do ALL autistic people have developmental delays?
skibum wrote:
The first question I am wondering with you is, are you and have you always been emotionally younger than your chronological age should be?
Hard to say - I'm not sure what emotional youngness would look like. I was a relatively calm and thoughtful child, generally speaking. Thoughtful as in nerdy, I don't mean I was particularly considerate of others. As an adult, I have that British "keep calm and carry on" thing in spades. But I suspect there's more to emotional age than being calm and sensible.
With this talk of a "developmental cap," possibly some of the mystery is removed, as I'd been taking a developmental delay as meaning something that eventually sorts itself out. Is it me or is the definition somewhat illogical?
ToughDiamond wrote:
skibum wrote:
The first question I am wondering with you is, are you and have you always been emotionally younger than your chronological age should be?
Hard to say - I'm not sure what emotional youngness would look like. I was a relatively calm and thoughtful child, generally speaking. Thoughtful as in nerdy, I don't mean I was particularly considerate of others. As an adult, I have that British "keep calm and carry on" thing in spades. But I suspect there's more to emotional age than being calm and sensible.
With this talk of a "developmental cap," possibly some of the mystery is removed, as I'd been taking a developmental delay as meaning something that eventually sorts itself out. Is it me or is the definition somewhat illogical?
It kind of depends on the issue. Some delays can sort themselves out with lots of therapy and work, others will not.
Let me see if I can phrase the question differently. When you were a teen-ager, did you naturally gravitate towards things that your same aged peers wanted to do or did you feel more comfortable and more natural doing the things you enjoyed doing as a younger child?
_________________
"I'm bad and that's good. I'll never be good and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."
Wreck It Ralph
skibum wrote:
It kind of depends on the issue. Some delays can sort themselves out with lots of therapy and work, others will not.
Let me see if I can phrase the question differently. When you were a teen-ager, did you naturally gravitate towards things that your same aged peers wanted to do or did you feel more comfortable and more natural doing the things you enjoyed doing as a younger child?
Let me see if I can phrase the question differently. When you were a teen-ager, did you naturally gravitate towards things that your same aged peers wanted to do or did you feel more comfortable and more natural doing the things you enjoyed doing as a younger child?
As far as I can remember, my activities were pretty "age-appropriate." There was something of a vogue among my peers for watching children's TV shows, and I liked that, but we'd see them on a different level to the kids they were aimed at. Strangely enough I was surprised to see a school friend of mine watching The Friendly Giant when I figured we were way too old for it. I was quite interested in "growing up," and wanted to play in a beat group (old term for a rock band) from an early age - about 9 years old I think. I was also slightly ahead of my age group with puberty and girls, though it was years before I was able to do much about it except wish. I remember feeling I'd need to keep very quiet about my drives because my peer group weren't quite ready for it and I feared shocking my parents. So all in all I had a strong disdain for anything that was "babyish." I did hang onto my teddy bear possibly for a few years later than other kids did, but that's the only thing I can remember that was young about me, and it was only a night-time thing, I didn't bring the bear downstairs or anything, and I'd probably stopped cuddling it by the time I was about 11, I just didn't want to throw it away.
People argue that you can be autistic and not have developmental delays but, difficulty with social skills, clumsiness, language and communication issues are all developmental issues so wouldn't that mean developmental delay?
_________________
Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.
League_Girl wrote:
People argue that you can be autistic and not have developmental delays but, difficulty with social skills, clumsiness, language and communication issues are all developmental issues so wouldn't that mean developmental delay?
I agree, it is a developmental delay
League_Girl wrote:
People argue that you can be autistic and not have developmental delays but, difficulty with social skills, clumsiness, language and communication issues are all developmental issues so wouldn't that mean developmental delay?
I'm willing to hear more about the reasoning behind the notion of "developmental delays," but in all honesty I can't so far see why it wouldn't be more accurate to simply call those things impairments. I would think a developmental delay was a special category of impairment characterised as a slow maturing of some adult skill rather than a permanent problem. If it's an impairment that's noticed in childhood and it eventually matures (i.e. the child grows out of it, later than the other kids), then it's a developmental delay. If it's something that's always been there and always will be, because of its nature, or a thing that doesn't show up till later in life, then I would respectfully suggest that it's not a developmental delay at all.
Jiheisho wrote:
Another source: Development delay
"A developmental delay refers to a child who has not gained the developmental skills expected of him or her, compared to others of the same age"
That would explain it - the term "delay" isn't being used in accordance with its generally-accepted meaning:
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Delay
1. To postpone until a later time; defer.
2. To cause to be later or slower than expected or desired
I suppose the point could be stretched and you could say ASD causes certain aptitudes to be "delayed" by an infinite time.
No wonder I couldn't relate to the term. It's not quite logical. I think "impairment" describes the thing more accurately, and "developmental impairment" would make sense from the perspective of one working in the field of child development, the metrics of development being a mainstay of the profession. But naturally it makes little sense from my perspective as an Aspie who wasn't diagnosed till late adulthood, particularly since between the ages of 5 and 7, I outperformed every other kid in the school. After that I very gradually got worse, and I didn't catch up by developing the expected faculties, I used coping strategies - to this day I would be able to learn very little from a conventional lecture.
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