hello welcome to sophie and co i'm not saying diagnosed with autism as a baby doctor said he'd never leave a life outside especially institution but it proved him wrong now he's a professor teaching others about the needs of people with autism dr stephen shore is my guest today. the number of children affected by autism is on the rise but the condition remains hard to define while many think it's an illness that people who have a which isn't don't consider themselves sick what does it mean to be so different. people really disadvantaged can they be integrated into society and against society benefit from their innate talent. dr stephen shore a professor at adult fire university which is an researcher lecturer diagnosed with a.s.d. himself welcome it's really great to have you on our show today so let's start from

the big thing out what is it is it a neurological disorder or is it a psychological thing oh autism is a neurological difference i look at or to some nonstandard where perceiving processing the environment. and doing so it causes differences in communication social interaction sensory issues and. it also results of us having a widely varying skill set which means the things that we're good we can be extremely good and the things that challenge us can be extremely challenging. i just want to go to the origin so where it comes from oxygen is the second most prevalent near a developmental disorder among children today about one in sixty eight children has

been identified with a.s.d. in the united states why is it growing so fast why is it always has it always been there but we just didn't know about it before even just a generation ago we see a sharp increase in the prevalence of autism from one and some to no one in sixty eight in the united states and i believe it's a combination of greater awareness and expansion of the definition of autism and also i think we may be doing something to the environment which may be causing it increase well talking about the environment there's a new study found that says that exposure to sterile common agriculture of pesticides during pregnancy increases their risk of autism for children is that something you would agree with i would say that at least it's something that's worth looking at and validating this study. we know the.

it's been causing other health problems so it's possible that that's also causing. contributing to an increase in autism do know that the environment is dirtier than it used to be. and that's causing an increase in all kinds of disorders but i mean you researched autism do you have one core reason that causes autism that causes disease order or there is no such thing are we still don't know where it comes from. well at this point the best minds in research believe autism starts with a genetic predisposition and that can be seen as autistic characteristics tend to run in families when i mean children on the autism spectrum i often see those characteristics in their parents or other siblings that speaks to genetics if we get deep into the science of genetics the best that they come to. this point

is that the characteristics of autism are spread over a more than one hundred genes and then this genetic predisposition interacts with something in the environment and we have a lot of clues as to what that is that might be as you just mentioned possibly. possibly other things. the problem is is that we don't have a firm grasp on exactly what those triggers are. now talking about real life what is it like to be an autistic individual and at the same time leave a highly functioning social life. does it stress you out is it stressing well it can be. for those of us on the spectrum who are socializing who are out in the community it requires a lot of thought keeping track of the rules of social interaction and it almost seems like most people have these rules built into their brains it's almost as if the program is hardwired for those of us on the autism spectrum even though it may

not be hard wired the good news is that we can learn these rules of social interaction the challenge can be. a number one we have to be taught and then too we have to keep these rules in our minds as we socially interact so for example sometimes i have to even remind myself to make sure i do have proper eye contact that i properly interpret in non-verbal communication and i believe that most people who are not on the autism spectrum don't think about these things so you're saying the double meanings are really hard to grasp for autistic people is that what you're saying. that's right. double meaning idioms mixed emotions office politics these can all be very challenging for those of us with autism and it just so happens to be that because this is

a challenge for me it's actually become an area of special interest something that i enjoy studying and thinking about learning. however practicing in real time can be a challenge now we all know that school is a coral environment children aren't that tolerant to someone being different children are actually pretty mean how do you deal with it i mean you being very different from others in high school well our. public school a grade school for me was very difficult because it's. different very different from michael. right so then there was a lot of bullying and teasing and even today. we find more people than not on the autism spectrum are bullied in school and i believe the resolution to this problem is education education and developing awareness in students at the grade school level of people who have differences because with

greater awareness with explanations as to why their classmate might behave the behavioral in a certain way of doing a certain thing. comes the power to be of help and i've seen situations where a child who was diagnosis of autism was explained to a classroom where work has been done in appreciating and understanding differences classmates become helpful to that student. bullying decreases sharply. now tell me something how come some people with autism are able to find personal fulfillment in life like yourself and then others are stuck in a certain point in development and can never integrate into society what does that depend on well a lot of them is an extremely widely varying condition and believe some of

