#processing differences

[autisticeducator]

I got diagnosed a few years ago and only recently really started looking at therapies and accommodations that could help me. Unfortunately I have no clue what's even available for an adult. Would you mind talking a bit about what it is you do in speech therapy? Or do you have a link to a prior post?

Sure no problem. I don’t think I actually covered this topic yet.

Personally, I have been doing oral motor exercises to strengthen and re-coordinate all the muscles in my mouth and jaw to be used properly for speech, as they apparently never developed correctly in the first place and I went to the land of “pretend disabilities and other related issues don’t exist” for K-12.

I’ve also been working on word retrieval strategies as I often get stuck both physically (oral motor issues) and mentally (processing issues). I tend to lean on retrieval strategies that I use with students (phonemic cues, categories, synonyms/antonyms) so we’re really focusing on using them to help myself retrieve words I can’t remember.

Since many autistics have issues with both processing and motor skills, speech therapy with a good therapist who understands both these issues well can be greatly beneficial. This is one of the therapies as an autistic educator that I can support.

[autisticeducator]

It feels so different…

Not having my brain running a thousand miles a second and being able to focus for the first time in my life (didn’t expect it to work on the first day as my psychiatrist was rambling about needing a build up period).

But I keep trying to tell my doctors that my autistic self processes things (especially meds) differently.

Psych meds I’ve been lucky to get to 90% on the lowest possible dose or somewhere relatively low.

Asthma and allergy meds I am on what feels like horse med doses and I’m still having issues. Same with acid reflux.

There is literally no middle ground with how my body works. It works on the extremes.

And with the processing things differently comes medication side effects. I either get no side effects or severe adverse reaction/allergy. I can eat right after anesthesia with no problems. Never had side effects from anesthesia. I can’t take morphine or codeine without vomiting anything I injest all over the place.

Which caused problems after my decompression surgery for my chiari. I told them after the first time I got sick that morphine and I don’t mix. They kept blaming the anesthesia. Until it happened again the next day and could no longer blame the anesthesia and had to believe me.

[laughinwithamouthofblood]

“People with autism have a greater than normal capacity for processing information even from rapid presentations and are better able to detect information defined as 'critical'”

“Our results suggest that autistic children are not interested in social interactions because their brains generate more information at rest, which we interpret as more introspection in line with early descriptions of the disorder.” 

“A new study has found that the brains of autistic children produce, on average, 42% more information than non-autistic children when in a resting state (Velázquez & Galán, 2013).”

some reading:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120322100313.htm#:~:text=FULL%20STORY-,People%20with%20autism%20have%20a%20greater%20than%20normal%20capacity%20for,than%20normal%20information%20processing%20capacity.

https://autismunderstood.co.uk/autistic-differences/information-processing-differences/#:~:text=The%20majority%20brain%20takes%20in,bits%20of%20information%20coming%20in.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6041130/#:~:text=Abstract,social%20communication%20abilities%20in%20ASD.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10291371/#:~:text=The%20Dual%20Process%20Theory%20of,reduced%20(faster)%20intuitive%20processing.

https://www.spring.org.uk/2025/01/intense-world-autism.php

[autism-asks]

I am hypersensitive to like, information? If there is any text or spoken words in my environment I HAVE to read it/listen to it. Like if there is a sign in a waiting room my eyes are drawn to read it over and over. Even after Ive memorized it. Background music and conversations im not involved in jump to the front of my mind. I only realized not everyone was this way when a friend once told me they had 'never noticed' a sign in a bathroom they use all the time. IIAAT? Is there a name for this?

Where allistics tend to see the “bigger picture”, autistics seem to have a tendency to notice the details and take in the separate aspects of a whole first.

We may also take in and process information differently in general, including being unable to filter out information. Being unable to filter or block out sounds, music or conversations are all examples of this.

-Kath