Paraphrasing the text: The stability of the definition of reality can be upset by:

1. intrusions
2. participants’ declining to validate the current reality
3. participants’ inability to produce the (necessary/appropriate) gestures

Autistic folks’ exhibiting of #3 will be mistaken for #2, shortcomings of limited/occasional/situational skill will also be mistaken for #2.

Intrusions can result from timing errors, speech volume problems, processing lag, interpersonal distance problems, perseveration-as-monologue, repetitive questioning, etc. However inadvertent these are, they are apt to be interpreted as #2 as well.

So our behavior is seen as arbitrary and lacking coherence, when we may well be trying as hard as we can. Of course we will, socially, sometimes fly into mountaintops under conditions which we experience as heavy fog while others have fine visibility. And the intuitive “radar”... some of us are not so equipped. And when part of the game is to produce fog, then have radar-based interactions... this begs the question of just who is being patient with whom. Them, for our pitiful inadequacies in such endeavors, or us for their pathological need to do that kind of thing in the first place?

Last revised: June 19, 2007
(c)2007 Dave Spicer
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