the preconditions for promoting success and fulfillment in people with autism. has to do with recognizing the straights and accepting people for autism is who they are but at the same time realizing that there may be significant challenges that need to be overcome so when i was diagnosed with autism i was pretty sick significantly affected i was known for a boy i had meltdowns and nobody knew what to do in those days when i finally did get a diagnosis my parents accepted me for who i. yes but at the same time recognized that there were significant challenges to be overcome if i were to lead it fulfilling and productive life now like you've said to the progress is for your future was pretty dire i mean institutions doctors said you were very ill but you were able to overcome all of that what was the most important thing that helps you overcome it. the most important thing was that my parents believed. i

was an intelligent person and they responded to my interests they promoted my interests so for example age four i was found in the kitchen taking apart watches with a sharp kitchen knife taking out the motor the gears the hands of the thing and putting it all back together again in the watch still worked so instead of looking at that as perhaps some sort of strange behavior maybe i should be focusing more on social interaction of communication sue my parents provided all kinds of other things to take apart so i think promoting those interests in people with autism is an important road important key to success and i find that those on the autism spectrum who are successful have found a way which to follow their interests and tell tell me something if an autistic person has someone who gives him extra time extra care and has an understanding and

acceptance of who or she eats does that mean that that person can certainly overcome autism. i think it increases the probability that they can learn better how to work with their artistic characteristics so when we talk about overcoming autism. i wonder if a better word is learning how to work with the characteristics of autism so i still have autism i still have challenges i've learned how to work around these challenges and even to avoid some of those challenges that are particularly difficult still unable to lead a fulfilling and productive life. dr sure we're going to take a short break not right now and where you come back we're going to continue to talk to dr stephen shore autism expert and we'll talk about problems of integration for options to individuals and the nuances of their vision off the world stage and.

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this is about making the business survive. corporations still love the regime still hate the parishioners who move freely. go through. she still care about you or me corporations only care about offering. people come to untouched forests and leave massive bleeds for the state come on. we're not going to quit we will not stop until it is done what is more precious

music more movies. please please. please. pew. pew. pew. pew. pew. pew. pew. i'm abby martin the stories we cover here we're not going here in iraq it's our

story. talkers a reason they don't want international. outrage now let's break the set. and we're back with dr steven sure a professor i don't fire university autism researcher diagnosed with a self welcome back to the show now let me ask you is it important for people with oxygen to be integrated into society or it just feels more comfortable to be in your own world or i think it's important for those of us with autism to be integrated into society society is pretty much integrated with. we're all

integrated with ourselves with each other i should say. as for being in our own world. the way i look at it is the people with autism. are in the world and in some cases are in the world too much and what i mean by that is due to sensory sensitivities we may perceive light vision. touch and other things more strongly than other people and if these sensations are too strong they can cause the person with autism to be overwhelmed and then appear to withdraw. so sensory sensitivity that you mentioned is that a common thing for all who have autism what forms does it take well at this point everybody who i've met on the autism spectrum has sensory issues i do have a friend on the spectrum who says he doesn't have any sensory issues at all but i also wonder why the shades of doubt in this house and the lights are off. and. the

way these sensory issues can take place for example many people with autism see fluorescent lights like most people perceive a stroebel. so i magine having to go through work all day and go through school the entire day in a room that's lit with a strobe light it's certainly going to have an effect. on your productivity. fessor what do you see and i understand that other people don't. know that's a good question because so often the focus is on what people with autism. don't perceive that most people do but we can also flip that on its head and recognise that there may be things that people with autism recognise can see and perceive that most other people or most other people and things that i often perceive that other people do include patterns disruption in those. for example that

makes me a very good proofreader or i can even see in a in a document if a picture is even one pixel to one side or another too far autism also helps me be a good musician and also understanding mechanical devices so this is some of the strengths that autism brings to me tend to be beyond the typical population and what is the hardest thing for you to handle while interacting with others the hardest thing for me to handle is when there is mixed messages mixed emotions so that is for example when the person is saying one thing they're actually feeling something else. to think about you said years studying that phenomenon why is it so difficult for an artistic person to understand what the other person is feeling did you come up with an answer. i believe that the difficulty stems from

a difficulty or challenge in reading nonverbal communication research suggests that non-verbal communication makes up to eighty percent and some researchers believe even up to ninety three percent of total interaction so that means those of us on the spectrum are only getting maybe seven percent or twenty percent of the total interaction package and that seven or twenty percent is just words so we're highly dependent or over dependent on the written or spoken word. when we have difficulty perceiving what is known as pragmatic so what is happening between the lines of behind those words and that is why one we tend to be very literal you know interpretation of language because that's all we have without the backdrop of the nonverbal now you also said that music is that her anger stude by people with

