That's not autism, that is just....

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http://www.salon.com/2013/09/21/thats_n ... erted_boy/

What are your thoughts on this?


While I do think they have stretched the spectrum to a point where quirky people are on it now, I also felt he was making generalizations on autism. You mean children on the autism spectrum are not enthusiastic when they share their interests with others or don't react when someone isn't interested in their topics? Or you mean children on the spectrum don't ever change their interests and they don't ever get replaced by the other?

I have an aspie friend who has so many of them many of them go on the back burner while he focuses on his other interests. It's a spectrum for a reason.

But I also wonder just when does something become an impairment even if their "autistic like" behavior is impacting them? They could be introverted after all or gifted. My little brother was gifted but he wasn't like William in the article but he was advanced in his language and understanding of things. But my mom blames his early language development on herself because he was always around when she was doing speech therapy with me working on my language development. Plus my brother is great at math and was above his level academically in school but he didn't face poor social skills nor did he ramble on about his topics like William did. but I don't think my brother was a genius, he just had a above normal IQ so he was doing math that was one grade level up and in his freshman year he was taking higher grade classes and was allowed to take special ed later than in his freshman year. He even did chemistry.

So could William really be on the autism spectrum or is he really just gifted or both? (rhetorical question)

But overall I thought the author also made a very good point about how NT toddlers can display autistic traits from time to time and how many kids are picky eaters but it doesn't mean it's autism and how boys are less talkitive and less empathetic and girls tend to be more social than boys. But here is where it gets confusing, even autistic children may not always do these traits and I knew a boy with AS and sure he talked about movies and lines from them but we got along well and it's not like he did it every single minute we were together and we had conversations but it didn't mean he wasn't autistic. Plus he and my brother played together while I was out driving for driver's ed and they played well together. Plus I go to my group and I see eye contact and people not rambling on about their interests and they are engaging in conversations but that wouldn't mean they are not autistic just because they are doing these normal things. But yet I knew a boy with autism and he seemed to display them all the time. There was never a moment where he didn't display any. It took me about two or three times for me to realize that him moving around and feeling and touching things and getting on the ground and moving his body in a circle was his self stimulation and that was pretty much what he did all the time and then he would stop when he would do something else like listen to the radio or when he looked at maps or talk to someone. But it's also a possibility that some signs can be so subtle, you cannot tell and some kids are more obvious than others. Plus when someone is an adult, they might have just learned to appear normal, even in the autism group. I wouldn't know if they have always done that.

its a diffficult issue.there are many false diagnosises but how do you tell the difference between a false diagnosis and a real one with more subtle but legitimate symptoms.if there is to much false DX backlash then legit cases could start going undiagnosed.

we need more inteligent diagnosis to get each case right the first time so people dont get a wrong diagnosis and people in need of DX dont fall through the cracks.i grew up in the early 80's and fell through the cracks of the system untill i was in my 20's.i dont want anyone to go through that just because doctors become shy to diagnos

This is a uncomfortable topic indeed and it makes me wonder about myself. I also fell through the cracks. No one knew what was wrong with me except I had a language delay and my autistic like behavior was ignored.

I also wonder about my son now and what if he was just normal and it's his school that is the problem and us?

That was actually the same for me when I was a kid, nobody ever knew why I was different though that was before Asperger's was an official diagnosis. The thing is, they also said that I couldn't get above a third grade academic level, now I'm completing a PhD, go figure.

I can speak to misdiagnoses. I was diagnosed with five separate depressive disorders in as many years between ages 15 and 20, and again at age 40. "How many friends do you have?" One. "How many classmates do you talk to?" One or two. "What do you do for fun?" Read books. "Have you ever been diagnosed as depressed?" Yes. "Ohhh! Well, then, I will simply reiterate the diagnosis, too ... $250, please." Huh?!?

