Rdos blog

There is a new study comparing modern human and Neanderthal brain cases. Link: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/11/neandertal-brains-developed-more.html?etoc

The study concludes that Neanderthal did not have the same development regarding language and complex social networks. They speculate that they were less good at language and trade.

Regarding trade, this is supported in the book “Desolate landscapes” that concludes that Neanderthal seemed to use raw materials from their surroundings while modern humans seem to have traded a lot more as evidenced by long distance movements of raw materials. So, this notion is supported by archeology.

Regarding language, it could very well be that Neanderthal had differences in language and language acquisition. It is quite possible that their language use were related to imitiation of animal sounds rather than social learning of language. As previously posted, autistics do not acquire language the same way as neurotypicals do. Small isolated groups also do not lend themselves to the same type of language use that is typical for modern humans.

It is evident that these findings fits perfectly well into the Neanderthal theory. It is in the areas of language and social networks that Aspies lack adaptations that neurotypicals have. Neanderthals instead had a different set of social adaptations for living in small groups.

Similiarily as the physical traits, it should be possible to discriminate Aspies from neurotypicals based on brain anatomy. There is a recent study on this subject here: http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/30/32/10612.

The popular press makes it sound like psychiatry has finally found the brain defect that will enable us to diagnose ASDs on physical  traits, and in the end identify the defect and dispose of it. This is hardly what the study found.

The study found that if 20 people with ASDs and 20 neurotypicals where mass-surveyed for every possible anatomical difference, they were able to place them in the correct category with very high confidence.

The method used looks an awfully lot like the factor-analysis method that Aspie-quiz used to obtain weight factors for being Aspie and neurotypical, and which made it possible to classify people without a maunal scoring algorithm. The researchers have basically replicated the Aspie-quiz method, albeit with a data-set of 40 where Aspie-quiz used 150,000.

The results seems similar as well. They found that no single difference can provide good discrimination between groups, but instead there is a need to use many different meassures. These were related to volume and  geometry, and existed in many different areas of the brain  and in both hemispheres  (even if one were more relevant than the other). This is what Aspie-quiz found as well. There was a need for about 150 diverse personality-traits in order to make good judgements for people’s Aspie-NT profile.

The study also found that ADHD was less well defined, which is expected when ADHD is mostly related to a single dimension in the Aspie profile (Aspie social).

This kind of distribution of many different brain differences being related to ASCs is what the Neanderthal theory expects us to see. The authors provide no real theory for how their findings could be explained, but the Neanderthal theory explains it very well.

It is necesary to point out that the small sample size and large amount of differences tested makes this a data-mining project with many possible problems. In the worse scenario, a new sample of 20+20 individuals might fail totally in placing participants in the correct groups if the differences found are only particular to the subjects used.

There is a new, interesting, study on ASD (mostly autism) and language development (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/07/08/1003882107.full.pdf and http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2010/07/09/1003882107.DCSupplemental/sapp.pdf).

The study does a good job in differentiating ASDs from typically developing infants / children, as well as language delayed children. It does this with the help of child developmental theories and automatic classification of sounds in natural settings. It finds three acoustic factors belived to be involved in typical language acquisition, and medium length of utterances, to cluster together and discriminate ASDs from typical development pretty well. It finds that the these same factors show good age-correlation for typically developping children, but not for autistics.

This is all very good, but what does this say about language acquistion in ASDs? I’m afraid it has nothing at all to say about how language acquisition occurs in autism, and even more problematic, it might lead to ASD infants being subjected to intensive ABA programs in order to acquire language like typically developing children.

So, how do autistics acquire language? If they lack babbling, cooing, and largely innate language acqusition traits that just need some parameter adjustments, how exactly do they acquire language? If they largely lack the whole packet of specific adaptations, it seems more like a miracle that any autistic child could acquire language, when the fact is that most eventually do. It seems like they would need some powerful alternative.

Aspie-quiz has a possible clue. Even adult Aspies have a preference to mimick animal sounds. This is part of the Aspie hunting adaptations, that are largely shared with Aspie communication traits. Having absolute pitch is also related to the Aspie phenotype. It seems reasonable that Neanderthal infants would be experimenting with animal vocalizations, as this was a key survival trait. Thus, it could be that Aspie infants have natural predispositions to imitate and exeriment with animal vocalizations. This could provide a way into language acquisition as well. The child could crack the code of language by utilizing it’s expert abilities to dechiffer animal communications.

