Neuro Crash: The Surprising Causes of Meltdowns, Anxiety, and Extreme Behaviors
In this week’s featured @usautism video, I’m sharing an interview that I did with Raun K. Kaufman for a previous US Autism online conference on the topic of the Neuro-Crash. I believe Raun originally coined this term, but since he started using it, I’ve also seen its use increase with others as an explanation for what feels like a much more accurate account of the internal experience of “having a melt-down” in those who are divergent.
When the conference originally aired, I wrote an article on this topic for Psychology Today. Rather than re-write some of that here, I’ll just share that link (see below). I hope you enjoy the article. I’ll add that while we see “asynchronous development” in other populations, such as those who are gifted, intellectually disabled, and with traumatic brain injuries, in my experience, it is the autistic mind that has the capacity to be the most asynchronous. Having suffered a traumatic brain injury when I was in my 30’s, I can also share that being asynchronous is extremely exhausting! I think this particular topic brings lots of seemingly unrelated pieces together to explain why divergence, from any cause, tends to correlate with what we often observe as more extreme behaviors and melt-downs in those across the autism spectrum.