I accept that too many diagnosticians are their own worst enemies in making accurate diagnoses. But, for every misdiagnosis of autism, there must be statistically at least another misdiagnosis, like mine, which determines "no evidence" of autism when evidence is screaming at the diagnosticians. If my misdiagnoses of depression were simply repeated without clinical evidence ("no harm, no foul"), maybe there will be little harm with mistakenly diagnosed autists.

After all, most people will live their lives as they choose. If a mistaken diagnosis gets ignored over time by the diagnosed individual who acts in ways to forget the diagnosis, little harm would exist, right?

Yes, and no.

I've heard the same type of thing about ADD and ADHD, "That's not AD(H)D, it's just daydreaming". I have heard people say that an autism and/or ADD/ADHD diagnosis is just a lazy way to explain why a kid is not doing well in school. According to some people (mostly conspiracy theorists from my experience) I am an otherwise normal person who is a bit nerdy and uses my diagnoses as en excuse to be rude to people, daydream, and not do well in school. There are way too many conspiracy theories around autism, everything form autism denialism to vaccines and GMOs causing it. It would really help if autism awareness campaigns did more then inform people that "autism" is in the English dictionary.

This doctor also doesn't believe you can shed ASD symptoms so does that mean he thinks autistic people can never get better and overcome their handicaps? I wonder how he feels about Temple Grandin.

I can understand that some kids are slower than others to develop and girls do things sooner than boys and I do agree that kids shouldn't be diagnosed if they are a little delayed but the question is what happens if their delay causes them an impairment in school? What if it also impacts their life like at home and with friends? Developmental delay does not qualify as a disability for an IEP is most states so the school district people are "forced" to look for "proof" that the child has something to make them qualify. But then the label can affect the child and hurt their career choices in the future if it's inaccurate. It sucks when you have a legitimate condition and it has to limit your career choice but why have it happen to a child that doesn't have a disorder?

I sometimes think it's society that causes people to have a disability and they don't have a true disorder but with the way society is, the way school systems are set up and education and the way jobs are set up, that has created more disabled people. I am betting that I wouldn't have a disability back in my parents childhood days or in my grandparents days as young adults and kids because times were different then and education was different so I would have just been eccentric and weird and over dramatic. Even Temple Grandin has said something about it regarding high functioning aspies. Even people with poor social skills were just eccentric, now they are disabled.

This doctor also seems to think mild autism doesn't exist and only the moderate and severe cases do. I already know that under his eyes I do not have an ASD. I am sure he would think the same way about my online friend too and maybe people in my group because he wrote in his other article that he could tell within minutes of meeting this child he did not have an ASD after his mother had pushed for the diagnoses on him after doctors had said he didn't have it when the pediatrician thought he did. Making that assessment in a few minutes is skeptical.

First we need an actual definition that fits the symptoms. Right now we have a scattershot, a "pick 7 of 12", for example, but then treat people as if they all have the same 7. It'd be really nice to see a large scale effort that gathered as much information as possible, did a cross-analysis and came up with a core group of attributes and a secondary group. Treat it as a syndrome, not a disease. Or, simply treat each attribute as the person needs to be able to live happily and forego the idea that there is this core "thing" in the middle of it all called "autism" that doesn't actually have a description.



This, many times over. I've finally reached the point where I simply tell the person, "let's do a single blind test and see what you come up with". I've found the good ones readily agree & want to discuss the priors afterwards for comparison. The ones who are useless anyway usually get angry and defensive.

I actually read the whole book, as part of my recurring interest in understanding why I was such a misfit kid. My main criticism is that it's too simplistic. Not every kid who can be mistaken for autistic is necessarily a bright introverted boy, not every kid who can be mistaken for ADHD is simply a little slow in growing out of the self-centeredness typical of young children, and so on. I had been mistaken for ADHD in the past, and yes, I was slow in growing out of self-centeredness, and I had temporarily convinced myself that that was the whole problem, that I was just a brat, after reading this book. But now I think there was more to it. I really did, for some reason, think differently from most other people I know, which made it hard for me to obey rules and fit in.

