The Autism Spectrum: Unexpected Behaviors

When it comes to living on the autism spectrum, apart from the social communication barriers that make it harder for the autism community to learn, many challenges for people on the autism spectrum arise in the form of unexpected behaviors. Unexpected refers to behaviors that are apart from the established social norms and expectations that the neurotypical population adheres to and understands more innately than the autism community does.

One such example of these unexpected behaviors is how rigid people on the autism spectrum can be as far as their preference for a specific routine are concerned. This is the case, particularly in children on the autism spectrum, because children with autism become used to the style of routine that those children want to engage in each time. However, because the social norm calls for adjustments to those routines very often, children with autism can be prone to confusion and subsequent emotional outbursts to convey their frustrations over the modification in their routine.

An example of an adjustment I had to accept and live with growing up was my junior high school years and the instances when the bus I took to school would break down and my peers and I had to wait for the bus to be repaired, or for another bus to come and pick us up. That happened a few times, and there was one instance where a bus from a different school picked me up unexpectedly due to scheduling conflicts.

As a preteen on the autism spectrum, I felt very uncomfortable with that routine being interrupted and would experience a faster heartbeat, I would feel over-stressed and panicky, and I would process the "racing thoughts" that are common for people who live with autism and anxiety at the same time. I knew I had to adjust to those uncomfortable situations, so I practiced my self-regulation exercises and persevered through those moments with patience and willpower.

That concept isn't exclusive to children with autism, adults with autism are susceptible to the same habits and rigidity in routine, and for the adults with autism who exhibit more frequent outbursts, the combination of sudden adjustments and overbearing emotions can be overwhelming for those adults.

On top of the changes in routine, children and adults on the autism spectrum do not think or learn the same way as the neurotypical population, as neurotypical children gain experience through observing and then modeling expected social behaviors after those older than them.

The autism community learns through being verbalized and instructed on how to learn the expected social behaviors since autism causes the learning process of proper behaviors to be explained through trial and error.

For instance, for children with autism, learning to find hobbies that align with their ages takes practice and effort from support by people in the children with autism's lives. It may take a delayed amount of time for a child on the autism spectrum to progress from enjoying a television show designed for young children to hobbies that a teenager would be interested in.

This could result in barriers to developing friendships and conversations with neurotypical peers who find the person with autism to be too immature for their age.

People with autism often have an interest in their hobbies, often called a specialized area of interest and restricted interests since those on the autism spectrum often show a lack of interest in other potential hobbies, to the extent that their special interests become so appealing that the people on the autism spectrum do not consider reciprocating in the hobbies of others.

Since I was nine years old, my specialized area of interest has been professional wrestling. Before I progressed with reciprocating in a conversation, any conversation I engaged in involved my fandom of professional wrestling, to the extent that my family sometimes had to say, "Mike, can we change the topic now please." I have experienced social situations in which people just meeting me have asked why I watch wrestling so much, or in one instance, if wrestling "is all you do?"

In those situations, I reply that yes, wrestling is a lot of what I do as a hobby, but I have other interests as well, such as sitcoms, biographies and documentaries, and music. With the music, I listen to the same songs over and over again, since my interests in music are restricted to what I prefer, and the documentaries I enjoy mainly revolve around wrestling and my favorite wrestlers.

Before my specialized area of interest was professional wrestling, that special interest for me was Pokemon. From around age five to nine years old, I watched Pokemon shows and movies, and collected Pokemon training cards featuring the animated creatures with their special powers that they fought each other with.

My special interest in Pokemon as a young child, upon reflection, is very heartwarming in the aspect that the creator of Pokemon is also on the autism spectrum.

The creator of Pokemon is a man named Satoshi Tajiri, and his special interest derived from living with autism was insects growing up. Since Tajiri's autism allowed him to focus intensively on insects, he developed the concept of Pokemon, which is now a very well-regarded franchise spanning movies, TV series, and video games. Considering that Pokemon was started in 1996, nearly 30 years ago now, Tajiri's special interest served him very well that way.

That is not to suggest that Tajiri did not or does not deal with the challenges that autism creates, such as social communication and over-stimulation, however, with support and learning what works for Tajiri, Tajiri's autism has segued into a successful endeavor and worldwide acclaim due to Pokemon.