An additional common difference between neurotypicals and Aspies is how memories are organized. Neurotypicals typically use verbal memories in the left hemisphere while Aspies often use non-verbal memories in the right hemisphere. With non-verbal memories, there is a need for a translator into verbal representation, and finally into utterances. It could be that the whole transformation from non-verbal representation to utterances is learned mechanically by Aspies.

What we would need in a future study is new parameters that are related to mimicking animal sounds, rather than typical language acqusition. Without some parameters in the Aspie populations that show correlation with age, we have no idea how Aspies acquire language.

There is a relatively large study in the Netherlands about physical characteristics of non-mentally retarded children with ASD.

Link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/ck441558236x33w7/fulltext.pdf 

While the people behind this study probably didn’t reflect on the traits they have found, many of them seem to be physical Neanderthal traits. 

Definite Neanderthal traits

* Eyes deeply set.  Reference: “Close-set small eyes are deeply sunk under the “visor” of the heavy brow ridges”.

* Prominent premaxilla. Reference “Morphologic study of the premaxillary suture at its different borders (i.e. the nasal aspect of the frontal process, nasal and palatal aspects of the palatal process of the maxilla) indicates a persistence of the suture among very young Neandertal children in comparison to the condition in extant ones.”

* Palate high/narrow.  Reference “The palate is narrow and extremely high.”

* Macrodontia/teeth asymmetry/abnormally shaped teeth. Reference “Taurodontism is a condition found in molar teeth where the body of the tooth and pulp chamber is enlarged vertically at the expense of the roots.” “The condition is of anthropological importance as it was seen in Neanderthals.”

* Large nose.  Reference “The Neanderthal’s huge nose is a fluke of evolution, not some grand adaptation, research suggests.”

* Nose bridge prominent. Reference “And heavy supraorbital ridges met across the bridge of the nose.”

* Nose concave. Reference “A concave, angled nasal profile.”

* Lower jaw prominent. Reference “The concept of forceful chewing is also evidenced by the heavy jaw.”

* Toes widely spaced. Reference “a gap of 1.6 cm marks the separation of big and second toes.”

Definite non-Neanderthal traits

There are no definite evidence of traits that could not have been of Neanderthal origin.

Inconclusive

* Brachycephaly. Reference “I believe strongly in neanderthal origins of europeans. Another fact is that we find brachycephal neanderthals exactly where today live dinaric people (Brachycephal); the only brachycephalic neanderthals are those of Crapina and Vindija caves in Croatia.
Others were dolichocephalic, as are the people of the same places today.”

Traits that cannot be assessed

* Face coarse

* Forehead prominent Neanderthal had prominent brow ridges and a low sloping forehead. It is not straight-forward if this means they had prominent forehead or not.

* Macrostomia

* Microstomia

* Short philtrum

* Upper lip cupid bow

* Long uvula

* Ear low-set

* Ear posteriorly rotated

* Ear lobe crease

* Toes syndactyly

* Hypermobile/hyperlax joints

* Multiple nevi

* Hypo-/depigmentation patches

* Open mouth appearance

* Abnormal whorl (non-frontal)

* Full cheeks

* Periorbital fullness

* Eyebrows arched

* Lower lip full

* Upper lip thin

* Prominent philtrum

* Dimpled/grooved chin

* Prominent ear

* Ear lobes attached

* Inverted nipples

* Dry skin

* Nails striped

* Toe proportions

Unintersting traits

* Face asymmetry

* Eyes asymmetry

* Mounth asymmetry

* Halluces valgus

* Face expression less/dull

* Clinodactyly

* Pes Planus (flat feet)

Conclusion

Nine of the traits had a definite Neanderthal connection, one was questionable, and 29 could not be assessed due to them not being related to bone structure. None of the traits could be ruled out as definitely not of Neanderthal origin. An additional seven traits are probably related to problems with hybridization (mostly asymmetry).

Evidence from archeology suggests that Neanderthals had limited social exchange, and lived in small, scattered groups. They would need some mechanism for avoiding inbreeding, and might also have evolved some specific adaptations.

Modern human’s primarily pairbond in age-matched pairs. They seek partners in distant groups when possible. Living in age-matched pairs optimizes survivial chances for offspring, but can lead to inbreeding, especially in small, isolated groups.

