A Different Conversation: Psychological Research and the Problem of Self in Autism

'A way to be me': Autobiographical reflections of autistic adults diagnosed in mid-to-late adulthood

LAY ABSTRACT

Using oral history methods, we interviewed and recorded 26 autistic adults in Australia about their life history. We wanted to better understand interviewees' self-reflections about their lives. The interviewers were autistic researchers and the interviews were analysed by autistic and non-autistic researchers. All of the adults we interviewed were born before 1975 and formally identified as autistic after age 35 years. This group of people is sometimes referred to as 'late-diagnosed autistic adults'. In general, there is not much research done about autistic adults and even less is known about those diagnosed late in life. In this article, we explore what these adults said about their sense of self and how that changed over time. These autistic adults told us about many negative experiences, including trauma, which had shaped how they think about themselves. For most, autism diagnosis had a very positive impact on their sense of self, allowing them to understand more about their own past and to feel good about their autistic identity. Previously some researchers have said that autistic people have a limited or impaired sense of self. Instead, our results show some autistic people can actually reflect deeply on their lives and their changing sense of self-identity over time.

The Recognition and Interactional Management of Face Threats: Comparing Neurotypical Participants and Participants with Asperger's Syndrome

Erving Goffman has argued that the threat of losing one's face is an omnirelevant concern that penetrates all actions in encounters. However, studies have shown that compared with neurotypical individuals, persons diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder can be less preoccupied with how others perceive them and thus possibly less concerned of face in interaction. Drawing on a data set of Finnish quasinatural conversations, we use the means of conversation analysis to compare the practices of facework in storytelling sequences involving neurotypical (NT) participants and participants diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome (AS). We found differences in the ways in which the AS and NT participants in our data managed face threats in interaction, where they spontaneously assumed the roles of both storytellers and story recipients. We discuss our findings in relation to theories of self in interaction, with an aim to illuminate both typical and atypical interactional practices of facework.

Jerome Seymour Bruner: an Anticipator Scientist for an Anticipation Theory

In this paper the Author intends to present the work of Jerome Bruner from the particular angle of the concept of anticipation. After having duly traced the biographical and scientific profile of the scientist, the Author shows how anticipation is a red thread that joints early youthful works up to those written in the last period of his life. The concept of anticipation then introduces that of expectation of a norm and that violation of the norm and how the person should consider them appropriately to produce new knowledge. Therefore Jerome Bruner was an anticipatory in his theories but also the anticipation was the pivotal concept in these theories, as they propose an idea of ​​ person capable of surprise in front of the incongruities of reality.