Why early detection is so critical

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I want to repost this in flaming letters. Parents need to be empowered in helping their children. The system fails too many in this regard.

I don't agree that parents have that total power to relegate a child to a life of mediocrity - children have agency as well. I do agree that parents who help their children are probably doing a lot to help them go far.

I think this is another issue where it could have gone either way if you were diagnosed earlier or late. It has more to do with the environment you grew up in. Was it supportive enough? Were your parents able to deal with your issues without breaking you or coddling you?

Now I can assume that if I was diagnosed early and I got basic support at school that I would have done much better. The problem was that my mother never really pushed me, as I wouldn't want to do anything I didn't think I could do and resisted at all costs, and she just left me alone, which I think further held me back. I think her biggest mistake was rejecting my suggestion for looking for work when I was 16. Perhaps I took her words too much to heart but I really think if I got experience earlier for work then I would be less likely to be unemployed and unexperienced today.

These days my family still struggle with my late diagnoses. My mental health issues have come severe enough though for them to realise that I just can't get on with things like they do. My brother has been the most supportive of all.

I'd still probably have some issues as I've heard some people diagnosed early might end up hating being diagnosed and treated like they are less independent than they are.

Once again I'm with Verdandi. Not everyone is able to just deal with their undiagnosed symptoms and be successful in life. At 22 I was very confused why I couldn't talk to people, I developed severe social anxiety which led to my eventual diagnosis. I was also confused why no one would hire me after I thought I did pretty well at a job interview. I'm still unemployed with severe mental health issues (which means I now can't work - before they just wouldn't hire me based on social skills) and still depend on others. I'm more self aware and can talk a bit better to people but as far as I can tell I'm a long way from becoming independent. My diagnosis has helped me realise why I'm like this and I rather try to build my skills and better myself instead of just give up.

We've all got a different story. Mine is that earlier diagnosis may have helped me. I'm still not completely sure. I grew up in a pretty small town that in the mid 90s might not had appropriate services, but my father who had money and was pretty successful with his self employed job in Sydney not only had the means but the resources too. As a Yoga teacher to big city people he had a lot of contacts.

So, I'll never really know how things would have been better or worse if I got diagnosed earlier. At least I know that because of the late diagnosis and further mental health issues that developed because of it, that I am a fighter. That might never have come out of my personality if I had nothing to fight for. Saying all that I now deal with severe depression, anxiety (PTSD) and other mood disorder symptoms. Though I might have become a child with bipolar disorder if I was prescribed Ritalin earlier. I would have been less likely to suffer a trauma that triggered the complete disorder in me though. I just will never know how things could have turned out better for me.

They don't have total power, but to surrender to the difficulties of child's condition and in a sense abandon ship on actually helping them can deprive the kid of what he or she needs in terms of learning to cope with Aspererger's and their self esteem as well. For a young kid, having that supportive platform provided by good parenting can mean a lot that will also help later in life.

I totally agree with this. Neglect is a form of abuse.

I don't think an early diagnoses would have made a difference for me because I was already getting help. I was in special ed, speech therapy, was on the IEP and I got occupational therapy when I was older. My mom never treated me like I was disabled so I was treated like a normal child and expected to follow the rules and show respect and listen to the teacher and other grown ups. If my mom had ignored my problems and didn't help me, I wouldn't be wear I am now and I do wonder how bad off would I be and how would my language be too and what my life would be like now like would I still be driving or finish high school or get married, have kids or ever be on my own. Would I be working also. Also what would have happened if I was kept in that classroom with special needs kids and never put in mainstream. I know my education would have been behind because my work was dumbed down due to the teacher not teaching me any normal stuff other kids my age were learning.

Because I got through mainstream school with no supports and should have, does that mean self did not need it?

(that is what one professional who knows somewhat of autism spectrum, told my mother)

I think the fact that I didn't get diagnosed when I was a kid did helped give me the faith that I needed to get through the tough times. By not knowing, I had faith that I was growing up in a place I didn't belong and believed that someday I would leave this place and go find my place in this world once I left. It wasn't until I was 26 that I got my chance to finally travel all over the world and I didn't hesitate to do so. After about a year of traveling. I found myself coming home empty handed as I never really did find my place in this world and I was terribly heartbroken. If course, I was about to take a another dagger to the heart. when I was 41. I finally got my asperger's diagnosis and although I found peace in knowing what was troubling me all my life. Just hearing the fact that there was no cure was a real blow to me.

So yes. If I would have learned about it when I was a kid and knowing that I would be this way for the rest my life. I would more then likely not be here today. Faith can be a powerful thing.

Yes, if you can have that kind of faith, that got you through it as a kid, - it could perhaps be better not knowing why you´re challenged, - but if you feel wrong and worthless because you´re different, left out, unaccepted and full of fear of being abandoned, you may do better with an explanation and a guide.

You may call it nonsense all you want but I've seen this happen to multiple people, so I don't think it is nonsense. The social welfare system (at least in my country) and special education is a unidirectional system that traps the child (and later adult) in a permanent state of dependence.

