What is autism? How the term became too broad to have meanin

Post Reply New Topic

Back to the subject of autism research:

As I've mentioned elsewhere, there have been plenty of complaints about the more severely disabled autistic people being under-represented in studies. Here's an article reviewing those complaints: Are Children Severely Affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder Underrepresented in Treatment Studies? An Analysis of the Literature by Amy Stedman, Briana Taylor, [...], and Matthew Siegel, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2019. According to the abstract:

The Guardian article linked by the O.P. contains a link to "Is it autism? The line is being increasingly blurred," Université de Montréal Udem Nouvelles, 08/21/2019, about the opinions of "Dr. Laurent Mottron, a professor at Université de Montréal's Department of Psychiatry and a psychiatrist at Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies of the CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal."

In the article "Is it autism? The line is being increasingly blurred," Université de Montréal Udem Nouvelles, 08/21/2019, Dr. Laurent Mottron is quoted as saying some things that, to me, sound surprisingly ignorant, both about autistic people and about today's diagnostic practices. For example:

Oh yes, it's natural to "split hairs" (or to "pull our hair") on defining, or redefining the terms in referring to the Autism Spectrum without stretching the English language to it's limits (this doesn't include the challenge of yielding an understandable context) e.g., terms/acronyms like HFA, AS, and in a sentence, "those concerned with the Autism Spectrum."

Personally, and many of us here on WP feel that clarifying the meanings/context of the Autism Spectrum becomes nothing more than increasingly futile and tiring exercises.

Long before the awareness of Autism Spectrum, the term "slower learners" was applied. Of all the labels, terms etc. etc., the term (more or less formal) "slower learners" was very helpful esp. when thoughtful teachers, counselors, family, and friends were in the loop at the time.

Can the term "slower learners" to make a comeback - a term which might just boost that much needed context on the Autism Spectrum?

I'm anything but slow learner... but I have sensory issues, shutdowns, meltdowns (in childhood) and problems with social things people claim to be obvious.

My view is, autism has become so broad after looking for what all those extreme autistic have in common. Then it turned out, the traits deeply autistic kids share with each other, they also share with much greater part of the population, including fully functional and possibly successsful people.

It's not "one extreme". It's an enormously broad spectrum of extreme autism configurations, all resulting in poor functioning.

I think we have to redefine what severely Autistic means.

Well, it's a spectrum of disorders so it's going to be rather wide and broad.

By definition.

First off, I would not say that the only people who are severe are the ones who do not have linguistic skills and who have communication barriers or issues with motor skills. Yes, those are severities and they should definitely be considered very heavily and focused on. But there are so many people like me and other Autistics that I know who are so neurologically damaged after years of living in an nt society that our Autistic issues have become life threatening. Those needs are completely ignored and not even acknowledged and the severity of the crippling that that gives us is very severe. And what we would need to mitigate those effects is not that expensive or that complicated. Just because we can talk and communicate does not mean that the severity of some of our issues are not as severe or even more severe than some of the issues of people who cannot speak or communicate clearly. Yet we will always be ignored because we don't look the part.

^ I went for years being seen by mental health professionals as ' awkward,demanding and troublesome ' . It was not considered how difficult I could find some things , because of my verbal intelligence .

Unfortunately pre 1994 there was little help anyway for people like me . It became the norm to dismiss things as being character flaws .

c1981 while an inpatient I was sent to do a cookery course . I got kicked off it because I was peeling potatoes too slowly . I was seen as being obstructive . There was no recognition that I might have a genuine difficulty . Such a difficulty ,while not a criteria for Asperger's/autism, is the kind of thing that points to dyspraxia which is often co-morbid with Asperger's /autism .

I would hate to think that people would be reduced to the character assassination and lack of help, support and understanding I was subjected to because people wanted to roll back the diagnosis to a not so golden era .
That would be a seriously retrograde step.