I am neither introverted (I'm in between introverted and extroverted) nor a boy, but people who knew me when younger have tried to retroactively diagnose me as autistic when it never quite fit, because I was considerably behind on social skills compared to what was expected for a clever girl until adulthood. The "scientific sexism" in that kind of material also tends to rub me the wrong way: it's not JUST boys who can be behind in social skills without autism, and there's still active debate as to how much the enhanced social skills in girls are related to cultural pressure to perform in this area, which IS present from birth. (Just look at how we dress and talk to and about kids according to their visibly apparent sex at birth, and what toys we buy them: things for boys and people and animals for girls.) Every time I read real Aspies' self-descriptions here or elsewhere, however, I see major differences from my own experience, especially in the area of sensory issues, which in my case were marginal and disappeared before puberty.

It was no picnic being a fundamentally non-autistic kid who was nonetheless failing to meet people's social and behavioral expectations for a long time, and having no idea what or if anything could be done about it. (Simply being asked, expected, or pressured to grow out of it did not do anything to help me grow out of it faster than my development and circumstances allowed me to.) On the other hand, a lot of truly autistic people do manage to slip under the radar for a long time, until they come across a challenge they can't surmount, and discover that it has a lot to do with these previously un-realized sensory and cognitive differences.

So, in the end, maybe what is needed is to do more watchful waiting with misfit kids and provide them with support appropriate to their apparent issues, without slapping on a label too quickly or being too attached to early labels, and especially without making too many assumptions about what that label means for their future. (How many kids who could never have been mistaken for having a neurological disorder have grown up to struggle economically and in their intimate lives in this complicated 21st Century society? Lots.) I think that's where the biggest problem lies with overdiagnosis and misdiagnosis: reading way too much into the labels, stereotyping, expecting too much of those without stigmatizing labels and too little of those with them, overreacting and going down rabbit holes, and so on.

I think the article isn't about what readers probably think it is about.

The function of all media is to convince the public to buy something - whether products, or ideas.


Autism diagnoses are likely costing the government a lot of money.


Individuals who are unsure of whether they may be autistic (or not) will likely not follow through with a diagnosis after reading such an article. Hence getting a psychologist to write it i.e. someone who can convince others of a certain mode of thought.

When I read an article (which isn't often), I generally always think 'what are you trying to sell me?'.


The details of the article likely don't matter.

However, in saying that:


1) Even as a psychologist, he can't say the boy isn't autistic after spending some time with him. This isn't a formal diagnosis, as the required battery of tests aren't being undertaken.

The psychologist may be an expert - but without the correct diagnostic process, he can only suspect - expert or otherwise (it's the same issue as 'self-diagnosis').


2) He claims the rise in diagnoses implies 'loose' diagnostic processes. This is nothing but a fallacy.

More earthquakes are recorded now than ever. Does that mean there are more earthquakes, or that we now have better (and more) seismic recording equipment?


3) An autism diagnosis isn't based on behavioural characteristics, but rather, difficulties encountered as a product of certain behavioural characteristics.

Being 'introspective' is fine if it doesn't cause deficits. If this (and other symptoms) causes deficits, then there's a case to be made for seeking a diagnosis.

Two people could have very similar characteristics, yet one may not be autistic, as one may have no difficulties with the characteristics they have (whilst the other does).




But none of this likely matters, as the function of the article is most likely to save the government money by reducing the number of diagnosed cases/those seeking diagnoses.


-EDIT- as everyone here likely appreciates, a diagnosis is sought when certain characteristics cause difficulty.

To seek a diagnosis due to meeting the behavioural characteristics - but without the associated difficulties - may be the issue. 'Difficulties' 'deficits' etc are key words in the diagnostic process.

And are why you'll likely be at the doctors in the first place.

Very good point. Why would someone go see a doctor if they don't think they are having any problems? But then again there are kids and adults out there who don't think they have any problems and also won't seek help. A kid wouldn't know any better of course so it's up to the parent to seek help for them. A parent wouldn't take their kid in if they didn't think there were any problems.