Typing Those With Neuro Differences: ASD

At one point, an article on ‘typing those with neuro differences’ was requested. To be honest, I’m not sure how long ago that was. I just remember cringing at the complexity of the subject, adding it to our list, and then conveniently forgetting about it (if I’m being honest). However, a few months back someone encouraged us to turn our attention back to it with a significant donation. I regret taking this long to write this, but here it finally begins. By that, I mean that this was originally going to be a single article, but after sitting down and writing way more than anticipated, this has turned into a series. I’m dedicating an article to each neuro difference I intend to cover (which at this point is just ASD and ADHD). With all that being said, let’s start getting into this.

Introduction

There are a lot of factors that go into typing people. People are oftentimes not very straightforward. Some can be, sure, but sometimes there are extraneous factors that make things a bit more complicated. It can be easy to observe a person on the surface level, and just assign them their personality type. The problem with doing that is that certain things can skew how a type manifests… but it’s not actually changing their type.

Anxiety is a simple example of this. Every type can have anxiety, extraverts included. When an extravert has anxiety, they won’t look like a classic extravert. When you talk to them, they’ll describe themselves as an introvert. Ryan and I have dealt with many extraverts who have sounded classically introverted. However, when we paid attention to their cognitive function priorities, we learned that the person was, in fact, leading with an extraverted function.

Obviously, a neuro difference is an extraneous factor, but it’s decidedly more complex. I’m going to share a couple of general principles with you when approaching a situation like this, and then speak more specifically on the subject at hand: ASD.

DISCLAIMER:

Before I begin, I’m going to start off by saying that I’m no medical professional. I’ve done some basic research, and am going to describe how Ryan and I would approach typing someone with a neuro difference. If I get any technical details wrong or say something incorrectly, just let me know and I’ll correct it.

Two Principles

1. The first thing you must always keep in mind is to look for good cognitive function evidence. What I mean by that is evidence that is not anecdotal. You need to find out someone’s core reasoning and line it up with the corresponding cognitive function…which means you have to talk to the person or get them talking. Ignore stereotypes. Ryan wrote an article recently on the 4 Tiers of Typing Evidence, and that article explains what I mean. Someone with something like ASD probably won’t be a typical example of their type, so anecdotal evidence will be of little to no value to you.
2. You must take into account the symptoms of the neuro difference in question and devalue those traits when using them as evidence. Of course, in order to do this, you first have to understand the symptoms. Once you’ve learned what the symptoms are, you have to set them aside in your mind, because they cannot be the primary evidence that you use to support your type conclusion. In fact, you may not be able to use that evidence at all. I’ll delve more into this in the individual sections coming up.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Before discussing ASD, I want to briefly point to an article that Ryan wrote a couple of months back called Speculations on the Brain and Personality. We saw it as a sort of predecessor to this article, because the basic idea is that we are born with a preset preference for certain cognitive functions, which we reinforce over time with repeated use. Ti is counter to Te, and thus a Ti user will never use Te, because the brain will use preferred pathways, and not form a pathway for an unnecessary function. Our brains are efficient. Therefore, we have 4 functions that we prefer, and thus use over and over again in varying combinations, to fulfill the lack of the remaining four.

ASD affects brain development. Let me share a quote with you that I found in an article called What’s the Difference between Autism and Personality?

“Autism is a life-long neurodevelopmental disability resulting from different brain development – primarily in the areas of communication, language development, emotional / social development; and, how a person inputs, interprets and processes information and stimuli from their environment and the world around them.”

The first thing I noticed up reading that is that it affects how one “interprets and processes information and stimuli from their environment.” That is exactly what cognitive functions do – interpret and process information. Ergo, from this I can surmise that ASD affects cognitive function development. Now, I don’t believe for a second that only people fitting with a certain subset of personalities ever have ASD. That seems backwards. We are born with our personality, and then ASD steps in.

What Ryan and I have noticed when dealing with people on the Autism spectrum, is that their cognitive function stack tends to be out of balance. Certain functions will have been hyper focused on, while others are underdeveloped. I’ll explain further in the following section.

Aspergers

Aspergers falls under ASD, so I’m going to focus on it, to give you a specific example of how Ryan and I would approach typing someone. As I stated earlier, the primary thing to be concerned with is looking for cognitive function evidence through someone’s reasoning, and keeping in mind the symptoms of their neuro difference. So, let’s start with the symptoms, which I’ll then split into individuals sections to explain the ramifications of each one. I’m going to pull quotes from What are the signs and symptoms of Asperger’s in adults from Medical News Today, and then provide my explanation/interpretation.

First, the areas in which adults with Aspergers struggle are:

• emotion regulation and interpretation
• verbal and nonverbal communication
• social interactions
• behavior

Emotional Regulation and Interpretation:

“Adults who experience Asperger’s may find it challenging to deal with their emotional responses to situations or events. This can cause the person to react inappropriately or have emotional outbursts. People may also have difficulty understanding the emotional experiences of others. As a result, an adult with Asperger’s may have difficulty showing empathy.”

From a cognitive function standpoint, this means that the development of the feeling function has been affected. Typically, if Aspergers wasn’t a factor, inappropriate emotional outbursts can be indicative of inferior Fe, or a immature feeling function. Of course, a lack of empathy tends to be indicative of someone with a low feeling function (AKA: a thinker). However, we cannot assume that someone with Aspergers cannot be a feeler. You have to consider the idea that they a high feeling function that is simply being skipped, which is why focusing on how some reasons is so important. Logically, a high Fi user with Aspergers should be focused in on their own internal, emotional world and values, in spite of struggling to display emotion appropriately or interpret emotions in others. An Fe user would probably be hyper sensitive to their struggle to empathize with others, but honestly any type is likely to have some sensitivity to this struggle if it has a significant enough impact on their life, which I imagine it would.

