Someone above this said the boxes in a grocery store are "shouting" at them with their bright colors. I know autism has varying levels but like, I sincerely worry about their ability to live if looking a box is causing a truly remarkable level of distress.

> hyper focus on a very complex cognitive task or dedicate hours of "boring" repetitive practice in a physical activity

That's awesome, take that win for sure that it's easier for them to do that and if one would rather go farm than take place in society then I think that's a fantastic goal to work toward.

> I sincerely worry about their ability to live if looking a box is causing a truly remarkable level of distress.

It’s sort of built into the definition of a disorder that otherwise normal stressors or negative pressures have an outsized and excessive impact on the person with the disorder relative to what it would be if they didn’t have the disorder.

Think of it like this, if I punch you as hard as I can in your leg, that might hurt quite a bit and make you favor your leg for a few hours. But if you have a broken leg and I do the same thing it’s going to be much worse for you and you won’t recover nearly is quickly. The input hasn’t changed, only the underlying condition that amplifies the results of that input.

And if you had a broken leg and I did punch you as hard as I could, no one would really be “worried for your ability to live” if you complained that my doing that ruined your ability to function today and tomorrow. Because of course it did, you have a broken leg.

Same idea here. Autism makes the inputs excessively intense. The only difference is se expect your broken leg to eventually heal, and we generally don’t go around punching people in their legs. But autism doesn’t heal and we do live in a word of intense advertising and flash in an attempt to grab your attention.