And we cannot forget special interests! When an autistic person has something as a SpIn, they want to learn about and do that thing all the time, so of course practice makes them more skilled. Reading taught me about empathy and expressing emotion because it provided a connection between what happens inside someone’s head and which actions others can see, and it gave me a stronger grasp on figurative language. Plenty of autistic kids (and adults) also love words and reading, and the more books they consume, the more knowledge they gain about specific subjects and about how the world generally works. When a child echoes what they have heard from adults, either in their real life or in the media, they end up saying words that children typically do not say, leading to the appearance of a large vocabulary. Some autistic people learn to speak early instead of late, and a lot of them have very active echolalia, the phenomenon of repeating phrases that others have said. I hope that list of traits sounds familiar to you because they are all associated with autism. (By the way, “gifted” is even a diagnosis in some countries, though in the US, it is just a character type). Now what if I told you that the characteristics associated with gifted children were advanced vocabulary, a love for reading, fixations on specific topics, and isolation from peers? Some teachers and psychologists even cite sensitivity to sensory and emotional stimuli, as well as a “spiky skill set”, as signs of giftedness. (I am a grateful, though also slightly bitter, member of the third category). Or, alternatively alternatively, they were given a choice on where to apply themselves, as long as it was somewhere, and are still actively learning to this day. Or, alternatively, they were never challenged, always assumed they were fine as they were, so they were left to grow bored and stagnate their way into a hazy depression. They were so smart, had so much potential, so adults kept pushing them, adding more and more advanced classes and extracurricular activities to their schedules until they crashed from sheer overwork and the pressure to always be perfect. Maybe you or someone you know was labeled as “gifted” as a child because they could read, write, calculate, and recite more competently than their peers. You have probably seen those memes about “burnt-out former gifted kids”, with their addiction to caffeine, low self-esteem and self-expectations, and complete absence of caring despite claiming to be very smart. Hopefully, I will also make some people feel seen. I would like to start with a warning that this subject is one that I have a lot of strong feelings toward.
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