The restricted interests aspect of the autism spectrum could include adults as well, and thus, forming friendships with others becomes harder to achieve since the social expectation calls for conversations and reciprocity to be an implied part of developing relationships. Certain people with autism can learn to find other hobbies to improve social opportunities, but a good amount of the autism community struggles with that throughout their lives.

Another aspect of autism and unexpected behaviors that would benefit from increased understanding and awareness, especially for adults with autism, is the emotional side.

There are beliefs that people with autism do not possess any type of emotion, but to disabuse that belief, people with autism possess a powerful ability to emote, which often works against the expected social behaviors.

Many people with autism, especially those who exhibit more pervasive sides of being on the spectrum, get emotional very rapidly and aggressively in certain environments and scenarios. Due to this emotional irregularity and lack of skills to self-regulate until it is taught to them, people with autism experience episodes of intense frustration, and in some cases, unintended physicality toward others in what is often referred to as "meltdowns."

These "meltdowns" are caused by the people with autism processing so much stress within their brains due to a change in routine or an experience happening that they do not like, that the people with autism react against social expectation with a temper tantrum. 

Children typically have temper tantrums, and for teenagers and adults with autism, these emotional "meltdowns" manifest in a similar behavior.

These outbursts can occur in people with autism who are capable of self-awareness and who are intelligent as well, so the presentation of these "meltdowns" makes it appear as if the teenagers and adults are less mature than they are on their better days.

Fortunately, there are supports and therapies designed to address these "meltdowns," however, it takes practice and time for people with autism to mature through those moments.

Another unexpected behavior is referred to as self-stimulation, or "stimming." When people with autism are intensely processing their thoughts, their reaction is to engage in their "stimming" behaviors that to neurotypicals, appear odd and uncomfortable much of the time,

Examples of the self-stimulating behaviors of people with autism include hand movements (i.e. arm-flapping), rocking their bodies back and forth, pacing in circular movements, repeating words and phrases (the speech term for that repetition is called echolalia), humming, and covering their ears in loud environments.

The arm-flapping form of "stimming" is especially important to understand because arm-flapping is very common for people with autism, and the people with autism are subjected to a lot of verbal and emotional torment from their neurotypical peers due to a lack of understanding of why people with autism arm-flap to begin with.

As someone who arm-flapped in public for most of my childhood, I dealt with those judgmental and mean-spirited reactions from peers and teachers in school and in public in general.

There is a belief that arm-flapping makes people with autism look unintelligent when in reality, a lot of people with autism who arm-flap, including me, are intelligent and feel hurt when neurotypicals jump to the conclusion of, "That guy is flapping their arms, don't talk to him, he is weird."

That phrase of reaction to the arm-flapping is one I dealt with a lot growing up, and as a result, I have learned, against my desire, to self-control the "stimming" in public.

Fortunately, there are ways to support the autism community in learning to adjust to social expectations, such as by explaining what those social expectations are and strategies to make those adjustments more feasible and comfortable for people with autism to understand and accept.

As far as approaching people with autism with questions about their unexpected behaviors, from personal experience, I highly encourage the neurotypical population, particularly parents whose children might notice a person with autism engaging in self-stimulation, to tell their child that the person they are seeing is likely living with a condition called autism that is causing their brain to work differently and the behavior the child is seeing is the person with autism reacting to their brain working differently. 

I also recommend that a parent elaborate to their child in that scenario that the person with autism will be okay after their brain relaxes and that the behavior will stop once the person with autism calms down. The parent could also tell their child that it does not need to be uncomfortable for the child and that the behavior is widespread for people with autism. If the child hears that from their parent, it could deescalate potential concerns and unnecessary misjudgment between the autism and neurotypical communities.

One strategy could include a clear and verbalized explanation of how someone else might react to a particular unexpected behavior and a substitute choice of accepted behavior to appear less uncomfortable to others.

Since the autism community can learn from experience at a delayed pace, a strong and consistent support system can make a big difference in the person with autism's progress and development while understanding why the people with autism exhibit unexpected behaviors and supporting them unconditionally through modifying those behaviors. 

If both of those notions can be achieved, it will pay off for people with autism to be more well-rounded throughout their lives and afford them more opportunities for life and social happiness.

References:

https://www.verywellhealth.com/age-inappropriate-interests-and-behaviors-in-autism-5190904

https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-stimming-in-autism-260034

https://www.stepaheadaba.com/blog/satoshi-tajiri-autism

---