Abandoning Asperger"s for ASD

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I'm not a supporter of the neurodiversity movement anymore, and I certainly don't agree with that claim. From my perspective, NDs need to learn how to cope with their differences, how to function among NTs, and how to build their own networks and groups with their own preferences at the center. The problem is that nobody knows how NDs work in the relationship area and NTs are poor at telling how they operate themselves (because they do it on instinct). That's the research we need, not ways to turn off genes in the womb.

The problem is if Aspergers and Autism are eliminated due to negative associations, the replacement words will become associated with these stigmas. Same process with the replacement words for the replacement words when they become toxic. This is known as the Euphemism treadmill.

When applying for a disability a common strategy is to make one's life seem as miserable as possible. It is possible your parents were employing this strategy during the application process.

I'm not particularly concerned with whether Asperger was a Nazi. (Capitalizing the term Nazi is a matter of linguistic correctness, not any acknowledgement of their validity.) Medical conditions named after a person should be named after the person who first documented the condition, without regard to whether they were good or bad.

As for whether Aspergers should be classified separately from autism: ultimately it should depend on what we understand about the root cause of the condition. If the best research concludes that Aspergers, in cause and presentation, is just a milder form of autism then it makes sense to discard Aspergers and use ASD Levels 1-3.

On the one hand, Aspergers is useful because it identifies a significant difference in level of functionality than autism traditionally did. On the other hand, recognition that they are different degrees helps force autism advocates to actually advocate for more than just the low functioning and severely impaired

It was suggested in this thread that if every autistic was correctly diagnosed it could be as much as 1/6 of the population. That seems ludicrous to me. If 1 in 6 people were anything like me I would have a very different life experience, especially growing up. I find it inconceivable that more than 5% of Americans are autistic, including undiagnosed.

"It's more like they claim that autistic preferences are innate and should be accepted as human diversity."

I fundamentally disagree with the idea that because something is innate it has to be accepted.

The UK stopped using it a while ago now. I had this in my signature for a long time.

The Asperger guy was a prick basically. Winston Churchill was also a prick but he was good because he helped us in the war.

Can't always be rainbows I suppose.

Even the concept of neurotypical is problematic. Is someone with intellectual disabilities, ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc., etc. neurotypical? Of course not. Before talking about neurotypicals, one first needs to operationalize the term (define it in terms of measurement criteria). Neurodiverse, commonly used to refer to Autistics, is also problematic. As humans, we are all neurodiverse.

Why place Autistics in one category and everyone else in another?

I think that is the conclusion.



I'm more interested in atypical people (with autistic traits) that are not diagnosable.



I don't think I ever claimed that 1 in 6 people should be diagnosed with ASD. I claimed that 1 in 6 people are high on autistic traits, but few of them are diagnosed, simply because they don't need to be diagnosed. If 1 in 6 people eventually get diagnosed as ASD, this would be a full-blown catastrophic event for society. The lower the ASD diagnostic rate the better. It indicates more people can live with their differences without needing a diagnosis.

Basically because human diversity and neurodiversity are bimodal. I classify people by neurotype, and with a bimodal normal distribution of traits, it's most convenient to use atypical (autistic, neurodiverse) and typical (neurotypical). Neurodivergent has no place since it's not adapted to a bimodal model of neurodiversity.

I have an article on peer-review with JADD where I can prove using a dataset of two million people from Aspie Quiz that score distributions are bimodal.

I think people should be classified on this subject in three categories:

1. Neurodivergent, which should include not only ASD but ADHD and any other mental health condition people have from birth. People born this way.

2. Neurotypical and mentally unwell. (Neurodisturbed?) People who are not ND but have anxiety, depression, PTSD, addiction, or some other diagnosable mental health condition developed during their lives.

3. Neurotypical and mentally well. People with no diagnosable mental health condition.

Someone with "autistic traits" but not enough to be diagnosable seems kind of meaningless because few, if any, autistic traits are uniquely autistic. You might as well say the same person has "schizotypal traits" or "ADHD traits." Until there is a critical mass of traits to determine the underlying cause and allow a diagnosis they're just traits.

It's not particularly problematic. ND versus NT is s matter of brain architecture. If it goes away with medication, meditation, education or for some other reason, then it's not ND.

While it is s social construct, it's kind of ridiculous to fail to acknowledge that there's s massive difference between brains that aren't functioning properly for their architecture versus those that are.

The main grey area is for things like brain damage or degenerative disorders.

This kind of thing is why people should mistrust the social sciences, we have the tools to draw responsible lines about what is and isn't NT with minimal grey area. This isn't a century ago when nobody had any idea what they were doing, most of this stuff can be tracked to what's happening in the brain and there's little reason to think that anything significant won't eventually be as well.


Right, that's why there's usually a caveat on most diagnoses that it needs to be clinically significant. As in the level needs to be significant enough that treatment is warranted. There are exceptions, for example, Schizoid Personality Disorder doesn't require clinically significant distress. (It also barely made the DSM 5 and likely will be removed from the ICD eventually for similar reasons)

Subclinical cases do exist, but usually don't require treatment or can be accommodated for. The precise level where treatment is necessary can be a bit subjective, though. The specific line between minor and major depression is somewhat subjective, as the former usually resolves on its own and the latter likely benefits from treatment.

Neurodivergent today is defined as ANY DIFFERENCE FROM NORMAL. That makes it completely useless in the context of autistic traits.



Wrong. Autistic traits cluster, and ADHD, schizotypal and similar are on a single cluster. These traits are one part of the bimodal distribution of human diversity. The other part is typical traits. Thus, you don't need to define exactly what autistic/neurodiverse traits are, and it doesn't matter if they exist only in diagnosed ASD or not. This is something I discovered in 2008, and that Aspie Quiz has been based on ever since. Given that Aspie Quiz has remained a highly popular test over many years (it will be 20 years next year), and through major revisions, it shows that this works.

The autism diagnosis or the other related diagnoses (ADHD, Schizotypal and others) do not define all the traits part of the cluster, and so will not give the full picture.

I don't think schizophrenia, and intellectual disabilities are neurotypes. Not every condition that affects the nervous system is a neurotype. It's the same for brain injury. If a neurotypical person has an accident and gets a brain injury, that does not change his neurotype. It just makes him a neurotypical with a brain injury.

I have read that they can be classed as ND but personally, I don't think they are.

I hope you announce the paper here once it is published.

Without seeing your data and analysis, it is really unfair for me to comment. The only exception I will make is to suggest, as a sociologist, that people are multidimensional. I will leave it there.

How is someone with a brain injury neurotypical? Most people don't have brain injuries.

Providing those three categories does not mean they are isomorphic with reality (that they fit reality). Categories must be based on research and only research.

Or we can just admit that perhaps the medical establishment isn't in a position to make such important decisions at this time. Most of the support is being given by the community anyways, so why bother with that sort of gatekeeping institutions where a diagnosis costs so much, does little and the research just gets ignored when convenient anyways.

It depends on what the purpose of the categorization is.

Having people understand the difference between inate and acquired mental conditions seems pretty relevant.

If brain scans show that ASD brains look uniquely different from all other inate mental conditions then sure there should be classification recognizing that. However, that distinction seems useful mostly to scientists and medical professionals.