mental strategies to solve these problems than do their typically developing peers, the researchers found. Emily Anthes, THE TRANSMITTER, 3 October 2013
Like I’ve said above, math requires one not only to pay attention to small details but also to have a massive obsession for it. The love you have for it determines how ready you are to practice it daily. It’s like athletics; an athlete has to run/exercise daily if he/she wants to stay at the top. Now to answer the second question, guys with ASD are likely to fail in language subjects like English hence lower the CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average). For someone to be admitted into government sponsored university programs here in Kenya and some many other places, you need to garner the required CGPA.
If you can’t join the programs you’ve to sponsor yourself. For a guy who has extreme abilities in math but fails in languages likely due to poor composition writing, he/she is likely to be locked out and end up hustling hard in the streets. And guess what? The love for their special interest, math, will be haunting them from time to time as they hustle.
2. What usually is the plight of autistic students in their academic life?
The happiness of being extremely good at math is perhaps one of the big reasons young autistic people find life worth living for. They may experience bullying from peers at school because of their day-dreaming and ‘silent’ nature but I can assure you that none of that bothers them!1 Expanding on the ‘silent’ nature: Guys with autism tend to be poor at socializing and prefer to have very few ‘real-friends’.
Most of them talk less thus they are seen as ‘ever silent guys’.) People who interact with ASD guys usually ask them: “Don’t you have friends?” The interpretation of that question is: “Don’t you ever get tired of walking alone, staying at home alone, …?” As an autistic guy, I always find this question funny since I actually don’t get tired of ‘being alone’. Just like the young autistic guys are not bothered by bullying, I’m not bothered if people are bothered about what is bothering me. The young guys have math as their autistic special interests and it makes them happy and willing to live.
I have my special interests too and it makes me happy and willing to live. It sincerely doesn’t matter what the hell is happening around you as long as you have something that makes life worth living for.
3. Why do autistic guys have an aversion to touch?
It’s simply because an overload of sensory input causes intense irritability to their bodies. The spectrum in ASD means that there are different types of autism and severity for each. I’m not sure whether every autistic person is hypersensitive to touch but I’m here to talk about it! Guys like us avoid sitting next to other people because we can’t stand the irritability that comes with them touching us. This is known as tactile defensiveness. You’ll see us getting up and walking away whenever we see someone coming to sit next to us.
This also happens while walking on the road with other people behind us: we stand or walk slowly to allow them to pass. It’s like you can feel their energy when they are behind but that energy is just toxic (a hell pain-inflicting energy). This is the irritability to sensory input I’m talking about! Autistic guys feel like the other people being behind them is a deliberate action to push ‘evil’ to them.
As funny as it may sound; autism is disabling! For instance, someone might have to stand beside a road for hours just to allow other people to pass so that he/she can dodge the irritating effect of a sensory input.
4. Why has the graph of cases of autism risen so fast? Why are many people still oblivious of this condition?
According to the US based CDC (Centers for Disease Control), cases of autism have increased by 178% since the year 2000. This rise they say is because most people are being diagnosed with autism now more than ever before. And I agree with them. Why?
Because like for me I just came to know about the word ‘autism’ just this year. Funny enough, nearly 30 years have passed without knowing what I actually have been through. I’ve always known that I’m different though and have been called a ‘weirdo’ by some guys but I didn’t know the true identity of the condition until just recently. If not for the internet I would have probably died oblivious of that name. I’m afraid many people on the spectrum must have died not aware of that word too.
More stats released by the CDC indicate that the number of autistic people globally as of now is more than 75 million. Can you imagine that? That there is this great number of weirdos out there; and worse! There’s a part out of that number that is disabled. In Kenya, there are more than 2 million autistic people yet people hardly know about this condition. Why? The answer is simple: We have not created awareness of this condition well enough!
5. Did the boy in Matthew 17 have ASD? Are people who’re on the spectrum possessed by demons?
My Google search about the occurrence of ASD in the Bible led me to this chapter. There is a boy mentioned in this scripture who seems to have symptoms that we could, on a lower scale, attribute to autism. In verses 14 to 21, a man kneels before Jesus and asks him to heal his son who has a bad case of epilepsy. He “often falls into a fire or into water” (Contemporary English Version), the man also adds.
Today, some experts list the case of epilepsy as a co-occurrence of autism. I may not thoroughly explain what autism is, now, but just know that it’s a neurodivergent issue that commonly makes guys appear strange in the contemporary world. For instance some guys on the spectrum appear to want to live alone, extremely lost to anger and day-dream especially in childhood.
An important thing to note here is that not all guys who have epilepsy are autistic and the vice versa is true. Having read the verses (14 to 21) of this scripture, I guess you have perhaps identified that the boy was also said to have been possessed by a demon. This does not imply that guys who have epilepsy, ASD or both are possessed by an evil force. I think what the Bible teaches here is that these conditions individually tend to have mysterious origins and no human-led cure.
Joseph Gachau is a self-employed Autistic individual in the Kenya region. In his spare time, he writes blog posts around his Autistic experience.
