by McCallie L. Smith III (Trip) Chapter 11 of Lende and Downy’s book, The Encultured Brain, is a case study that was conducted by Rachel S. Brezis that deals with the general topics of autism, religious practice and beliefs, and agency. However, speaking more directly to the specifics of her study, Brezis hones in on the theory of mind, which she describes as “our ability to understand others’ thoughts and intentions”(Brezis 292). She refffrences a hypothesis proposed by another scholar, Jesse Bering, as a framework if sorts to set up her research. Bering’s hypotheses suggests that individuals who have autism would not posses Theory of Mind, or is incapable of understanding not only other individual’s thoughts and intentions, and thus individuals with autism would develop a mechanical, or impersonal way of understanding the universe (Brezis 292). She also uses Bering’s hypothesis as grounds to open on of her research questions: “Given autistic persons’ difficulty in inferring with others’ thoughts, would they be capable of conceiving of the world as directed by a spiritual agent?” (Brezis 292).
Brezis approached this question by conducting ethnographic research on individuals who have autism, and focusing on the religious aspects of their life. The research she conducted was “focused on individuals with high-functioning autism and Asperger’s syndrome, who have spared language abilities and normal to above normal intelligence, along side their social and communicative difficulties” (Brezis 293). She goes and introduces several paradigms of the causes of behavioral defects of autism, and they are “impairment of theory of mind”, “weak central cohearence”, and “pervasive difficuilty in engaging in pretend play and symbolic, non-literal communications” (Brezis 293-4). Also, Brezis introduces an emerging theory of autism that connects several of the paradigms that currently exist “to a central deficit in self-understanding” (Brezis 294). The theory of mind aspect perpetuates a fair amount throughout the rest of the chapter. This is probably because it is the paradigm that Bering (2002) uses to make predictions that individuals having autism “would not search for an intentional agent to give meaning to events in the world”, Brezis’s application and main focus on theory of mind in her research helps to refute the previous notions provided by Bering (2002). The notion of theory of mind, and the other paradigms presented by Bering (2002) would present a great deal of difficulties to an individual who has autism, and one of those difficulties might be religion and religious development. As Brezis points out a main aspect of religious development theory is the idea of the individuals personal “relationship with the divine is modeled after social relation ships”, and as previously mentioned, this process could be disrupted in an individual who has autism. Due to these notions Bering (2002) makes predictions that individuals with autism my have ritualistic behavior, but would lack the “existential search for meaning, or the religious belief in God” (Brezis 296). Brezis extends past the predictions of Bering, and conducts ethnographic first person accounts of religious belief in individuals in autism. The religious background she chooses to us for her research was Judaism. She decided on Judaism because “of its special emphasis on the behavioral performance of 613 biblical commandments and their deviations, alongside its lack of a specific credo” (Brezis 296). She had a total of sixteen participants in the study four of which were female, and the rest male all participants were between the ages of 9 to 26. “Participants were recruited through local support groups for parents of autistic children in and around Jerusalem”, and their degree of religious practice varied from “ultra-orthodox to secular” (Brezis 297). She conducted all the interviews in Hebrew, and three participants interviews, out of the original sixteen, had to be excluded form the study. The interviews she conducted were between one hour to one hour and half hours. She opened with questions regarding the degree of religious practice, such as keeping kosher, Shabbat, and holidays they and their parents keep, and then she slowly worked into more “personal questions of belief and the nature of their personal relationship with God” (Brezis 298). The results of her research were full of diversity and rich with information that is worthy of further inquiry. There are several excerpts that Brezis includes in the chapter from her interviews that point to a use of religious and cultural scripts and “scaffolding of personal identity, but also refute Bering’s (2002) predictions that “autistic persons would fail to develop agentive views of God” (Brezis 306). Brezis was in fact able to show, through her interviews, “that autistic persons can hold an agentive view of God as directing events in the World, and a minority can even engage in an amore personal exchange with God” (Brezis 306). This chapter is a striking one in the essence that there is a wealth of potential for future research that can be conducted and the copious amounts beneficial aspects that said research could produce, and this chapter was just scratch on the surface. There should be, and hopefully already is more and current research being conducted surrounding the ideas proposed in this chapter. There is not much from this study that can be ultimately conclusive other than what was mentioned in the previous paragraph. However, the study is able to add new narrative to the continuing debate surrounding the role theory of mind has on the neuropsychological foundations of religious belief. Also, adding new narrative to autism studies in anthropology. An ethnographic anthropological approach has the ability to capture, or attempts to capture, the natural occurrence of things as the happen in nature, and in this case how individuals with autism navigate their various strengths and weaknesses as they occur naturally instead laboratory setting that’s can be isolating and commonly focuses on just one or two aspect here and there. Works Cited Lende, Daniel H., and Greg Downey. "Chapter 11 Autism as a Case for Neuroanthropology: Delineating the Role of Theory of Mind in Religious Development." The Encultured Brain: An Introduction to Neuroanthropology. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2012. 292-314. Print.
