Douglas Edwards May 8

I keep seeing the emphatic claim that "Meltdowns are not tantrums", with the supporting argument that #meltdowns are not voluntary or manipulative.

The bizarre part to me is this—

—so you're saying that ordinary neurotypical #tantrums ARE voluntary and manipulative? That whenever a neurotypical kid throws a fit, they're doing it calculatedly and for effect??

That possibility would never have crossed my mind in a million years.

Admittedly, in addition to being autistic, I'm an only child and I have no children of my own. But still, it takes my breath away to think that neurotypical kids would be so cold and reptilian. That even their furious angry outbursts can't be taken at face value, as honest expressions of their feelings.

And neurotypicals compare US to robots and chimpanzees!

Can the world really be like this?

@autistics

Show threadKevin DavyMay 8
@dedicto @autistics
In part the answer to this, is that behaviour that benefits tends to be repeated. So tantrums could become a learnt choice, at least until the benefit clearly no longer occurs.
Show threadDouglas Edwards May 8

@pathfinder @autistics I suppose "learnt choice" sounds a little less cold — because less self-conscious — than "voluntary and manipulative". Instinctively conditioned manipulation, rather than articulately planned and conscious manipulation. But it doesn't really change what is happening.

Also: the shocking part is not that tantrums COULD in SOME cases become a learned choice, but that the level of voluntary control that allows such learned modification of behavior is ESSENTIAL to the concept of a tantrum — so that the absence of that level of control in autistic meltdowns can be used to demonstrate that they are not tantrums.

Show threadKevin Davy
@dedicto @autistics
I suppose the key for me is that one of them could be in part voluntary and the other can't.
May 8 at 6:29pmWeb
Show threadDouglas Edwards May 8

@pathfinder @autistics And the "could be" is critical. It's only "could be", not "necessarily is".

I hope you're right. But if so, it means that the straightforward, stark contrast between #tantrums and #meltdowns is a gross oversimplification — that many, perhaps most, neurotypical tantrums are much more similar to autistic meltdowns than they're being given credit for.

To me, the stereotyping of neurotypical tantrums as manipulative is almost a mirror image of the stereotyping of autistic communication difficulties as "mindblindness". I do believe it's important to secure more tolerance for meltdowns, but it shouldn't be done by caricaturing their neurotypical counterparts. Maybe ordinary tantrums deserve, at least in many cases, more tolerance than they get. The manipulative worst case shouldn't be assumed as a default, even for neurotypicals.

Show threadKevin DavyMay 9
@dedicto @autistics
True.