Douglas Edwards Apr 25

@adelinej I hypothesize that #kaleidotropic autism causes #ADHD, not the other way around, and that that kind of #AuDHD is very different from standalone #ADHD (without autism).

I'm actually happy to see even a stereotypical autistic character presented to a mainstream audience, as long as the stereotype isn't too misleading. Even "vanilla" autism without intellectual disability is a VERY heavy trip for neurotypicals — for them, it takes a lot of getting used to. (And their reaction to #kaleidotropy? I think a neurotypical who suddenly became #kaleidotropic would quite literally think someone had slipped them a hit of LSD.)

Still, it would be even better if they could portray some of the variations that really exist. This character is so vanilla as to be of limited interest to me personally — and I'm even a cishet white male. They haven't explored the strong statistical linkage between autism and #nonbinary sexuality, for example. Or any other relevant aspect of intersectionality.

Show threadDouglas Edwards Apr 25

@cb Check out the hashtags #kaleidotropy, #kaleidotropic, #kaleidotrope for more of my theorizing about this particular subtype of autism. Since I coined this term (not the word itself, which as it turns out has other senses, but this meaning for the word), most of the posts using those hashtags will be mine.

My hypothesis is that #kaleidotropic autism causes #ADHD, not the other way around, and that #ADHD due to #kaleidotropy is fundamentally different from standalone #ADHD. One key difference is the relationship to boredom. Standalone #ADHD is highly vulnerable to boredom, while #kaleidotropy is almost impervious to it.

@autistics @pathfinder

Douglas Edwards Apr 25

My (#hyperallistic) wife and I have been watching the series "Atypical", about an #autistic high-schooler. Even though the series appears to be better than its reputation, I haven't enjoyed it as much as I expected to, because of an inability to identify with the autistic protagonist Sam. And it isn't just the age difference; I remember quite vividly what high school was like. It's more that I'm atypical even among the atypical — different from Sam in several ways:

(1) #Monotropism versus #kaleidotropy: Sam has a few stereotypically restricted and repetitive interests; for example, Antarctic penguins. Any one of my interests, viewed in isolation, might look like that from the outside — yet unpredictably, at any time, they can easily be pushed aside by other, even more fascinating special interests.

(2) Sensation avoidance versus sensation seeking: Sam must wear noise-cancelling headphones to avoid shutdowns and meltdowns, for example. I do have some sensation-avoidant characteristics; in particular, I detest clothing tags as torture devices. But my attitude toward bright light is an example of the opposite tendency. I wish the bright fluorescent panels at work were even brighter; it annoys me when old ones that are starting to dim aren't promptly replaced. And both at home and at work, I find myself staring at light sources without even thinking about it. It's a stim, or would be if I didn't consciously restrain myself from doing it, reminding myself that it isn't good for my eyes.

(3) Visual thinking versus verbal thinking: although Sam is quite articulate in words, he has a special talent for drawing, and at least some tendency toward "thinking in pictures". Although I have a vivid visual imagination, I can't really draw or paint at all; and even when I see vivid images in my mind, "left-brain" abstraction, logic, and calculation remain firmly in the driver's seat. I have a tendency to remember generalizations, and forget the examples or statistics that established them — which can be inconvenient when I'm trying to persuade someone else to agree.

(4) #Alexithymia versus no alexithymia: Sam has almost as much difficulty perceiving his own emotions as in reading other people's. For example, several episodes are devoted to his struggles to decide whether or not he is in love. By contrast, although I have stereotypically autistic difficulties in reading other people's emotions from their speech and behavior, I have never had any difficulty at all in perceiving my own emotions.

I'd be interested in hearing other people's reactions to the series "Atypical", or to the contrasts I've drawn here.

@autistics

Show threadDouglas Edwards Mar 27

An example of the "just point it at anything" aspect of #kaleidotropy: I'm an inpatient pharmacist licensed in four states of the #USA, and all of my licensing boards have continuing pharmacy education (CPE) requirements. When not actively engaged in accumulating CPE hours, I usually dread an upcoming CPE license renewal cycle as an annoying chore — because it will require me to divert effort from the many, many other things I'd rather be doing. But once I'm past the initial hurdle of getting started — and especially once I start searching for suitable CPEs and selecting them from various possibilities — my #kaleidotropic interest system is engaged, and the same activity that had so recently seemed like a dismal chore quickly takes on the aspect first of a hobby, and then of an addiction. There are so many fascinating topics to choose from. I just have to have THAT one — and THAT one — and THAT one! (A professor in office hours once told me: "You're like a kid in a candy store!")

I usually end up doing far more CPE hours than my licensing boards require — and having to remind myself that I need to get back to all the OTHER activities I've been neglecting.

Show threadDouglas Edwards Jan 30

@avuko @autistics @adelinej My comparison was with the "relaxed stability" (a euphemism for instability!) intentionally designed into the F-16 fighter jet because of its contribution to high performance! #kaleidotropy

I'm aware of double empathy theory and I intend to look further into it, but my guess is that it can't fully explain our communication difficulties. I have difficulties in understanding other people generally, autistic or not.

But in understanding each other, there's at least one important obstacle we DON'T face, that neurotypicals must overcome when they try to understand us: failure of the #EnvironmentalYoke. They assume they'll be able to understand us intuitively, the way they understand each other — and when they try it on us, NOTHING REGISTERS. To their special mind-sensors, we're invisible! It must be a terrifying experience for them. As if we were Ringwraiths. If you've seen the Peter Jackson movies of "The Lord of the Rings", think of the confrontation on Weathertop, before Frodo has put on the Ring of Power. The Lord of the Nazgûl turns to face Frodo, and you expect to see his face — and there's NOTHING THERE. Just a black void within his black hood.