It is necesary to consider current (hybrid) traits in order to construct a viable hypothesis for Neanderthal reproduction. One of the most promising traits is non-aged matched pairbonds. These exist both between adults, and between adults and teenagers / children. The latter is sometimes called pedophila / hebephilia when it includes sexual activities.

The model

Middle-aged male and teenage female bonds and reproduction solve the problem of inbreeding. Under this scenario, siblings will not reproduce, and fathers will not reproduce with daughters, because when the children are grown-up, the father is old age. It also offers another advantage for females. In age-matched pairbonding, females need to guess work their partners abilities to provide for them and their children. A middle-aged male has already shown his ability to provide for the community, and therefore give females better opportunity to select the best genes. Another problem, the father dying before the offspring is mature, can be avoided by having a group of more than just one pair. If females are promiscous within the group, this will glue the group together and somehow compensate for the risks of older fathers. More genetic variation can also be achieved if different males in the group father offspring.

This model does not need any gender to disperse. A possible mechanism for increasing genetic diversity is group fission / fusion. For instance, the mother and all children could switch group as the children reach (or approach) maturity. Individual males or females could also switch groups upon maturity (or just before).

Male roles

When males are young they need to establish themselves as dependable and creative. Some might live alone, while others could be part of groups. As they reach middle-age, they need to form bonds with young females. They will not expect to become grandparents.

Female roles

In all species, females need to reproduce when young. They will select mates that can impress them with intelligence and creative abilities, and that has a long history of dependability. They will not bother with strangers or males with a bad reputation. When they get past reproductive age, they will get a new role as grandmothers and finding good homes for their children.

Supporting traits

Pedophilia

Pedophilia is a sexual attraction to pre-pubertal children. In its current context it is difficult to explain as an evolutionary adaptation. However, in the context of Neanderthal reproduction, heterosexual pedophilia can be explained. Since the male has to show the group his abilities before he can participate in reproduction, it is not far-fetched if he tries to bond with females before they are mature. He will then have several years at his disposal to show his quality, and to be accepted for reproduction. If he was to bond with already mature females, he would waste years of possible reproduction showing his quality. In other words, this trait has evolutionary value in the Neanderthal context.

Incest

People adapted to age-matched pairbonding have incest avoidance traits as these are essential for successful reproduction. When  males with pedophilic traits enter age-matched relationships instead of non-age-matched, there probably is an increased risk of incest. This is because in the natural setting, this is not an opportunity when the father would be old age as daughters become mature, and thus these males might lack incest avoidance traits.

Aspies keeping together

Aspies often have a dislike to socialize with strangers, and it is not uncommon for them to stay with their families longer than is usual, if this is possible.  This especially seems to be true for males. The lack of dispersals is compatible with this.

Aspie special interests

Aspie special interests are directly related to male gender roles. They need to impress on females with their creative talents, and special interests can be viewed as just this.

Predictions

Age preferences will increase

It is predicted that age-preference for heterosexual pedophilic males will increase as they age. This is a consequence of limited time to show quality as the male gets older, and that he is at a higher risk of dying before the children are mature.

Most people with pedophilic traits will have a preference for bonding over sex

Since the short-term goal of the middle-age male is to show-off and bond, and not to reproduce, it is anticipated that most males with pedophilic traits have a preference to bond (which will look like friendships) with children over having sex with them.

Heterosexual and homosexual pedophila have different causes

Homosexual pedophilia does not fit into the picture presented here. It is probable that homosexual pedophila is related to neurotypical traits, and to power struggles. It is also probable that much of the abused – abuser spiral is related to homosexual pedophilia. It is anticipated that hetereosexual pedophilia has a weak link to being Aspie.

Supporting evidence

The validity of the concept of older males reproducing with young females

In Gorillas, male Silverbacks, which usually are 15-20 years before they can reproduce, regularily reproduce with females aged 10 years or older. This shows that this kind of reproduction occur in closely related primate species. Link: http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/gorilla/reproduction.htm.

Relationship distribution in Aspie-quiz

There are considerable gender differences as to when Aspies get children. Female Aspies tend to get children at about the same time as neurotypicals, while male Aspies lag considerably behind their neurotypical peers.

Disclaimer

The author does not endorse sexual activities with minors, neither the witch-hunt against people that have inborn sexual attraction to children. The author also believes that a huge majority of people with inborn sexual attraction to children are not practising pedophiles, and thus do not act on their sexual orientation.