22 Comments
Myra
4/19/2016 08:41:12 pm
This chapter made me realize how little we know about autism. Past theories on how or why it occurred are being challenged by ethnographies such as this one. People with high-functioning autism can become very well adapted to their cultural environment. Children with autism often realize they don’t fit in and are able to scaffold on others’ behavior. The underdeveloped sense of self discussed in this chapter made me a bit skeptical. How can we know for sure what a person with autism has a weak sense of self if they are not able to communicate it? Is it plausible that people on the spectrum actually have a secure sense of self but are unable to communicate that to others? She talked about the use of prestructured narratives by her respondents and explained it as a way to make up for the lack of autobiographical narrative. Could it be that the respondents were impeded by language impairment, but still had a secure sense of self? I know that behavior plays a huge role in the understanding of autism, but I feel like we may be focusing so much on that aspect that we compare it with individual cognition.
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Myra
5/4/2016 03:03:14 pm
One thing that really stuck with me in this chapter was the boy who was asked about his beliefs and ended up explaining with a long story. I think this shows how creative those with autism can be, and how neurotypicals want to write it off at first. I would like to see a study done on creative writers on the spectrum. Because their minds work differently from what we consider to be the "normal brain," perhaps there is a greater capacity for creative ideas? This chapter also discussed narratives and how they are used to establish a sense of self. I think this opens up a lot of possibilities to understand the way those on the spectrum actually see themselves.
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Nick Roy
4/20/2016 06:09:34 am
Being someone who is on the spectrum, I found this article to be very interesting. While I agree with some of what the author states, I challenge others. For example, I do not know if we can truly test theory of mind in the manner the author describes it. I do not think it is presented to be falsifiable. Furthermore, when autism is treated solely as a developmental disorder, it can become easier to view people on the spectrum with a reductionist perspective which simplifies a very complex condition. I do not mean to say that I think the author of this article is at fault of this, but it is a general concern I have with any study of autism.
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Nick Roy
5/4/2016 11:33:57 am
I was skeptical of this chapter at first. Looking back, I would say that some of that skepticism was misdirected. While I still question if you can really test theory of mind as detailed in the study and I still have concerns about the perspective employed by the author, I would say that I am interested in the possibility that autism could be used to gain a deeper understanding of culture. Perhaps, a neuroanthropological reworking of how we view mental illnesses in general is needed to better understand these conditions and what it means when we label a person with ASD or with PTSD.
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Issac
4/20/2016 07:34:13 am
I was unfamiliar with Bering's theory of mind before reading this chapter, but I agree with Nick in that the author presented it in a way that does not seem to be falsifiable. In my opinion, it was very far reaching anyway.
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Issac 2nd post
5/4/2016 01:07:55 pm
One thing that several of us pointed out in class that was a strong critique of this study was the possibility that the individual home situation of each autistic informant could have influenced their beliefs. The point of the author was that the autistic individuals expressed their own diverse views about god despite being raised Jewish and in the same environment as others. But how do we know that? Perhaps the diversity can be explained by their different home situtations and the beliefs of their parents and relatives, something that was not covered by the study.
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Mirjam Holleman
4/20/2016 07:43:19 am
What struck me about this chapter was that it might as well have been about the enculturation of religious beliefs, practice and experience, in general. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly ‘autistic’ or unusual about how these individuals experienced their faith or practiced their religion. What furthermore struck me, was that it might as well have been about how individual Christians talk about their belief in God (while the chapter was about the narratives of Jews with autism).
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Amanda Oldani
4/20/2016 08:12:15 am
I was really intrigued as I read this chapter, and I think these comments are helping me think more critically about the study. I liked the fact that the findings of the study provide new insights and contrast Bering's hypothesis. I think that something like his statement can be too limiting and reductionist, especially when talking about autism, since it can be very diverse and show differently in everyone.
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Amanda Oldani
4/27/2016 08:05:46 am
Like most others have noted, I feel more aware of the limitations of this study. Like Larry and Kelly noted, I first thought that all of these personal accounts of a relationship with God represented diversity within autism, but now I see that these could just be the familial context and how caregivers taught the child how to relate to God. I think more context would be helpful.
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Catherine Lindsay Manson
4/20/2016 09:28:13 am
I found this chapter of The Encultured Brain to be very interesting; as it involves the complex nature of autism and how it affects the ability to make larger connections in their lives with god and other interpersonal relationships. Brezis directly compares and contrasts his research with a theory done by Bering throughout the chapter, which I found to be a good way to see how this subject could be interpreted in different ways. I also thought it was interesting that he explains that the deficiencies in an autistic brain may not come from one central part of the brain (regarding structure) but that it most likely comes from the overall deficiency of many parts of the brain.
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Catherine Manson
4/27/2016 08:57:32 am
After discussing this chapter in class I have a greater understanding of how Brezis thought of how religion could have greater implications on autistic children and adults. In contrast to popular opinion, Brezis says that the structure and the hierarchy of the religious setting may help form greater connections with the people in the group because of the structured routines and practices involved. This chapter essentially says that because autism affects interpersonal relationships and how they are viewed in an autistic brain, the use of religion may be useful to help bridge the gap between autism and social experiences.