Verbal Communication:

“People with Asperger’s may have difficulties understanding and processing language. They may also show differences in language production. Specifically, they may produce repetitive speech or robotic speech that lacks inflection. “

First, I will throw this statement out there and it applies to any neuro difference: if the subject in question cannot communicate, they cannot be accurately typed. You can observe, you can speculate, and you can make your best guess, but if you can’t get a glimpse into the person’s thoughts (which requires speech), you cannot be absolutely certain. A lack of verbal communication combined with the fact that neuro differences affect behavior makes determining the subject’s type extremely prone to error. With all that being said, Ryan and I have dealt with multiple people with ASD through our TypeMe Evaluations, and they provided plenty of information.

Nonverbal Communication:

“People with Asperger’s may have difficulty noticing or interpreting nonverbal cues, such as: facial expressions, gestures, body language”

Interpreting body language and cues is typically associated with Fe. This is not to say that other types can’t do it, but Fe users tend to hyper-focus on it because they’re trying to respond to people appropriately, ergo they’re looking to the person for hints or cues. So, if someone with Aspergers naturally struggles with this, in addition to struggling with displaying empathy, it’s more than likely that their Fe function will be underdeveloped, if that is a function in their stack of course. In other words, an INFJ with Aspergers will more than likely be Ni-Ti looping. In this scenario, it’s critical that you’re able to recognize the the difference between Ti and Te, or else you’ll end up typing an INFJ as an INTJ.

Social Communication:

“Because people with ASD typically have difficulties with verbal and nonverbal communication, they may find social situations challenging. They may particularly struggle to make conversation or small talk.”

It’s highly possible that an extravert with Aspergers may not be classically extraverted. Of course, as we’ve explained in many articles, extroversion in the typology sense is not the same as social extraversion. Here are a few articles that you can reference for a deeper explanation on the subject: Extraversion in Typology, 7 Reasons Why EXTJs Type as Introverts, Typing 101: Introversion vs Extraversion.

Ultimately, you’re looking for what function is being relied on the most, and that’ll be the dominant, regardless of whether or not it’s out-letting in a social manner.

Behavioral Symptoms:

“People with ASD typically crave routine and respond negatively to change. They may engage in repetitive behaviors as part of their routine.”

This is going to be a tricky one. Typically, desire for routine is associated with being a judger, or more specifically having Si. So, there’s a possibility that someone without Si will display a desire for routine similar to Si. It could also mean that an INTP will have hyper developed tertiary Si. To determine Si, you’re going to need to focus more on a preference for concrete information, tendencies to be hyper specific or desire to provide detailed information, and etc.

“People with ASD may also behave differently in response to sensory stimuli. They may display under sensitivity or over sensitivity to sensations such as light, sound, or touch.”

The variance here is interesting to me, and hints toward what I mentioned earlier. If ASD essentially causes certain functions to by hyper-focused on, I could potentially see that resulting in one of the two extremes listed above. I would speculate that the over-stimulation hints toward a low sensing function, as it would in someone without ASD. Whereas, the under-sensitivity may point more towards a higher sensing function, possibly Se specifically. I have yet to specifically come across a case with the under-sensitivity, but I’d be curious to explore the person’s reasoning to see if it supports this possibility. It’d more than likely be a question of… are they seeking out stimuli? Because that would indicate Se.

“People with ASD often focus intently on a specific topic of interest and may engage in frequent monologues on the subject. Some people describe this type of focus as obsession.”

Typically, the monologue tendency here would suggest Ne/Si, while the intense focus would be more common for those on the Se/Ni axis, or possibly high Si. Obviously, I just contradicted myself, so it goes back to being a game of weighing their reasoning, versus leaning heavily on a tendency such as this for evidence.

Other Symptoms:

“A 2016 study found that issues with motor coordination are more common among adults with ASD. These issues can cause differences in a person’s gait, or difficulties with fine motor skills, such as when writing or buttoning clothing.”

I would not use this as evidence of having a low sensing function, or lacking Se.

“Some people who have Asperger’s have trouble making or maintaining close friendships. This may be due to difficulties in communicating with others or processing others’ emotions… Some adults with Asperger’s also show a preference for solitary activities over team ones. This preference can make it more difficult for the person to form close connections.”

As mentioned earlier, it’s likely that the feeling function is going to be under-developed in certain areas regardless of placement in the function stack. The feeling function is essentially what we use to form relationships and connect with others. Based on the above, someone with Aspergers is likely to appear to be introverted in the classical sense, which I did also mention earlier, but it’s going to be a question of function dominance.

In conclusion…

Ultimately, the idea here is to take everything into account, but focus more intensely on cognitive reasoning versus outward tendencies. You want to figure out which type has the most evidence backing it up. But of course, not all evidence is equal, like I mentioned earlier. (Once again, if you haven’t yet, check out Ryan’s article: 4 Tiers of Typing Evidence.) You want to make sure you’re not relying heavily on using a symptom to prove your point, but you also don’t want to completely discard the symptoms in order to push a type that actually makes less sense. For instance, I know of a fictional character that everyone argues is an INTP or an INTJ, and uses Aspergers as a way to discard the mountain of Si evidence. The problem is that he displays literally every Si sign there is, in addition to all the common Te signs. Think about it. A high Si user with Aspergers still has high Si so if you’re always completely discarding all Si evidence as just symptoms of ASD, you’ll never type them accurately. It’s all just one big balancing act to find the most logical conclusion.