Is it because english isn't my first language, or is the title somewhat ambigious? Better than who, autistic children who do not have imaginary friends (it seems that the article is indicating this) or better than everyone else?
Though more I read it, I guess better could also mean that their social skills are better than they would be without an imaginary friend.
- They found a higher rate ("almost half") of autistic children "creating imaginary friends" than prior research.
- A comparison is drawn between autistic children with imaginary friends versus autistic children without. Those with had "better social skills" than those without.
- Prior research has found a similar difference in the general population (non-autistic children).
As always, though, correlation != causation. It could well be the case that half of children (autistic or not) have some extra innate capacity for socialization, and that typical parenting choices don't provide those children as much social input as their brain wants at a certain stage of development, and hence they make up imaginary friends to interact with in order to satisfy their enhanced social needs. In other words, the imaginary friends could be an effect rather than a cause.
In context, one would expect “better than” to refer to autistic children without imaginary friends, simply because deficits in social skills are a defining feature of autism.
As such, the title is technically ambiguous but practically speaking, not.
> Is it because english isn't my first language, or is the title somewhat ambigious?
The truncated HN headline is a little ambiguous, though the most natural reading is correct; the full source title / subtitle is not ambiguous at all:
“Autistic children with imaginary friends have better social skills, just like neurotypical children /
Results suggest that pretend play provides similar social benefits to autistic children as it does to neurotypical children.”
Better than autistic children who do not have imaginary friends. It's not said explicitly, but it's obvious, and could be used in e.g. a magazine article title without the clarification. I think it might even seem a little too "spoon-fed" if they've spelled it out...
> Their farm is open for visitors and you can see pigs and chickens that actually look happy. The pigs even run over to you when they smell you and you can see their cute little tails wigglin'.
That reminded me of a childhood memory. We didn't have a farm, but we had few animals (sheeps, chickens, rabbits). One year my father decided to buy a piglet from a spring fair. Me and my brothers were thrilled, it was playfull and curious (not like sheep, who were rather booring), kinda like a dog. My father also really liked to take care of it. I remember that he even applied some soothing cream on it after a rather bad sunburn. But in the end it was still bought and raised for meat. My father had always been a guy that slaughtered animals for other people in the neighborhoud, pigs also. But this one really got under his skin. He did still slaughter it, but sweared to never raise and kill a pig himself. It reportedly was kinda like killing a puppy.
Yes, my family raised pigs and it became unbearable. They were smarter than any dog I had met at the time. They were kind and curious animals. They loved to play and had favourite foods.
After a few years we had a bad slaughter day in which one pig survived a bullet to the head and started making some of the most horrifying movements and screams I’ve ever heard.
We were all aware that we’d killed a sentient creature that we cared for. Not much unlike killing our dogs. We talked about it several times over days and weeks, here and there over months, then not much from then on. We never got pigs again.
Somehow it took me another 15 years to stop eating animals. It blows my mind that I was able to keep it up after that day – it was so gory and brutal, and simultaneously entirely unnecessary. We ate those pigs because we liked it, not because we needed it.
I also usually get good results with recipes from Serious Eats[1], I also find that the in depth articles go into reasons behind the recipes, really help with knowing the "why", not only the "how".
