Advantages of adult diagnosis?

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It depends on the severity. I know some people with mild AS that, if undiagnosed, would probably have a horrible childhood but then have some *chance* to learn how to cope, while being diagnosed they are ruined by parents who treat them as ret*ds and prevent them from using the skills they have.

I don't know, I've come across more than a few parents of autistic children, and most of them seem pretty committed to helping their children learn how to adapt and cope. Just talk to Cyberdad for five minutes and it will be obvious how much effort he's putting into this with his own daughter. Or hey, talk to Nostromos - who is NT - who is working pretty hard as well. Check out the parents forum here. They're not all helicopter parents.

It seems to me that the problem is not being diagnosed as a child. The problem is having parents who don't know how to cope with it. Don't valorize the idea that getting no support will be somehow better. It can be as bad or worse. There are likely more factors at work than severity whether you're diagnosed or not.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that early diagnosis is bad. Actually it is good as long as the parents are reasonable - and MOST parents are reasonable or even great. I was just saying that, while early diagnosis is a good thing as a general rule, it can be harmful if the parents are idiots. Really, I know one whose kid is not really severe, he's smart and doesn't have many meltdowns etc - but since he was diagnosed she is desperate because she had such a "curse" and she is so "unlucky" and annoys him if he doesn't like football or parties. I also know adults that would be able to care for themselves but the parents don't allow them to step out on their own because they are "handicapped"; now I know these cases are a small minority, but they exists. I think that if you treat a kid as a curse and as someone who will never make it in his life, you will make it much more impaired than otherwise.

Support IS good. But is the parents are crazy they will not do support, they will just go nuts and mess up the son.

Right. This is a parents thing, not a diagnosis thing. Anyway, I don't care if Simonono or whoever is bitter about being diagnosed as a child. I just wanted it to be clear that this doesn't mean that not being diagnosed as a child is a golden ticket to coping skills.

My concern is more of: Is diagnosis a golden ticket to discrimination; much of it legal, and some of it legaly mandated?

Actually, I think it does. I know it causes insurance issues.

That said, not being diagnosed doesn't mean you won't experience discrimination, it just won't be explicitly labeled as being about autism.

I'm reasonably certain I would have been better off being diagnosed as a child. I was always unhappy. People were put off by my lack of social skills, I was constantly bullied, I had no friends, and I never understood why. I always just assumed that the world was full of bastards. I used to imagine that I was the only good person in the world, that I had some sort of superpower that made me "good" and that I would never be loved. Even my own mother assumed that I acted the way I did solely to get attention. However, once I finally learned what was wrong with me and realized that people acted the way they did because of how *I* was acting, not because they were all just bastards, I devoted all my energy to learning to act normally. I was more or less successful, and now I have a reasonably normal life with lots of good friends. I'm sure that if I had been diagnosed as a child, I could have been just as successful in adapting and blending in, and I wouldn't have had many of the problems I did. But an academically successful girl in the 80s living in a small town? No chance.

I also regret not having been diagnosed as a child. In my case, I started speaking after age 2 1/2, spoke sentences by age 3, and then a month later, I lost all speech entirely. I did not even try to speak for the longest time, and then with extensive therapy, my speech skills were recovered only at age 5 1/2. I was withdrawn, socially inept when I tried (but rarely ever trying), I rocked like crazy, lined up my toys instead of playing with them, etc. I was so clearly autistic, I am quite angry that even back in the 80s the doctors didn't pick up on it. Instead, they blamed my parents for my language regression (my parents always tried to talk to me, always read to me, etc). They brushed me off as "it's just her personality...deal with it". Now, I am 27, I still have no social skills, I can barely keep a job, I still live at home and am very dependent financially and otherwise on my parents. I have a total of 0 friends--well except for my good friend that lives in another country who I see once every two years or so (we met online). I wholeheartedly believe if this had been caught when I was 3 as it should have been when my parents took me to the doctors with a major language regression, I would be better off than I am today. I think I would have learned coping strategies that I have been unable to teach myself naturally. I think I would still be severe high-functioning autistic, but I do think I would be able to better live in this world around me if I had early intervention.