Autism and 'fairness' - a thread.

Please share, as its particularly relevant this week.

All based on my own experiences, as always!

Autistic people are often, generally quite intolerant of behaviour or attitudes that appear to be unfair or unreasonable. This isn't necessarily because we have 'black and white thinking', as some argue, but more I think due to how much thought we tend to put into everything.../2

In my experience autistic folk are unlikely to do or think things 'just because'. There needs to be a rationale, a reason - otherwise many of us just can't accept it. I found this in school where real causes for things were skipped as being 'too hard' to teach. /3

Thus for me, various maths and scientific principles became ironically more difficult to me because they involved an element of 'it just *is*' that my brain would not work with. Music theory presents the same issue. /4

Anyway - many autistic people need clear reasons to believe or think things. If those reasons aren't there, or are insufficient or obviously flawed then we might struggle. /5

This relates to fairness as usually, unfairness is irrational and is caused by prejudices, dislikes and ulterior motives that don't appear reasonable. Many autistic people see the unfair behaviour as fundamentally irrational and therefore pointless. /6

The behaviour of the American president currently is, to me, so utterly transparently irrational that I literally cannot believe anyone could be on his side. If causes great confusion and anger. /7

This is why autistic students can present as very tricky to manage in class as they won't do things 'just because' - they need things explained and teachers don't often like having to do this... /8

So in the autistic community there may be more incredulity at Trump's behaviour than normal as the audacity and foolishness of the lies crosses another line. This may cause very real pain and distress as it feels so alien and confusing, so be kind. /9

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