So the first draft of the Neanderthal genome has now been published (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5979/710). The authors  found that Neanderthals contributed 1-4% to the genomes of non-Africans. They use SNPs and five full genomes from different ethnic groups to arrive at this conclusion. Aspie-quiz has also found that all non-Africans have similar levels of Aspie-traits, while people of African descent have much lower levels of Aspie-traits (1/6th for African-Americans), and might even totally lack these traits when unmixed with non-Africans.

 The study claims that admixture most likely occured in Middle  East, but this is not supported by Aspie-quiz. Aspie-quiz instead seems to indicate that East Asians mixed with Neanderthal before Europeans. Aspie-quiz also give native American Indians the highest scores of any population, and thus it seems like they have the largest Aspie rate in the world. South Asians are lower than Europeans and East Asians. There is a cline in Eurasia where the north has much higher Aspie-rates than the south. This could be compatible with interbreeding in the Middle East, and later African migration into south Asia, but it matches the “southern migration route” of modern humans far better. Under this scenario, Africans and south Asians are largely devoid of primary interbreeding with Neanderthal. Interbreeding started in Central Asia, and this population then split into a western part that ended up in Europe and formed Caucasians, and an eastern part that ended up in East Asia and formed Mongoloids and Native Americans. Native Americans then got isolated from further gene-flow from South Asia, and thus today has the world’s highest level of Neanderthal ancestry.

 The 1-4% of Neanderthal ancestry probably refers to neurotypicals only. Typical Aspie scores for neurotypical people are around 40-50. Typical Aspie scores for Aspies are three times larger. We would therefore assume that Aspies perhaps has 5-15% of Neanderthal ancestry using this as an indication. OTOH, if we assume that 1-4% is the average Neanderthal ancestry in Eurasia, and that all of this is attributable to Aspie traits, and the proportion of  Aspie traits is around 10%, it would mean that Aspie traits have 10-40% of Neanderthal ancestry.

Another recently published article on the same theme came to similar conclusions (http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100420/full/news.2010.194.html). Although, here  the authors see two different hybridization events. This scenario in fact is supported in Aspie-quiz. Not only is there a signature of Neanderthal interbreeding leading to the introduction of the Aspie-traits, but there is also a signature of the introduction of “neurotypical compulsion” traits that essentially describes modern humans.

To resolve these issues there is a need to sequence full genomes of Aspies.

Ordinary hunting is usually a group activity. Part of the tactic is to scare animals out of their hiding places so strategically placed hunters can throw spears at them (or use fire-arms in the modern variant), wound them, and ultimately, kill them from a distance. This type of hunting is erratic in nature, and usually has rather poor outcome and has to be carried out many times before it is successful. Many of today’s sport games resemble such hunting, especially team-sports.

The Aspie hunting group has caused lots of confusion among people that do Aspie-quiz. This is probably because hunting is usually associated with guns, throwing spears and killing animals at a distance. The questions in this category in Aspie-quiz give no associations at all to this kind of hunting.

So what then is Aspie hunting? The history behind the traits is pretty long. The habitat traits (like liking slowly flowing water) were introduced very early in the evolution of Aspie-quiz, but at that time was not thought to be hunting traits. The main traits, however, are more recent, and were used to evaluate Valerius Geist’s Neanderthal paradigm.

Geist’s Neanderthal paradigm was published in the 1970s and was a novel way to solve several mysteries about Neanderthal tools and why they selected the prey species they did. A central observation by Geist was that all prey species had fur. He therefore presumed that Neanderthal’s had used this property of their prey in their hunting tactics. The Mousterian tool-kit also seem to lack throwing spears, and instead contains larger tools that seems to work a lot better as stabbing spears. The rodeo-like injuries of Neanderthal are also largely unexplained by proponents that like to think that Neanderthals must have been hunting in the same manner as us, only less successfully, and with cruder weapons.

While Valerius Geists hypothesis goes a long way at explaining the archeology, it says little about the psychology and specific adaptations of Neanderthal. These aspects were researched in Aspie-quiz to try to confirm (or disprove) Geists hypothesis. There were a lot of predictions from the hypothesis that could be tested.

