The reason the notion of autism spectrum should be offensive

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I just don't see the "offense." I really don't.

If somebody said that Aspergians were the "next step in evolution," I wouldn't be "offended." I would just sort of laugh.

Not all "high-functioning" autistics would be able to function perfectly if society were more accepting either. The idea of a clear dichotomy between high-functioning and low-functioning doesn't help anyone. It causes people to deny the struggles of those labeled high-functioning, and the capabilities of those labeled low-functioning.

What does society have to do with hypersensitivity?
What does society have to do with restrictive and repetitive interests?
What does society have to do with disorganized cognitive processing?
What does society have to do with executive dysfunction?
What does society have to do with needing to stick to a routine?
What does society have to do with poor motor skills?
What does society have to do with difficulty in conceptualizing?
What does society have to do with issues of proximity and spatial awareness?
What does society have to do with learning difficulties?

What does 'Society' have to do with anything that is directly caused by an ASD? NOTHING!

It is true, though, that some aspects of "modern society" are more difficult for people with ASD's to deal with than their neurotypical counterparts. Especially that which involves sensory bombardment---like lights, noises, the fast pace of life in general, etc.

In some aspects, people with autism would have done better in the "old days."

In some aspects, people with autism would have done worse in the "old days."

"Society" is definitely not to blame for ASD's, let me emphasize that.

I don't have hypersensitivity.



NT-s have restricted repetitive interests too: watching football all day long. They don't notice their own interests as abnormal but they notice aspie interests as such. Thats why aspies are labeled as having restricted repetitive interests. If we were to live in a planet full of aspies then NT-s would be the ones labeled as having those interests.



I live far away from my mom and, when I am by myself, I manage just fine. But when I visit her, she starts correcting every single thing I do and reminding me of things. I admit, its because I *look* disorganized. But, just because my backpack is a total mess, it doesn't mean I would forget to cancel my hotel reservation when I change travel plans. Thats the point my mom doesn't seem to get. Or even better example: I lose things all the time, yet I never once lost a passport, because passport is important, other things aren't. My mom doesn't get that either. So maybe autistics don't have "disorganized cognitive processing" or "executive dysfunction". They simply don't regard certain things as important.



I don't need to stick to routine, but my mom thinks that I do. Which is another reason why I get so angry at her when I visit her.



Well, I *look* quite clumsy, but I never once injured myself due to this. So, once again, the issue is whehter its important or not. Who knows, maybe if it was somehow dangerous to be clumsy I would have learned not to be.



This difficulty goes two ways. I have difficulty understanding why NT-s do what they do, and NT-s have difficulty understanding why I do what I do. So "difficulty in conceputalizing" is not an aspie trait: rather its something common to anyone (aspie OR NT) when trying to understand someone different.



Once again, even if I *look like* I am not spacially aware, I never once hurt myself. In fact maybe I am *more* spacially aware than NT-s since I know that certain things aren't dangerous while NT-s don't. For example, my mom keeps getting upset when an edge of my laptop is sticking out of the table, because the laptop would presumably fall. I know for a fact it won't fall, but my mom keeps thinking it would. Well, the fact is that it never did. So apparently I am more spacially aware than my mom.



I was AHEAD of other students both in high school as well as an undergrad. In grad school, however, I *DID* encounter learning difficulties. But, given that most NT-s don't even make it to grad school on the first place, why would you call it a unique aspie issue?

Yet you were somehow motivated enough to disassemble EzraS's entire post and criticize it in minute detail...

Even though I don't have hypersensitivity, I still have Asperger Syndrome. If you are telling me that I am not on the same boat as people who do have hypersensitivity, you are just proving my point of wanting to split the diagnosis into several conditions. And I am not saying people with hypersensitivity should be lumped together with low functioning either: having hypersensitivity isn't as bad as being profoundly ret*d. Thats why I say it should be split into *several* conditions, not just two or three.

Well, if I could choose between two options, I'd rather be true about myself by saying I am grateful to be higher-functioning (but you seem to think it's "despise" which isn't legitimate) than be socially or medically "inclusive" of those who might give others difficulty in dealing with "normal" functioning people or caretakers.

Poor social skills and repetitive behaviors are core traits in the DSM5, not mental retardation. That is why there is a diagnostic option of "Autism Spectrum Level Three with intellectual impairment exists.

Pain can be a consequence of severe Autistic sensory sensitivities.

Actually, your behavior is proving the opposite -- you are in the same boat as those lower-functioning people you despise...Ahh ... so it's a form of Ableism that you're expressing! You seem to be of the opinion that being "ret*d" (or otherwise less able) somehow makes someone inferior to you, and that putting them in a different category would somehow make you feel better.

My dad used to do the same thing with black people -- he believed that having darker skin somehow made them inferior to him, and that by putting them in a different category of species somehow made him feel better.

