What is an aspie?

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This post was inspired by a passage in my abnormal psychology textbook about the removal of aspergers from the DSM and the controversy it causes, especially in the autistic community. Of course the controversy is much more complicated than they explained (in addition to the loss of services thing they mentioned aspie be used as a badge of pride), but I appreciate they bring some representation of that perspective into the book.

An aspie is someone with aspergers. Since aspergers is no longer in the DSM, aspies no longer exist...well, not really, because the term aspie never actually referred to someone with aspergers. In some circles, the term aspie has come to use to be used an insult against socially awkward people, but it's still popular in the autistic community, and it originated from the neurodiversity movement, which defines autism in a fundamentally different way the the psychiatric community does. It's not even just that it's not viewed as a disorder, the entire paradigm is different. See, despite what you may have heard, autism is NOT a neurological disorder. It's a neurodevelopemental disorder, which is really just a developmental disorder, which is really just a mental disorder that is present in childhood rather that developing as an adolescent or adult. The reason the neuro- prefix was added is because of the earlier onset neurology is viewed as being a more important contributor in developmental disorders than other mental disorders, but it really works on the same dynamic system paradigm as all mental disorders: a psychological disorder is a pattern of abnormal behavior that results from the complex and evolving interplay of biological and psychosocial factors (the nature versus nurture argument is a myth, it's pretty obviously both in almost every circumstance). Part of the reason the biological factors are especially stressed in autism is political, not medical, because parents didn't want to be blamed for the disorder, but that doesn't change the reality. Psychosocial factors are important to development of autism, and it's not a neurology, it's a pattern of behavior. From the psychiatric standpoint, it doesn't MATTER that autism is disabling as a result of society rather than being inherent to the neurology, all that matters is that it's disabling. This reflects the purpose of the psychiatry, to assist mentally disabled people.

The neurodiversity model meanwhile views autism as a neurology, as the name of the movement implies. Really I think the neurodiversity movement should be renamed the psychodiversity movement as it's the psych, not neurology, which really matters, but for many that's just a matter of semantics. It needs to be remembered that the neurodiversity movement is largely shaped by the interactions of autistic people with the psychiatric community and popular perceptions of the psychiatric community, and despite being an abuse of the meteorological fallacy, equating the brain with the individual is very common in popular psychology. The other key thing that needs to be realized about the neurodiversity movement is that aspies are fundamentally social creatures, and it's the social nature of aspies which shaped the community and it's terminology. If aspies weren't social, the neurodiversity movement simply wouldn't exist, or in the very least it wouldn't have emerged from the autistic community as there wouldn't be an autistic community. The atypical way in which autistic people socialize is probably why it emerged from the autistic community, as while it divided aspies from mainstream society, it sustained the autistic community as it's own entity. As such, autistic ideas of society shaped the paradigm of the neurodiversity movement, which in turns shaped the way then neurodiversity views and even defines autism. It's still ultimately determined the medical definition of autism though because of it's history, and I think that is where the neurodiversity needs to break free in order to reach it's full potential. As the term aspie originated from the community, they should take control of it.

So, what is an aspie? I think it's someone is neurologically (and by that I really mean psychologically, as that's where it actually manifests in practice) predisposed to autism. They may or may not actually be diagnosable with autism, but the thing that the neurodiversity movement cares about which forms a part of someone's identity is there. Frankly, defining one's identity by the impairment would be kinda stupid and self-limiting, but that's not how the neurodiversity community defines it at all. Here I'm not redefining aspie, I'm just clarifying how the community actually uses it in practice. For example, with the acceptance of self-diagnosis. In psychiatry, a self-diagnosis has absolutely no value because one is not capable of diagnosing oneself with a mental disorder as it violates the diagnostic procedure, but it's valuable in the autistic community because autistic people ARE capable of introspection, and we are social, and we can relate with each other. For the ability to relate, the capacity for introspection is infinitely more important than some external analysis of behavior. It should be noted though that due to the dependence on the medical definition of autism, there is no one type of aspies; there are as many different types of aspies as there are ways for people to predisposed to autism, and there is a LOT. When someone is talking about finding a cause for autism, it's clear they have not only no understanding of autism, but no understanding of psychiatry in general, because etiology simply doesn't work like that. What we are left with is an extremely inclusive definition of aspie, but it may be inclusive to the point it lacks any value as aspies are so diverse. At that point, the definition of aspie becomes somewhat existential: as an aspie, what is the important aspect of it to YOU?

...So, what do you think an aspie is?

Back to the original question.

An "aspie" is a person who is officially diagnosed as having "autism level one, with no speech delay".

Period.

Not much too it

Next question.

They would be a "possible aspie", or a "self dxd aspie".

Maybe this will make things more clear:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diathesis ... ress_model

Autism follows the same model. Under the neurodiversity paradigm, autism is the diathesis, not the disorder. Otherwise you're simply doing neurodiversity wrong because a disorder is a disorder.

But autism is something you're born with or not, not something that can develop at a later stage.

Reminds me of semantic disaster I got into once when talking to another WP person (who left the site years ago).

We were talking about sexual orientation.

I was gonna write "most people are born heterosexual", but then I realized that that sounded like I was saying that you come out of the womb horny, and already ready to fornicate with hot nurse in the obstetrics ward.

So I modified it by saying "most humans are born programed to become heterosexual (later at puberty, or whenever)". But the person I was talking to for some reason just couldnt process what I said, and freaked out and said "Programmed?? Like a computer? what are you saying?". Other folks jumped in, and defended my choice of words. But this person still just couldnt grasp it.

But autism is not like what you're saying which is that its like sexuality. Autism exists in you from your birth, but it just isnt obvious until later in childhood. An aspie might not be noticeably different from other kids in behavior until first grade in school. A lower functioning autistic might be distinguishable farther back into infancy.

That's what your idea of autism is, but it doesn't actually match the medical communities definition of autism. That's what I've been trying to explain. People here consistently use autism in the way I'm describing here, not the actual medical view of autism. I know this because I'm studying this right now at university.

If you're studying it right now at university, won't you have sources on what the current medical view of autism is? It'd add a lot more weight to what you are saying if you can back it up with evidence.

The current medical view of autism is that it's an umbrella term for a collection of disorders which cannot be easily differentiated, and it's a spectrum disorder. You can go look up the current definition in the DSM-V yourself. The book I'm referencing is Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach, Seventh Addition by David H. Barlow, and it's the most current text on the subject.

I know what it looks like in the DSM 5 criteria. I mean something that contradicts what naturalplastic is saying - what exactly does it say and where? Cite and reference like you would academically so we can read it and learn, because that's my current understanding too.

It's all implied, you just need to understand what it means.

may or may not be in the statistics section

Like most mental disorders, the early it can be diagnosed, the more severe it is

has more impact across a life time if treatment is late

because after therapy, which is primarily socialization, they no longer are impaired enough to merit diagnosis. If socialization can cause someone to no longer merit diagnosis

You can't write that academically, lol.


Source?


Source?


Source that it's due to socialisation?