doctors and then words do we know why i believe that whatever scrambles the speech centers of the brain leave the musical once intact. one of the one of the things. one of my activities includes giving music lessons to children on the autism spectrum and i find that those individuals i work with they're all over the spectrum some of herbal some are hyper verbal some of non-verbal in their skills also ranges over the entire spectrum where some of them could be professional musicians if they so choose and others work harder at it but they still enjoy it and i believe whatever the neurological reason is allows people who stutter to not start or when they saying is likely the same reason music can speak to many. but with autism where is verbal interaction made daughter may be difficult

but since you're saying that it's really hard for you to read between the lines how did you figure out what to do in your personal life because you went to school he went to college i mean you had several dating experiences before you got married so how did that happen for you did you make friends right away and how were you dating women if it was so hard for you to understand the unspoken they on sat or part of it is studying nonverbal communication and what it is once i realized that nonverbal communication was a you might say a channel of interaction that caused me to become extremely interested in it and i would spend hours reading books on body language social interaction dating relationships and so on so i did my own intensive study on. another. another another thing that helps me is just being very vocal about

things i don't understand so for example perhaps with my wife it means that we have to talk about things more than perhaps the average couple when there isn't you might say magical mind reading the couples the supposed to have we just realize that it's either not there or it's going to be less than a typical couple so we talk about things perhaps more than others and in that way perhaps having autism even helps a relationship because we have to talk about issues in the order to understand them tell me something is there such thing as intuition for artists do you have it. yes i do people with autism do have intuition i know many people with autism who are in some ways very good at reading certain aspects of people i believe i'm pretty good at touching certain things. about people when i. interact with them and

it may be that we look at things differently than the typical population so in that way it can be helpful so you said you studied body language like people study math or physics if you've been married for twenty years now what about your why was she familiar with your condition how did she approach the whole thing when you guys started dating and living together well that's a very interesting question when we started dating and my wife like. the other women i've dated never was able to perceive the nonverbal cues that indicated a woman was interested in me so they would have to basically just tell me. the same thing with my wife we had met as music students and we started by reviewing each other's homework which then morphed to words. doing things socially and then one day at a beach she suddenly gave me a hug and

a kiss and held my hand and at that point i had a bit of a social story down there having been through some experiences of just not getting it and at that point i created a bit of a social story which went something like this if a woman hugs who kisses you and holds it and all about the same time they're probably means they want to be your girlfriend and if that's the case you better have an answer right away it could be yes no or further investigation of an analysis indicated and it seemed to be a good thing to do as a result we've now been married for a little over twenty four years. now you were hired as a professor because of your artistic abilities now in spite of your artistic limitations so autism can turn from men inhibition as it is commonly perceived to an advantage right yeah that's right and i believe that we're reaching

a cost realization as a society. people with autism. intentionally have great contributions to make to society and we're beginning to see organizations schools and. businesses and otherwise seeking out and hiring people with autism for those characteristics so when i interviewed for my job at adelphi university they had done their research and it was a very good and refreshing interview because instead of disclosing that i have autism and trying to convince them this is where i might want to hire a person with autism than someone who doesn't have autism it was more about we could just focus on the aspects of the job and whether i was suitable for the position we see other organizations such as say p. which is a big software company that. is now collaborating with special the stirrer which is

translates to the specialists danish and together they're hiring people with autism are seeking people with autism because of the skills they have in information technology and i believe we're just getting to a point know where society is beginning to realize that there are some strengths that people with autism that can be very useful in a in employment situation. professor just really quickly what is the most common the biggest misconception about options and just in a nutshell i believe the most common misconception. about autism is people with autism do not want to interact with others and do not have emotions. in my. in my communicating with my colleagues on the autism spectrum or meeting hundreds of people on the autism spectrum number one i find that we have emotions just like

everybody else and we do desire to interact with others i believe that myth may stem from those of us with autism because we interact differently and communicate differently many of our social interactions and up in failure sometimes out of straw fix. if anybody had the same amount of failure attempting to successfully socially interact then maybe they too would give up on interacting with others. professor thank you so much for this amazing insight into the world of losses and. we thank you for the interview wish you all the best with your research we're talking to dr stephen shore oxes and researcher lecturer ah there are diagnosed with a asty himself talking about where our system comes from where it stands right now

in the world and how optimistic people should be integrated into society and that's it for this edition of sophie and i will see you next time. there's a. privacy and security for your party there's a goal. that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve answers from it's all on politics only on our t.v. . i wonder if allegations of

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