by Leah FontaineIn chapter 9 of The Encultured Brain, Rachel S. Brezis talks about her study looking at religious relationships in autistic youth raised in a Jewish family. She begins her chapter by discussing why her study is important and unique from those around it by pointing out that she is looking at neurological diversity rather than cultural diversity. She soon brings up a paper by Jesse M. Bering on the Theory of Mind, our capability to empathize and understand those around us. A leading theme in autistic research has been that all those on the spectrum lack this Theory of Mind. However, Brezis’s study refutes this and uses religion as her basis for understanding if someone possessed the theory.
Brezis includes a section talking about autism where she details the three main themes when patients are being diagnosed. The first centers around social interaction and any inability when dealing with it. The second is any disruption in language or communication. The third has to do with the need for a routine and therefore an inability to both handle and perform spontaneously. The also brings up one of the leading discoveries in autism research suggests a lack of connectivity throughout the brain as a whole. After looking into several other theories about autism, she does take a step back to remind that the emic perspective of autistic people shouldn’t be silenced in this research. This emic theme continues throughout the rest of her chapter. Throughout the rest of the chapter, Brezis details and describes her study, but does so in a much more scientific way that in a religious studies way. Her perspective on religion only goes as far as the Abrahamic religions which is a problem in many western studies. She defines her criteria for religion which is helpful in understanding what she is looking for, but it doesn’t mitigate the fact that she doesn’t acknowledge that she is only using the word religion or religious as being god centric. However, she finds that at least two of the autistic young adults that she studies have some form of personal connection with God. She uses this to show that some people with autism do have the ability to have a self and reflect on it despite Bering’s theory that they couldn’t. Brezis only studied those who were high functioning however, and there was little discussion on how wide of a spectrum autism covers. This chapter was an interesting read and I agree with Brezis’s assertion that this research should be continued, but there were many flaws and components left out of the study that leave gaping holes of understanding. She neglects to give any comparison to how autistic individuals relationships and understanding differ from those in their community. In a religion such a Judaism that doesn’t inforces practice over belief, the rates of how deep others in the community feel on religion should have been included in this study as it was one of the reason for picking it. While I think what Brezis finds is important and should be further looked into, I don’t believe her study has much weight because of the missing components. Questions: - What elements did you think were missing from this study either from a scientific perspective or a cultural one? - In what ways do you think this could further understanding in autism research and categorization of disabilities?
7 Comments
Casey Fulkerson
4/2/2019 06:18:53 pm
I enjoyed reading this chapter. I appreciated how Rachel Brezis gives an overview of Autism Spectrum Disorder before she dives into her study and results. I thought her statement on page 302 was interesting about how people with autism perhaps don't have issues with understandings others, but understanding themselves and so organized religion such as Judaism helps to remedy that. Her findings absolutely suggest that people with autism can have an belief and relationship with God, but her sample size was limited and was from one end of the autism spectrum. I think that for her findings to be more conclusive, she also should have interviewed individuals on the "lower functioning" end of the spectrum as well as those in the middle of the pack. As we learned from watching "Wretches and Jabberers", just because someone is classified as being "lower functioning," does not mean that they cannot have thoughts and beliefs or communicate them to others.
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Brian Rivera
4/3/2019 06:06:33 am
I shared the question of how much is high functioning autism representative of autism as well as how representative of religions is Judaism. Although the chapter did say something about how these individuals conceive of god, I think what it says about autism and religion is less clear. This made think about the difficulty of grouping individuals with autism into a category for the sake of a study. The beginning of the chapter states that "...we will be looking at the ways in which individuals with autism, equipped with a particular neuropsychological foundation, interpret and interact..." what exactly is this "neuropsychological foundation"? Given the unique manifestation of autism within individuals (even within a high functioning group), I think it would be difficult to specify a shared neuropsychological foundation.
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Daniel J Quillen
4/3/2019 09:51:06 am
The main neurological difference within people with autism spectrum disorder is poor whit matter (axon) connections from the cerebellum to the primary motor cortex and much of the left hemisphere of the brain. This explains the poor communication abilities as the cerebellum controls fine motor movements included in speech as well as the causes the repetitive patterns of movement seen in ASD patients. This study shows that ASD patients have the same ability to self reflect and empathize however their abilities to communicate such things are hindered by these poor connections in their brains. The true neurological effect of religion on these white matter connections is something I would find interesting as an area of further study.
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Elisabeth Nations
4/23/2019 08:52:13 am
I remained skeptical while reading this chapter, not in regards to the work that Brezis did, but in response to the theories she based her work on. Bering's assumption that autistic people cannot have theory of mind is what I disagreed with the most. This chapter brought to mind the Wretches and Jabberers film. The men in that documentary most definitely had theory of mind; they were highly intellectual people who just had trouble communicating their thoughts to the world. Bering posits that an autistic person, being without theory of mind, would be unable to think about life as having meaning or their lives as having purpose, but that is absolutely contradicted in Wretches and Jabberers, where one autistic man discusses in depth that he has been searching for the purpose of his life. Although I thought Brezis's work was valid and interesting, I was most thrown off by Bering's ideas and how wrong I found them to be.
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Casey Fulkerson
4/23/2019 02:19:53 pm
As someone who works with children with ASD in a church setting, I absolutely believe that people with ASD can have a religious belief in God because it is something that I witness firsthand. Maybe this is why I thought that this chapter was so interesting to read; who knows. Anyway, I appreciate how Brezis completely departs (maybe rebels is a better word) against the common view of the effects of autism on human neurological development. Was her research method perfect? By no means; no research project will be perfect. But did it prove that maybe the common view of autism is not completely accurate? Yes, I think that it did.
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Jennifer Fortunato
4/24/2019 07:58:57 am
Our in class discussion of theory of mind really helped me understand where Brezis was coming from in this chapter. I think that this chapter and our class discussion helps dispels some myths about autistic people not having a theory of mind.
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Brian Rivera
4/24/2019 02:25:26 pm
This is one of the articles we have talked about most in class for a lot of different reasons. One point that I though was particularly important was Dr. DeCaro's statment that some research tries to capture the immediacy of an experience, the way that setting and time affect a psychological experience. This is important because even with all the criticisms of this article, it is possible to see how it might illuminate the particular aspects of a phenomenological experience.
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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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