Worldbuilding - looking for advice on representing Autism

[Faylar]

Hi. I've been working on a bit of world building and one of the species I came up with are a hominid that branched off of our tree at around the homo heidelbergensis. They evolved away from Humans on a different (Plane) for lack of a better word.
While researching how I would go about making this species (which I call the Yaes) I found an article suggesting that Neanderthals were potentially autistic as a species.
I don't have much of a frame of reference on how that would translate as a species with every member on an Autism scale, But I think I want my Yaes to be that way too. I have some ideas on how they would guard their culture and what not, but I was curious of a few things which I thought I would ask here...

1) Is there anything that would be defining from a societal perspective of a civilization of Autistic people?

2) How would they differ from us in mannerisms and practices

3)Keeping in mind I aim to do this respectfully... should I even do it all?

A Little about the Yaes...

There are three species of Yaes, the Yaenaes who are a people that are reclusive and stick to the polar regions of the world. They have a strong form of racial memory and a long lifespan due to a symbiote they gained from the plantlife in their home region. These people were used as the base stock for what is now known as the Orcnaes (Orcs) It is something they deeply regret because the Orcnaes destroyed the Yaetrim (The former dominant tropical and temperate species of Yaes.) thousands of years ago.

TheYaetrim were the people who were most like HUmans in thought and technology. They were masters of the world but ultimately fell to invaders who perverted the Yaenaes and used them against them. They are now extinct.

The Yaeren are basically big woodwoses who are the most simple in culture of the Yaes. They live in small scattered communities all over the world and far away from civilization.

Any ideas would be great. If you think it is something I should not pursue, that would be good to know too.

 

[Nobby-W]

Hi. I've been working on a bit of world building and one of the species I came up with are a hominid that branched off of our tree at around the homo heidelbergensis. They evolved away from Humans on a different (Plane) for lack of a better word.
While researching how I would go about making this species (which I call the Yaes) I found an article suggesting that Neanderthals were potentially autistic as a species.
I don't have much of a frame of reference on how that would translate as a species with every member on an Autism scale, But I think I want my Yaes to be that way too. I have some ideas on how they would guard their culture and what not, but I was curious of a few things which I thought I would ask here...

1) Is there anything that would be defining from a societal perspective of a civilization of Autistic people?

2) How would they differ from us in mannerisms and practices

3)Keeping in mind I aim to do this respectfully... should I even do it all?

A Little about the Yaes...

There are three species of Yaes, the Yaenaes who are a people that are reclusive and stick to the polar regions of the world. They have a strong form of racial memory and a long lifespan due to a symbiote they gained from the plantlife in their home region. These people were used as the base stock for what is now known as the Orcnaes (Orcs) It is something they deeply regret because the Orcnaes destroyed the Yaetrim (The former dominant tropical and temperate species of Yaes.) thousands of years ago.

TheYaetrim were the people who were most like HUmans in thought and technology. They were masters of the world but ultimately fell to invaders who perverted the Yaenaes and used them against them. They are now extinct.

The Yaeren are basically big woodwoses who are the most simple in culture of the Yaes. They live in small scattered communities all over the world and far away from civilization.

Any ideas would be great. If you think it is something I should not pursue, that would be good to know too.

So, if you had autistic tendencies in an entire people, you might find the following effects:

Cultural values

• Duplicitous politics would be less pronounced. People would be a bit more trusting unless they had been mis-treated.
• People with a reputation for dishonesty would be more likely to be ostracised.
• Conflict resolution would be much more precipitous. People would tolerate, tolerate, tolerate, snap.
• Meritocracy would be a stronger cultural value.
• The society would be technically inclined and detail oriented, possibly more likely to be adept with magic where relevant.
• Debate would flip-flop between reasoned engagement and flame wars.

Habits

• Less eye contact
• Laconic, terse, consise conversation
• Odd, geeky humour
• Less concerned about personal appearance, maybe more inclination to strange personal habits.
• Emotionally a bit strange, but less inclined to hide emotional state.

Demographic

• Higher incidence of mutes and non-vocals.
• Incidence of people with severe, dysfunctional autism. Maybe social constructs geared around caring for these people.
• Strong incidence of scholarship - folks with IQs of 130+ will be common.
• Incidence of people with savant-level skills.

3)Keeping in mind I aim to do this respectfully... should I even do it all?