If you re-read my original post, you will find that is exactly what I been saying. But I view it as a problem. I mean, if you say that social skills is a prime symptome and mental retardation is a secondary while you are talking about profoundly ret*d kid, what you are implying is that having social skills problems is even worse than being profoundly ret*d. Well, thats what I am against.

Now, what I am proposing is replacing the diagnosis "autism with intellectual impairment" with a diagnosis "intellectual impairment with autistic features". Change the accents, thats what I am trying to say.

Here is an analogy that would illustrate this point. I don't know about DSM 5, but as far as DSM 4 is concerned, there is a diagnosis "bipolar disorder with psychotic features" and also "schizoaffective disorder". The former is mostly bipolar and a little bit of psychosis, the latter is mostly psychosis and a little bit of bipolar. Hence, they are classified in the separate sections: the former is classified with mood disorders, the latter with psychotic disorders. Now, its entirely possible that those two disorders are part of the same spectrum: after all, they both include both mood and psychotic component, the only issue is how much of which. But that didn't stop them from being classified separately. I propose to do the same thing with autism.

In other words, what I am saying is this. There is an autism spectrum ("requiring minimal support", "requiring moderate support", "requring extensive support") and there is a mental retardation spectrum ("mild", "moderate", "severe", "profound"). So, since we have both spectrums, we have a choice to make in terms of where to classify the people that are both autistic and ret*d: should they be classified on the autism spectrum or on the mental retardation spectrum? Currently they are classified on autism spectrum as "autism with intellectual impairment"; I am proposing to re-classify them into the mental retardation spectrum as "mental retardation with autistic features".



You missed the context of where pain was mentioned. Basically, you brought up cancer analogy and said that cancer can also range from its mild forms to people screaming in pain, yet it is all cancer. In other words, pain in case of cancer is analogous to mental retardation in case of autism. In other words, I weren't talking about literal pain in case of autism, I was only focusing in this analogy.

In any case, what I was trying to say is that, in case of cancer, pain is a consequence of cancer; but, in case of low functioning autism, the mental retardation is *not* a consequence of bad social skills. Thats why, for cancer, it makes sense to make cancer a primary diagnosis, but in case of low functioning autistics it doesn't make sense to talk about bad social skills as primary feature.

You are just proving my point with this statement. The only impairment I have demonstrated on this board has to do with social skills. Yet you are calling me low functioning -- even though low functioning are impaired in all kinds of other areas, such as not being able to take care of themselves. So you are saying I am as bad as someone who can't feed themselves, all because I have social problems. Thats precisely what I am arguing against.



If it is abelist to label high functioning and low functioning differently, then by the same token it would also be abelist to label high functioning ones differently from NT-s. So one can either be abelist against high functioning by lumping them together with low functioning, or one can be abelist against low functioning by labeling them separately. What this shows is that labeling people is inherently abelist, regardless of how you do that. But then why not get rid of labels altogether?

Schizophrenia for many decades was often used as a "waste basket" diagnosis for mental disorders that clinical psychologists couldn't identify. It is true that all Autistics experience delusions and paranoia to only a moderate degree but it was this similarity that often had us lumped in with those who had true blue schizophrenia, unfortunately.

Take for example the famed mathematician and Game Theory author John Nash. Since he was born many years ago his mental disorder was diagnosed as schizophrenia but I strongly believe that had he lived in the modern era during these days, then he would have been diagnosed with high functioning Autism and thus Asperger's Syndrome. His adult years were in the 50s and 60s unfortunately. This is only my opinion and I'm not a clinical psychologist but this is way too coincidental NOT to be true. The treatment for schizophrenia in those days was electroshock therapy with a dangerous cocktail of drugs that severely depressed him and it would have been excruciatingly brutal.

To this day, and unfortunately he died only recently, he has always maintained that he never actually "saw" those people (the little girl, his best friend and Ed Harris the a**hole CIA man that Hollywood created as delusions) that were depicted in the movie A Beautiful Mind for which this was made about his life story.

I'm sure many years from now other mental disorders will be discovered that once used to be diagnosed as schizophrenia and perhaps one day we can get rid of this so-called wastebasket diagnosis technique.

Where did you get that autistics are delusional or paranoid? In most cases it is the opposite: autistics are way too trusting and naive.

I guess I can see one way in which they might come across as paranoid. In particular, due to being treated poorly by society (which is real, not paranoia at all) they might attribute that poor treatment to other situations where people are well meaning. Difficulty reading social signals might also contribute to this: if one can't understand the other person, one might ending up erring in the way of caution.

But, be it as it may, this is only part of much bigger picture of not being able to read other people. And the rest of the picture might be naivetter rather than paranoia.



That is quite interesting. So are you saying that, even though he didn't see them, he conjectured that they were there -- which would mean he had delusions without hallucinations? Or are you saying he didn't conjecture they were there either, he knew they weren't real, but others didn't believe him when he told them so?

EXCUSE ME? Where do you get this misinformation? "All" Autistics? Really?

Evidence, Please?