Autism

 and  Temporality  
 
While  I  have  come  across  a  number  of  articles  linking  autism  with  timing  and  
duration  experience,  I  have  not  seen  anything  relating  autism  with  modern  
phenomenological  ideas  of  the  experience  of  temporality  as  crucial  to  human  beings’  
experience  of  Self  and  World.  
 
A  and  W  are  brothers,  about  2  years  apart.    A  is  currently  in  grade  11  and  W  in  grade  
9.    Both  are  of  normal  to  slightly  above  average  intelligence.    A  is  generally  more  
severely  autistic  than  W.      
 
What  is  interesting  about  the  difference  between  their  experience  of  temporality  is  
that  A  appears  to  have  difficulty  with  his  experience  of  duration,  while  W’s  
experience  appears  to  be  a  timing  difficulty.    A  is  a  very  good  drummer,  indicating  
his  experience  of  timing  is  normal  to  above  average.    Musically  W  is  absolutely  
incompetent,  but  his  experience  of  the  passing  of  time  appears  to  be  normal.    A  will  
spend  arbitrary  amounts  of  time  focused  on  one  thing,  while  W  has  a  normal  
attention  span.    They  were  raised  separately  as  the  divorce  agreement  between  the  
parents  included  A  being  raised  by  the  father,  and  W  by  the  mother.    Although  A  has  
had  a  sheltered,  almost  cloistered  upbringing  due  to  his  father  and  stepmother  
being  radical  Christians,  W  has  had  far  more  opportunities  to  take  part  in  activities,  
his  mother  being  agnostic  and  stepfather  strongly  atheist.    However  due  to  his  
anxiety  at  new  experiences  W  is  not  particularly  more  interested  in  widening  his  
world-­‐experience.  
 
A  had  strong  echoalia  as  a  child,  while  W  had  more  difficulty  with  speech  and  
required  extensive  speech  therapy.    W  still  has  an  odd  type  of  stutter,  where  he  
begins  a  sentence  but  can’t  immediately  finish  it,  and  begins  the  sentence  over  a  
number  of  times  before  he  is  able  to  complete  it.  
 
Modern  phenomenology,  primarily  beginning  with  Martin  Heidegger  in  the  book  
“Being  and  Time”,  postulates  originary  time-­‐experience  as  not  a  sequence  of  now  
points,  but  a  ‘stretching’  between  one’s  history  as  retained  experience,  and  
futurality  as  experience  both  as  projection  and  the  making-­‐present  of  that  future.    As  
such  the  present  is  not  a  ‘now  point’  but  a  making-­‐present  of  one’s  potentials.    W’s  
time-­‐experience  appears  to  have  a  difficulty  with  timing  and  sequencing  issue,  while  
A’s  time-­‐experience  appears  to  have  a  difficulty  with  the  sense  of  a  moment  as  a  
stretch  of  time  that  is  limited  by  one’s  attention  span,  and  thus  naturally  has  an  
indefinite  but  fairly  short  span  that  changes  as  one’s  focus  changes  to  another  topic.    
 
Heidegger  initially  posits  a  number  of  ‘existentials’  as  determinate  for  human  being,  
or  Dasein  in  his  specific  terminology.    These  include  being-­‐in,  being-­‐in-­‐the-­‐world,  
being-­‐with,  understanding,  interpretation,  and  discourse.    These  may  be  authentic  
or  inauthentic,  depending  on  whether  they  are  determined  by  the  Self  or  by  the  
Self’s  projection  of  others’  expectations.    The  second  part  of  the  book  reinterprets  
the  same  existentials  in  terms  of  temporal  experience.  
Both  A  and  W  appear  to  have  difficulty  understanding  others’  expectations,  and  
particularly  W  appears  to  require  intellectual,  subjective  processing  of  experience  in  
order  to  respond  appropriately  in  a  given  situation.    This  results  in  a  delay  in  
response,  although  his  hearing  is  perfectly  normal.    Cognitive  science  has  postulated  
a  delay  in  hearing  as  sense-­‐experience  that  results  in  this  delayed  response,  but  it  
appears  to  be  more  a  delay  in  processing  resulting  from  a  difficulty  of  the  Self  as  a  
whole  to  understand  a  situation  without  the  involvement  of  the  subjective,  
intellectual  facility  of  the  mind.    W  experiences  more  anxiety  at  new  or  different  
situations  than  A,  but  has  a  more  appropriate  response  within  the  moment  of  a  
given  situation  despite  the  small  delay  in  response.    Both  appear  to  have  a  
compulsive  reaction  to  situations,  but  A’s  compulsive  response  results  in  a  tendency  
to  overextend  a  given  situation  in  a  hyperfocused  manner,  while  W’s  response  
results  in  a  compulsion  to  focus  on  a  specific  small  range  of  experiences  within  an  
average  stretch  of  a  given  moment.    As  subjective,  W’s  behavior  has  become  closer  
to  the  normal  range  of  behavior  as  he  has  developed,  while  A’s  behavior  has  
remained  much  the  same.  
 
This  delay  in  response  by  W  then  is  not  a  result  of  sense-­‐experience,  nor  of  simple  
directed  perception,  but  of  consciously  interpreted  understanding  of  the  given  
situation  resulting  from  a  timing  and  sequencing  difficulty  that  requires  intellectual  
processing  to  be  properly  interpreted.    A  appears  to  have  no  similar  difficulty,  
although  his  lack  of  durational  understanding  often  results  in  a  response  to  
situations  that  are  long  over  to  others,  indicating  again  a  difficulty  in  consciously  
interpreted  understanding  being  affected  by  durational  difficulties.    As  both  weakly  
and  strongly  emergent  systems  can  be  understood  only  post  facto  in  a  reductionist  
manner,  and  even  then  only  in  relatively  simple  systemic  situations,  the  difficulties  
have  to  be  understood  from  behavior  in  a  top-­‐down  manner,  i.e.  a  phenomenological  
rather  than  neurological  perspective.