The following traits were predictions (listed with their predicted function) that were highly successful (correlated well with Aspie score and each others):

• Walking on toes - related to sneaking
• Enjoying spinning in circles - related to an animal trying to get rid of the hunter
• Enjoying hanging upside-down – yet another way to stay on the animal
• Having an urge to jump over things – related to jumping up on top of an animal
• Enjoying digging - related to hiding a large kill
• Mimicking animal sounds - a way of tricking an animal
• Enjoying throwing small things – another way of tricking an animal that the hunter is somewhere else
• Sniffing people or things – related to tracking
• Enjoying chasing animals or people – close encounter hunting
• Enjoying biting (people) – a paralysing tactic that Geist proposes
• Enjoying making traps – this is an obvious addition to Geist’s hypothesis

A few of the physical traits got no relevance to being Aspie, but still correlated with Aspie hunting. Typically, these traits are believed to be part of the motor problems of Aspies, and thus have an inherit bias against them:

• Being good at climbing
• Strong grip
• Strong hands

Some other traits also related to Aspie-hunting

• Being fearless in dangerous situations
• Highly variable activity level
• Naturally communicating feelings with animals

It is notable that perception issues correlate closely to Aspie hunting. The relation here seems to be obvious. Highly sensitive senses is important for passive hunting, especially hearing (sounds that animals make), tactile (vibrations that animals make) and smell (tracking an animal). Acute vision and detail perception are also related to finding signs of an animal that are not required with the usual hunting method that favors getting an whole picture of the environment. These things also extend to paranormal experience.

Additionally, many stims (Aspie-quiz defines these as Aspie communication) are related to Aspie hunting. For instance, spinning in circles, walking on toes and mimicking animal sounds could be characterized as both stims and hunting-related traits. The relation here is probably that Neanderthals adapted their nonverbal communication to their prey animals, and thus gained increased hunting success by being able to better understand their prey. This is also why Aspies today say they can both naturally interpret animals and cannot naturally interpret neurotypical humans. The communication traits are based on a difference, not an absence. There are also nonverbal communication traits that seems to be shared among Aspies, and that can be used to identify Aspies.

The habitat traits (that correlate with the pure hunting adaptations are these):

• Liking slowly flowing water
• Liking mist or fog
• Enjoying woods

From these we can presume that Neanderthals probably selected their ambush places near water. The like for mist and fog could be a hunting preference, or it could be an adaptation to living near glacials, which would produce mist / fog. We can also presume that Neanderthals hunted in forrests, not in open environments. Their tactic would be far more successful in a forrest than on the open plain, and similarily, the modern hunting tactic is more successful in a relatively open terrain.

Other types of traits can also be associated with Aspie hunting. For instance, it is not a long-shot to propose that special interests and the splinter-skills of Savants are related to passive hunting. Passive hunting requires lots of creative talents and persistence for success. Obsessions can also easily be entered into the equation. Once a hunter has found a successful way to bring down a prey, he/she is likely to keep to it, and only modify it slightly to make it more successful. The erratic methods of modern human hunting do not lend  themselves to doing things in the same way, and thus such obsessions are absent in neurotypicals. Neurotypical people instead have people obsessions, as these are central for group-hunting.

In sumary, understanding Aspie/Neanderthal hunting seems to be central for understanding most parts of the autistic spectrum.

The excellent book The biology of Religious Behavior edited by Jay R Feierman provides an excellent framework on how to understand the biology and evolution of religion.

Viewed from a neurodiversity-perspective, there are certain troublesome aspects of religious behaviors:

1. Shamanism and delusions seems to be related to neurodiversity
2. Prosocial behaviors, submission and cooperative behaviors seems to be neurotypical

The Neanderthal Theory proposes that neurodiversity-traits are of neanderthal origin. So how could the current religious behaviors have evolved? Since major components seems to be recent, but of different origin, it is probably necesary to analyze African/Asian modern humans separately from Neanderthals, and try to figure out what was common before the split of humans into Eurasian Neanderthals and African/South Asian Homo, what evolved later in African/South Asian Homo, what was introgressed from Neanderthal, and how this admixture contributed to today’s religious behaviors.

We today know from many finds in Africa that symbolism, ornamentation and similar behaviors evolved there at the time of the emergence of modern humans. These behaviors group with neurotypical compulsion in Aspie-quiz, and also contain status, reputation and  gossip. These are clearly the prosocial dimension of religious behavior described in the book. It works just as well to differentiate an ingroup based on cloth or ornamentation as on supernatural beliefs. In fact, cloth and music taste  are the behaviors that often define groups in secular societies. So, it is logical to propose that pre-hybrid modern humans evolved the prosocial dimension of religious behaviors, but probably not in the context of supernatural beliefs, but more likely based on possessings and ornamentation.