Yes you should do it. But do it by describing the phenomena from the perspective of some observer - don't mention autism at all.

World-building mainly takes place behind the scenes. The first rule of world building is that nobody gives a shit about your clever ideas. Do the world building behind the scenes but manifest it through a show-don't-tell process.

 

[Faylar]

So, if you had autistic tendencies in an entire people, you might find the following effects:

Cultural values

• Duplicitous politics would be less pronounced. People would be a bit more trusting unless they had been mis-treated.
• People with a reputation for dishonesty would be more likely to be ostracised.
• Conflict resolution would be much more precipitous. People would tolerate, tolerate, tolerate, snap.
• Meritocracy would be a stronger cultural value.
• The society would be technically inclined and detail oriented, possibly more likely to be adept with magic where relevant.
• Debate would flip-flop between reasoned engagement and flame wars.

Habits

• Less eye contact
• Laconic, terse, consise conversation
• Odd, geeky humour
• Less concerned about personal appearance, maybe more inclination to strange personal habits.
• Emotionally a bit strange, but less inclined to hide emotional state.

Demographic

• Higher incidence of mutes and non-vocals.
• Incidence of people with severe, dysfunctional autism. Maybe social constructs geared around caring for these people.
• Strong incidence of scholarship - folks with IQs of 130+ will be common.
• Incidence of people with savant-level skills.

Yes you should do it. But do it by describing the phenomena from the perspective of some observer - don't mention autism at all.

World-building mainly takes place behind the scenes. The first rule of world building is that nobody gives a shit about your clever ideas. Do the world building behind the scenes but manifest it through a show-don't-tell process.

Beautiful response. Thank you

 

[Faylar]

The neanderthol were more inclined to care for the infirm than modern man was at that time. They found graves of elderly neanderthol who lived from birth with deformity. They know that they would only be able to have lived that long with care of the tribe.
Its cool that you touched on the social net part. There is synergy there.

 

[Ghost Whistler]

I think you would need to avoid stereotypes and generalisations honestly. Don't equate bad things with it.

 

[dokel]

It's interesting to speculate how such a culture might develop at a societal level...

Possibly there would evolve fairly elaborate forms of social etiquette to replace the more nuanced social cues of prosody, tone and body language.

It might be considered impolite to make direct eye contact when talking with someone.

It might be common for mundane tasks to be ritualised (e.g. something like the Japanese tea ceremony). And individuals might regularly practice some form of meditation/mindfulness.

The society might be very ordered with little social mobility.

 

[Faylar]

I think you would need to avoid stereotypes and generalisations honestly. Don't equate bad things with it.

I have a special needs daughter. Not autistic, mind you... but its not my intention to cast those I love in a bad light.

 

[WitcherPunk]

As someone who grew up with undiagnosed autism, I have a source of possible
inspiration for you.
Older play called "The Misanthrope". Guy stops doing all the polite little lies that
pervade society. I always wondered why that made him the bad guy.
But it is a good look at how misleading human social activity can be.
Now if I could only gain telepathic powers, I might be able to figure out this "body language" thing.
Good luck!

 

[Stephen Tannhauser]

Part of the difficulty is that so many of the neurovariations currently covered under the "autism" label are in fact very wide-ranging in terms of both strengths and difficulties, which is one of the reasons the term "on the spectrum" is generally used these days rather than the adjective "autistic" or "Aspergian". (My son is on the spectrum so I got a lot of crash courses in this when he was diagnosed.) As a result, if you're talking about a set of tendencies which vary within a sufficiently narrow and consistent range that a viable culture could be developed around them, almost by definition this could be accused of "not properly representing".

I think you are better advised to avoid the term "autism" to begin with, both in your design process and in the writeup fluff, and think more in terms of the Yaes' specific neurovariations from the average human norm -- some of the most common elements of the spectrum can provide an inspiration, but design it around the idea of "what do these people think of as 'normal' in their behaviour and interactions?"

Some of the ideas Nobby-W suggested above could be useful inspirations -- eye contact is saved only for people of deep emotional intimacy, perhaps, and watching two people exchange a long stare in public is as uncomfortable to the Yaes as two people noisily making out would be for most of us.

 

[Endless Flight]

Welcome to the Pub S Stephen Tannhauser.

 

[Stephen Tannhauser]

Welcome to the Pub S Stephen Tannhauser.

Much obliged! Looking forward to spending some quality time here.