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Olivia Davis
4/20/2016 09:43:13 am
This chapter is interesting in many ways but one thing that really caught my attention was the ethnographer's decision to study those on the autism spectrum within the religion of Judaism. In my mind, the place where the author would find the most prevalent answers in regards to one with autism's ability to connect to a higher being would be in a faith system that isn't contingent upon works and ritual. I've worked with autistic children for around four years now and the most basic training that any caregiver or teacher receives in regards to 'reaching' is, "routine, routine, routine," so how do we separate their views of a higher being from their abilities to carry out a ritualistic routine since that is the way in which they've been raised to understand the world? Since Judaism tends to be more legalistic in its views and practices in relation to the object/person of worship, I just wonder how that has skewed the results of the study. Are we looking for one on the spectrum's ability to connect spiritually to a higher ability or their compliance with the "steps" (aka: rituals and practices) necessary from an external perspective to qualify for one?
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Olivia Davis
5/5/2016 09:12:36 am
Even after discussing this in further detail in class, I still maintain the idea that finding the relational connection of one with ASD and a higher power is difficult within the confines of such a legalistic religious view. In my own opinion, the best results in this area of study may in fact come from a faith-based religion, not a works-based one.
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Larry Monocello
4/20/2016 09:54:59 am
Reading this chapter caused me to think about my cousin who has a much more severe form of autism. Coming from a highly religious Italian Roman Catholic background, everyone in my family was inculcated into the religion from birth, and he was no exception.
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Larry
4/26/2016 04:34:55 pm
One of the problematic things about this chapter that I remember from our discussion was the fact that Brezis presented her informants' narratives about their relationship with God as if the construction of religious beliefs can be considered anything but a form of cultural socialization that begins with the parents/adult role models. In other words, unlike how Brezis presented this information, no one's religious/cultural/whatever beliefs form independent of their socio-ontological milieu. Therefore, what she presented was not necessarily evidence of the individual's development of religious belief--it could very well be that the wide range of reported experience reflects the beliefs of the caretakers.
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Michelle Bird
4/20/2016 10:15:13 am
What I found most interesting about this chapter was that ethnography revealed a little bit more about the way people with autism think about things. The young girl who referred to herself as a "screw in the machine" to express her understanding of a greater plan, and the boy who told a story totally unrelated to him when asked if he would remain a religious individual instead of giving a direct answer provide some insight into what kinds of approaches might break down more of the communication barriers present between autistic people and those who don't struggle with the disorder. I did wonder what impact certain interactive video games might have on these kids, whether or not they could develop a stronger sense of personal identity through the creation of a character whose traits and decisions they control (like Fallout, Fable, or Skyrim, etc.). Even if they struggle to talk about themselves, there may be a way to create parallels this way that help guide what is and is not "socially acceptable" behavior; though, personally, I think we could all stand to be just a bit more understanding when we encounter a person or thing that doesn't quite fit in to the mold we have created as a society.
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Michelle Bird 2nd post
5/5/2016 08:44:49 pm
I really loved discussing this chapter in class. I’ve always been fascinated by theory of mind and how it manifests itself in human behavior, and seeing how autistic individuals cope without really being able to discern the intent of other people. I really enjoyed reading about the ways these children learned to cope with their disorder, but I wish more information had been provided regarding their personal histories and family backgrounds, and seeing if there are areas other than religion that these children have made personal connections with, and how those manifest themselves.
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Kelly Likos
4/20/2016 10:55:26 am
This is one of my favorite readings we have explored in this course thus far. The idea of identifing Theory of Mind in children with autism and how that interacts with their concept of religion is fascinating.
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Kelly Likos
4/26/2016 09:21:28 pm
After reviewing this article in class, I wish we had been supplied with more information as to the conditions and possible limitations of the study. I would have liked more background history and demographic information on the subjects of the studies. One thing that really bothered me about this study was the lack patient history on how the subjects dealt with their autism. I know that children, even from a young age, can begin to learn social cues. I really can't help but wonder if theory of mind can be accessed in the same way. Especially young kids understand that they are not connecting with their peers on a certain level, what if they are mirroring religious actions to make up for their lack of social connection? Would this differ between kids that are placed in autism centered programs or not? How does schooling play into this? There are so many questions about this study that I wish we had the answers for.
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Molly Jaworski
4/20/2016 10:58:22 am
Autism is extremely complex and difficult to understand at times. There is a large spectrum by which those with autism are associated with. It is difficult to establish one common theory that encompasses all of these levels of the spectrum. In the chapter Bering utilizes the theory of mind, and due to the complex nature of autism, proves to be a little far out in left field just as Nick and Issac had stated.
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Molly Jaworski
5/5/2016 09:17:17 am
The complexity of Autism and large spectrum of types and levels make it a difficult topic to tackle neuroanthropologically. Unfortunately the complexity and controversy of Autism is only made more complex by adding a neuroanthropological lens in my opinion. I did still find this to be an interesting topic and would love to read more works on the matter.
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4/11/2023 08:01:57 pm
Good topic, thank you for sharing this. Can’t wait to read more of your posts.
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AuthorThis blog is group authored by Dr. DeCaro and the students in his ANT 474/574: Neuroanthropology. Archives
April 2019
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