When it comes to supernatural beliefs and music, the evidence is in favor of a Neanderthal origin. All the questions in Aspie-quiz about supernatural beliefs cluster together, and when the groups in Aspie-quiz were reduced to six neurotypical and six Aspie groups (with the same names), the supernatural group was merged into Aspie perception. These traits have no relation at all to the prosocial behaviors in neurotypical compulsion.

Aspie perception contains a wide range of more sensitive senses and reduced pain sensitivity. This increased sensitivity developed as a natural adaptation to Neanderthal passive hunting (Aspie hunting). Aspie hunting is closely related to Aspie perception, and contains traits like mimicking animal sounds, making traps and alike. Neanderthal hunting, unlike the group hunting of modern humans, would be conductive to developing a very fine-tuned psychology of the prey animals, including mimicking their sounds and understanding their behaviors. This is called animanism in the book, and it is clearly a neurodiversity trait. It is also the case that stims (called self-stimulatory or repetitive behaviors by psychiatry, but related to Aspie communication in Aspie-quiz) are strongly related to Aspie hunting. Mimicking animal sounds fits both as a stim and as an passive hunting trait. Thus, we might presume that the nonverbal communication behaviors of Neanderthals evolved to be useful for passive hunting and to trick prey animals. This has some interesting predictions regarding mirror neurons that are also described in the book. More likely, the relevance of mirror neurons is not for neurotypicals, but for the Aspie variant of mirror neurons, as it was Neanderthals that adapted their mirror neurons to be extra sensitive to their prey animals, and not modern humans.

When it comes to music, the first musical instruments are found in Europe, not in Africa. These are flutes. Flutes and musical instruments fits well with tricking animals. They still functioned in this way in pastoral settings in Sweden only a century ago.  They have no obvious function in relation to the prosocial behaviors of modern humans.

So, it makes sense that highly sensitive senses, musical ability and superior understanding of animal behavior and communication were Neanderthal traits that introgressed into modern humans. These abilities proved useful in their new context, and as a consequence some of the bearers were recruited as shamans, witch-doctors and healers. Later, these “mystical” traits were exaptated into the prosocial behaviors as belief in supernatural things, as people could not understand the extra-sensitive abilities of these people.

Adding to the evidence is that fasting and enduring pain are also neurodiversity-traits. These were traits associated with the shamanistic phenotype.

Building character is an interesting publication that can be found here: link.

While most people (including myself) agree that “good character” is an important trait, and that this is a highly wanted outcome for a child, the test used to measure this (SDQ) seems to be highly inappropriate. The SDQ-test is necesarily highly negatively correlated with ADD/ADHD, ASCs and neurodiversity in general. By using this test they will not measure character traits in neurodiverse people in a meaningful way. Still, it is evident that at least some of the traits in SDQ are not inherited traits, but negative outcomes for being neurodiverse and having a bad upbringing, so it could still be relevant for neurodiverse children as long as the objective is not to measure neurodiverse children against neurotypical children.

That said, here are some of the main conclusions:

1. Attachment has a large positive effect on outcome
2. Rules and rule inforcement has a smaller effect on outcome, but it has a large negative effect when lack of rules is combined with weak attachment
3. High self-esteem and sense of control is a strong predictor for good outcome
4. Depression is a strong predictor of poor outcome
5. There are extra-sensitive children with “negative temperament”

I think it is a given that attachment and warmth (in contrast to hostility) is a major factor in parenting any child, neurodiverse or not. This could have increasing importance for the neurodiverse child.

It also seems that the section about negative temperaments could very well describe the neurodiverse child which has a strong dislike for authority. They do not elaborate and compare this group of children’s outcomes between the rule-not rule dimension of parenting, which otherwise would be pretty interesting.

High self-esteem, sense of control and depression are things that parents acquire because of their own childhood, environment and life experience, and thus this is a factor that could be transfered from parent to child without being genetic. Problems in this area are also frequently associated with neurodiversity. This is thus a confounding factor that is not genetically related to neurodiversity, but to the discrimination / bad behavior against  neurodiverse people. It is also important to note that improper attitudes from social authorities towards neurodiverse people in some countries like Sweden and Norway could create negative feedback loops when social authorities implement unwanted “help” and persecution of neurodiverse people.