Besides, I talked about labels, and not about self-identification. There is no doubt that a major reason why I could develop good coping strategies in my 40s was the fact that I self-identified as an Aspie and studied neurodiversity intensively during this period of time.

I'd also argue it's more beneficial for the parent to have the child recieve an early diagnosis, so that they can understand their offspring and help them develop into a healthy adult.

Granted, I was diagnosed at 9, and my parents split at 11. My dad approached asperger's in the worst way possible - just coddled me and let me skip school to play video games. Which, I guess in retrospect was awesome at the time. Either way, just wanted to say I can relate to your story to an extent, being a 23 year old diagnosed male, I suppose.

I had learning support and speech therapy, but I really needed help in the classroom, I needed a quiet and more relaxed environment. Instead I was ignored and I struggled greatly. So for me an earlier diagnosis would have been beneficial. My biggest issues were my poor concentration, and noise. Getting overwhelmed by the classroom.

Confirmation bias is a hell of a thing, isn't it? Anecdotal evidence isn't statistical. You should know this, considering the amount of statistical analysis you've put into Aspie Quiz.

I know people who were diagnosed as children, who were supported and accommodated, and they've gone on to do fairly well for themselves (one of my nieces and my nephew, both of whom have ADHD, and my niece has depression as well). Getting diagnoses didn't mean they were coddled. In fact, I would say my sister is pretty terrible at understanding something like ADHD, and believes that her children have outgrown it (spoiler: They haven't). I freely admit that this isn't a large sample size and thus does not represent any kind of statistical analysis.

It sounds like Sweden could use both special education reform and welfare reform, if these really trap children into lifelong states of dependence. However, I am suspicious of such statements, as they are similar to those made by conservative politicians in the US, the UK, Australia, Greece, etc. in order to justify austerity measures and cuts to public safety net programs. And I mean in the US welfare options tend to function more as a poverty trap than anything else, but that doesn't mean that people do not still need them - or that if people take advantage of them then they are being trapped in something that is preventing them from succeeding beyond everyone's wildest dreams.



I've been able to implement coping strategies as well, but they don't enable me to work or to function well enough to live independently. I wasn't diagnosed as a child and my parents even refused to let me be diagnosed with anything because I was supposed to be "smart" (because apparently you can't be both developmentally disabled and intelligent at the same time). I don't think they would have coddled me and kept me from ever pushing myself given that I got to spend years of my life hearing I was lazy and stupid because I couldn't function in mainstream schooling, and ended up on my own with no life skills to speak of.

All things considered, I would have much preferred to have tools and understanding at a younger age so I didn't end up spending decades wrecking my physical and mental health trying to function like everyone else around me because I was not aware of any reason I shouldn't be able to function that well. I guess in fairy tales not being diagnosed is some kind of advantage, but in the real world either can turn out to be an advantage or disadvantage depending on parents, environment, schooling, etc.

In the end. It was a false faith. But the fact that I never knew that at the time is what keep it strong.



In someways, yes, but I was singled-out in life and that's kinda hard to hide.



I grew-up in the 1980's. They didn't know what aspergers was back then. The psychological evaluations they gave me back then where all wrong because they where giving me the closes things they had at the time.

I agree with this. I would have needed my coping skills in my 20s, not in my 40s. The main issue is that the diagnostic labels doesn't say anything about how to acquire coping skills, and ABA programs for young children isn't going about the problem in a useful manner. I would not have been able to read the diagnostic criteria of Asperger's and then cope, because these criteria are used to identify problems that already exists and gives no clue how they develop or how they are treated. OTOH, self-diagnostics did help me as it gave me the tool to understand myself.

This is also the key to developing useful treatments. Treatments need to based on people getting to know how they function, and how to manipulate key traits in order to better fit in. I think the knowledge about this is already present in the autistic community, but it's not present in people working on interventions that still think the goal is to create a neurotypical individual. My first step was to start studying facial expressions on people (I hadn't understood those as important), and within a few years time I was able to process neurotypical facial expressions automatically, while keeping my natural communication intact. In fact, many high-functioning neurodiverse people did this long ago as is evidenced by the poor validity of SBCs eyes in the mind test on this group.

I was diagnosed early and in special ed, and it would have been much better if I had not. My education was a totally negative experience, almost like prison and it probably made me worse. The lack of opportunities I had was incredibly demoralizing, and being told by adults (not my family, though) that this was something that would never go away, that I'll have to be in 'treatment' my entire life.

At the same time it's given me a challenge to try to overcome and prove them wrong. Every day I see where I was, and where I'm going, and see the future as a brighter place.

I agree so much! I have noticed a lot of people with this "f*ck labels!" attitude lately and it makes no sense to me. If people are treating you poorly because of a label, the problem is people, not the label! And it's usually pick and choose which labels to complain about; they don't get very far before they are labeling themselves with something...if a person is even just calling herself a human being, that too is a label. I'm thinking, be consistent! If you don't like labels, don't use any.