No wonder they compare us to robots and chimpanzees. That isn't the reality of our existence — but I suspect that for many neurotypicals, it IS the reality of THEIR EXPERIENCE OF US. We're visitors from the Uncanny Valley!

https://zeroes.ca/@dedicto/114562251449610899

Douglas Edwards :neurodiv: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] My comparison is with the F-16 fighter jet, which was the first aircraft deliberately designed to be unstable (the engineering euphemism is "relaxed stability", but it's instability!). The original Wright flyer had been unstable, though not by design, and was barely controllable even for short flights at slow speed. The engineers of the F-16 believed that it would be better at fast maneuvers if the airframe accentuated and reinforced, rather than opposed and neutralized, small deviations from the current flight path. But how can you possibly fly such a thing? Answer: YOU can't — but an automated fly-by-wire system can. That's why this approach to airframe design was not attempted until the early 1970s: earlier aeronautical engineering would have been unable to offer effective accommodation for its disability. So which was the "real" F-16? The grotesquely unstable machine that required thousands of microadjustments per second to its control surfaces just to take off safely? Or the terrifyingly agile air-superiority fighter that asked no quarter from anything that flew? It was of course both. That's how absurd it is to think that disability, in the sense of a condition requiring accommodation, sets ANY limit on high performance when the appropriate accommodation is offered. So am I saying my brain is an F-16? Not exactly. Maybe, at most, an F-16 alpha-test prototype that needs some serious work on its fly-by-wire system. But in the broader outlines, I believe this is what neurodivergence, especially #kaleidotropic autism, is fundamentally about. Trying to design for high performance poses some challenges that you don't face if you're aiming merely for a Cessna 152.

zeroes.ca
Show threadDouglas Edwards Jan 15
@Energetic_Nova @pathfinder @autistics I do indeed believe we need better subtyping of autism. My theory of #kaleidotropy is an effort in that direction. But we're unlikely to get anything good from the #NCSA crowd. Their quest for the "causes of autism" is a search-and-destroy mission. They want to find a way to prevent any more of us from being born. Secondarily, they want to show that our autism is not "severe" so we don't merit any help.
Show threadDouglas Edwards Nov 23, 2025
@pathfinder @MOULE @autistics My theory of #kaleidotropy — which originated as a variant of the #monotropism theory — combines these two, with the twist that the intensity of the perceived world originates within us, not merely from failure to filter outside inputs.
Douglas Edwards Nov 8, 2025
@autistics I'm still reading Russell ⁨#Barkley⁩'s "Taking Charge of Adult ADHD" (2nd ed., 2022) — or rather, trying to. It's getting difficult for me to handle more than a page or two at a time. The problem isn't boredom (my #kaleidotropy makes me essentially immune to that) nor complexity of the material (Barkley is quite a good expositor). It's exasperation and outright anger, to the point of having fantasies of throwing the book across the room. The combination of arrogant, condescending neuronormativity with conspicuously sloppy conceptual reasoning makes this book more infuriating than ANYTHING I've yet read about autism, from ANY perspective. That includes Simon Baron-Cohen, and even one paper I read by a group of #ABA torture therapy apologists. I hope this book is not typical of #ADHD literature in general. If it is, studying ADHD is going to be a hell of a chore.
Douglas Edwards Aug 17, 2025
@shion_sonozaki67 @SilverArrows This is also an example of why I wouldn't trade my #kaleidotropy (a form of #AuDHD — the term is my own) for anything, despite all the problems it can cause. Sometimes weird oceanic life really is the higher priority.
Show threadDouglas Edwards Aug 5, 2025

@Ferrous @autoperipatetikos @actuallyautistic This is true; precursors of the changes you've made in the theory of #monotropism were already present in the original version. And I just finished Wenn Lawson's "The Passionate Mind" (the first, and so far only, book [as opposed to articles!] on autism I've read since my self-diagnosis), where he notes that #monotropic autistics CAN actually distribute attention effectively IF their interest is engaged.

But to me, that's an indication that the relevant factor is the #autotropic decoupling of attention from the social and physical environment — rather than restriction or narrowness or singleness of attention or interest in any sense, however liberally interpreted. Decoupling of attention and interest from the world should, so to speak, be treated as an axiom definitive of the subject matter, rather than a theorem to be derived.

And #monotropic attention is a special case, not a fully general theory. I felt it necessary to introduce the concept of #kaleidotropy because the phenomenology of my experience has been very different from what Wenn Lawson reports. It's much closer to what Kelter reports — except that what he experiences as a curse, to me is very much a blessing: "Every possible thought is instantly ten alternate thoughts that quickly grow to many more".

Kelter, M. Being hyperverbal is a real — and disabling — autistic experience. Thinking Person's Guide to Autism. 2019 July 11. Available from: https://thinkingautismguide.com/2019/07/being-hyper-verbal-is-realand.html

Being HyperVerbal Is A Real—And Disabling—Autistic Experience — THINKING PERSON'S GUIDE TO AUTISM

Hyperverbal expression, whether it is verbalized or experienced internally, is autism and it is a disability.

THINKING PERSON'S GUIDE TO AUTISM