The Triad of Impairments - Imagination

All people with autism share an impairment in the following three areas; language, social interaction and imagination. These are known as the ‘triad of impairments’ which affects all people with autism. This triad of impairments describes what you will observe if you meet someone with autism. They don’t really tell you what is going on inside the autistic person’s head. They don’t tell you why an autistic person struggles with language, or talking to people or why they lack of imagination. By the way, I’m autistic, but I went to art college, I’ve done creative writing courses, film making courses. There’s no problem with my artistic imagination.

I think what they really mean is that autistic people prefer routine and don’t like change. There is little imagination in how I live on a daily basis. I tend to eat the same foods (I don’t like going food shopping, I can never decide what I want.). I tend to wear the same clothes over and over even though I have draws busting with other items (I certainly don’t follow fashion). These are just a few examples.

What they show though is the difficulty I have in making decisions, even about little things. In my head there is no difference between big and little, I will spend as much time deciding what to wear as I will choosing where I want to live. This inability to make decisions means I tend to fall into routines because they don’t require decision making. I read somewhere there is a part of the brain that contains the executive function, this is the part of the brain that makes decision, I think it’s on the right side of the brain, in the frontal lobe. (Interestingly this is where I used to get my migraines.) In autism this part of the brain develops differently.

We can only make decisions through a process of prioritising, (attaching different degrees of importance to each option) and on the basis of whether we like something or not (another problem I have, I find it difficult to choose what to wear or eat because I have difficulty deciding if I like something or not).

So in summary, a lack of imagination comes down to a preference for routine, which comes down to a difficulty in making decisions, which comes down to not being able to decide how important something is and whether we like it or not. These are two separate skills. Sometimes decisions involve both, e.g. do I prefer fried eggs to boiled eggs? This means deciding if I like something and then deciding how much I like it. There are situations where my preference is taken out of the picture, like if I’m at work and I have two jobs of a similar nature to do then I have to decide which is the most important.

I’m having difficulty thinking of a situation when I only having to decide if I like something or not. It’s always do I like this, or do I prefer this. To know if you like something is to know yourself. I think I have the same difficulty knowing if I like something as I do trying to get in touch with my feelings.