Rules and enforcement of rules is a special case. It is not obvious from the design how the rules are implemented. They only ask participants about how many rules they have, and if they are strictly enforced. This misses out on a very important aspect of rules related to dislike of authority that is related to neurodiversity. At some other place they mentioned a study of consistent use of reward and punishment combined with encouraging autonomy in the child being related to positive outcomes. This research also do not answer the question about only reward and punishment (and especially in relation to dislike for authority).

That reward and punishment is not effective on children with dislike for authority is almost a given. Especially not if rules are made up arbitrarily. In order to make a child with dislike for authority to accept rules, it is necesary for the child to understand the rule, to understand why it exists, and on its own accepting the rule as valid and good. Only when this procedure is used will the child accept the rule, and it will then need no reward or punishment in order to follow it. If it doesn’t accept the rule, no level of reward or punishment can make it accept it, and the child will become difficult and argumentative instead, which could affect the primary parameter of attachment. The best parents of children with dislike for authority tend to be parents that have good attachment and few rules and low enforcement, or that have many rules that the child accepts and few rules the child doesn’t accept.

The new Aspie social group has now been incorporated into Aspie-quiz. It basically contains the previous sexuality & relationship, activity and paranoia groups.  Several issues that previously didn’t group has also been added to Aspie social.

So what exactly is Aspie social, and how does the social environment of Aspies work?

Here is one cluster:

1. Partner obsessions
2. Unusual sexual preferences
3. Being more sexually attracted to strangers than to people one knows well
4. Being asexual
5. Having compulsive sexual behavior
6. Being in love with more than one person at the same time
7. Similar attitudes towards faithfulness as NTs

These traits seems somewhat incompatible. So, how do these traits actually go together? First, a guess of what might be included in “unusual sexual preferences” might be in order. Previous research has ruled out that unusual sexual preferences is mainly HBT (homo-, bi- and transsexuality), because these have too low relevance to be able to explain it (if they have any relevance at all). More likely unusual sexual preferences are paraphilias.

Number 1 and 7 combined seems to be typical long-term relationships. Number 2, 3 and 5 are probably “contact” behaviors, especially since they are expressed towards strangers and not towards already bonded partners. 6 seems to indicate that several partner obsessions can be present at the same time, and thus that bonding isn’t  necesarily related to monogamous practises.

Here are some other social behaviors:

1. Trouble with authority
2. Expecting others to have the same friends and enemies as oneself
3. Always wanting to be with ones partner
4. A preference to find ones own niche in life and doing things oneself
5. A preference to hyperfocus on things, and needing a lot of motivation to getting started with things
6. A preference for animals over people

These also does not seem fully consistent at a first look, but somehow it must possible to explain why these are related.

Number 1 seems to be a preference for a non-leadership, flat organizational model. This model in fact is frequently seen in computer companies, and many Aspies seem to work in such environments, and apparantly influence the choice of organization model at these companies.  Number 4,5 and 6 all indicate individualistic preferences, but how do these go together with 2 and 3? I think a good guess is that the preference is to actually be close to other people that one is bonded to, while still doing lots of things on one own. This is not as inconsistent as it might seem. This can be observed in working, long-time relationships between Aspies.

But how is asexuality from above related to all of this? Probably because as people become bonded to each others, the sexual interest declines. When the bond is developped, sex is only for reproduction. This can easily be misinterpreted as being asexual! Another thing is that asexuality has a certain relation to environmental issues, and thus can be the thing as asexuality in deprived animals in captivity.

This has some important implications for relationships:

1. Unlike in typical relationships, the lack of sex in an Aspie-Aspie relationship is a good sign, and not a bad one.
2. When Aspies are in relationships with neurotypicals, they need to consider the preference of neurotypicals that sex is what keeps the bond alive (or the neurotypical partner needs to understand that his/her partner is not disinterested in the relationship because of the lack of sexual interest).
3. Aspies needs to have their “time-alone” while still having their partner nearby.

Finally, a few other social traits:

1. Unusual eating patterns
2. Unusual sleeping patterns
3. Lesser motivation to stay clean
4. Feelings that cycle between hopelessness and high confidence
5. A highly variable activity level
6. Getting depressed during winter-time

These things seems to be related to way of life in a seasonal environment with highly variable food availability.

A final warning is in order here. Not all Aspies have these social preferences, and some instead work just like any neurotypical in this regard. However, it is important to understand that some Aspies are like this, and that people can make things easier for them by accepting their preferences if possible, or explain how people usually are so they can adapt.