Time and Existence

(Autistic Standard Time)

I have sometimes stood in front of school personnel and attempted to explain autistic perception and in particular, the autistic perception of time. I do this because an autistic child's day is regulated by time as much as any other child's. "It's time to get up. To get dressed. To eat lunch. To go on the bus. To go swimming. To go to bed." Whatever. So much mention of time. But how much meaning does time have for an autistic child? Is there a more comprehensible way to convey to them what's required?

I start simply by mentioning a name: Jacob von Uexküll. Utter silence ensues, which is no bad thing. I now have their complete attention. Jacob Johan von Uexküll, German biologist, 1864-1944, father of semiotics. Brought to my attention by the Danish writer Peter Høeg. Von Uexküll is very clear, even sparse. He wanted to be accessible to anyone who read him. In his book Theoretical Biology he wrote that he was following a trail begun by Helmholtz and Kant who had believed that it was impossible to perceive the reality that surrounds us (or to perceive ourselves) in any other way than through the senses. And the senses are not passive receivers of reality, they process it. Heavily. So there is no point in talking about a reality outside ourselves. Whatever that may be, we have no knowledge of it.

Once you have realised that there is no external world outside your own filtered and processed version then you realise that other people, too, are only processed shadows. Each person is therefore fundamentally alone and the world is made up of many disconnected consciousnesses. This is also a principal tenet of Tibetan Buddhism which refers to one's perceptiton of reality as "mind-born illusion".

The state of autism is one where some senses, to a greater or lesser degree are turned inward. That's an obvious remark, but it needs to be stated. I make it as a prelude to saying that many autistic children are not aware of the passage of time because they don't take their cues from others. So to make any statements to them regarding the passage of time is essentially meaningless. Put simply, they have no idea what you're talking about. By all means present them with visual cues such as Compic which set out the day's activities. Autistic children like to know what's coming. And "when" only in relation to what comes before or after.

Then I talk about solitary confinement. I don't mean sensory deprivation, I mean the kind of solitary that is, for example, intended as a "punishment" for prisoners. They know whether it's day or night. They get three meals a day passed through to them, but silently. I'm talking about the absence of human interaction. Such a person will begin to forget about the exterior world after three weeks or so. After six months, the process will be almost complete. If someone has no past, it's very difficult for them to make any assumptions about their own existence. You need people and a knowledge of a past through linear time to be fully aware of it. To be sure.

If you're an autistic child with very limited perception of the outside world and no sense of time, how do you know that you exist? Why would you care? Well, you wouldn't and I've encountered quite a few children who I'm pretty sure didn't know that they existed. As long as they had food, water and shelter, and could feel secure, they wanted nothing more. But would they feed themselves? Not as long as someone was prepared to do it for them. Were they aware of their bodily functions? No. If you threw them into a pool would they swim? No, they'd drown.

Is there any point in attempting to make these individuals even just a little aware of the world around them? From their point of view, perhaps not. But it's not their point of view that prevails, nor should it be. From a parent's point of view, just a spark of acknowledgement of the world around them is enough to keep up hope. This also holds true for teachers. It's worthwhile to note that these children can, a few years further into their lives, develop into individuals who are very aware of their surroundings and only too anxious to make up for lost time. A child I worked with several years ago, Hamish, presented at age three to his pediatrician as having no affect whatsoever. He lay there in what appeared externally to be almost a vegetative state, prompting the pediatrician to tell his parents that their son was an "idiot" and that he would never change. That was wrong. He did change and I discuss many of those changes here on the Contrasts page.

Hamish operates on "autistic standard time", a term coined several years ago by an American parent, Marian Blackmore. His time, be it days, weeks or months, is marked by the passage of events. He does not understand "time" in the way neurotypicals use and refer to it constantly. Another person, a young lady, declares Christmas when the tree goes up and it stays Christmas until it's taken down. She likes to make calls to her one and only friend: often they last around 60 to 90 minutes but she has no concept of the time passed. She doesn't know or care whether the call was long or short, only that others can grow angry with her if she ties up the phone line. That's her only cue/clue that she's talked for too long.

So to recap: when you're talking of time to autistic children: "time for this, that or the other" it's necessary to ensure that those children understand what you're talking about otherwise they won't understand you and you'll become frustrated.

April, 2010