#asynchrony

“In fact, gifted people generally do not have significantly bigger brains than average. What they do appear to have is comparatively larger regional volume within specific areas of their brains. This increased grey matter volume is used to compute information at a pace that suggests significant qualitative differences in the regions...

These larger brain regions correlate to areas associated with higher intelligence and with sensory processing experiences. Specifically, language, sensory processing, visual, and emotional areas are impacted, all of which are, incidentally, associated with superstimulabilities, often known as overexcitabilities (OEs). The OEs were identified by the Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski, who “believed that some people have more ‘developmental potential’ than others, and that high intelligence (giftedness) and overexcitability were predisposing factors.”

... The brain does not grow at a consistent rate across all areas. The resulting asynchrony—particularly when these specific regions develop asymmetrically—can lead the gifted child to great strengths in some areas but also to a level of relative difficulty in others. The sections of the brain that have to work together on a particular task may not be in sync, thereby undermining efforts towards a skill or accomplishment. For example, a child who has a vibrant imagination or strong visual perception may desire to write down their ideas or turn them into works of art but be stymied by less well-developed fine motor skills or difficulty expressing language at a comparable ability level. In many gifted children, this asynchrony is not so extreme that it cannot be mitigated or accommodated in some way. For the gifted child whose asynchrony rises to the level of pathology—leading to a dual diagnosis, or twice-exceptionality—this can be a more serious concern requiring intervention to alleviate frustration and allow them to pursue their interests and accomplish their goals.

Some parents prefer to think of these asynchronies as merely “typical giftedness” and sometimes that is a valid description. Other times, they prefer either to avoid labels or not explain them to the child in order to protect their child’s feelings or how others may see the child.

Even when they are not especially quirky, their giftedness may be visible in behaviors and accomplishments, resulting in less than ideal social responses from others. Children know when they are different, often suspecting they are “broken” long before anyone else acknowledges their uniqueness. They also may engage in activities and learning opportunities using skills where they have strengths, but avoid those where they feel inadequate or for fear of being “found out” as a broken child. They are better off understanding themselves than being allowed to default to negative assumptions and poor self-concept. Parents and other influencing adults should seek to give these children experiences that allow those areas of their brain to develop at an appropriate pace and manner. These children may need scaffolding so that they can use their strengths to move ahead while continuing to provide opportunities for development both intellectually and emotionally.

also I... don't really like most of the autistic people I meet! partly bc as a rule I don't really like most of the people I meet in general (not even in an active-dislike way. just in a neutral "we didn't connect on a level beyond superficial" way), but also because there are a lot of possible autistic traits that are directly in opposition to my own traits. like not only is there a lot of variation between autistic people but it often operates on extreme ends of spectrums instead of just small differences. sensory-seeking vs sensory-defensive, gregarious vs reserved, fastidious vs untidy, etc

like for example I do not like using "autistic" for myself for a very specific reason and that is "no matter what era you're in, this word will always mean a specific kind of thing to people and it's never the specific kind of thing that I am". like Back In The Day (well. up to like. a decade ago.) the dominant understanding of autism was like... you know. the flat-affect white male obsessed with trains, or whatever. that doesn't represent me at all. now the dominant understanding of autism (at least amongst the Online crowd, which is 90% of my social exposure at this point) is this kind of manic pixie dream autist that I also do not feel represented by (yeah, I'm ~quirky~ but not in the fun way!)

and being misunderstood/misrepresented makes me viscerally furious so I'd like to avoid that as much as possible. yeah, I'm aware that the spectrum is a spectrum and the low-empathy, self-centered, rules-hating, demand-avoidant, capricious, aggressive, sometimes even straight-up anti-social profile that I have is still an autistic profile, but the concern is not whether I fit, the concern is whether I want to be lumped in with all these other profiles, and the answer to that is "fuck no"