The reason the notion of autism spectrum should be offensive

Post Reply New Topic

Because not everyone is the same. You could also ask me why I can't tell how many toothpicks are in a pile or why I can't count cards. Or why I can't memorize dates and statistics or like a computer or know things like Quantas airlines never had a plane that crashed. There are things rainman could do that I can't and vice versa.

I'm under the supervision of my family. I'm not to be left entirely by myself. I can be in my room by myself and do things by myself, but someone needs to be in the house with me and check on me regularly. If I end up leaving home I will need to live in a care home where care workers can look after me and assist me.

This is how things work for those like me, except Carly is more severely autistic than I am. For instance I would be able to say coffee when asked or at least indicate it. But even though she can't even get across that she wants a coffee, she is a very eloquent writer and even wrote a book.



This is the post history of a member with level 3 severe autism and intellectual disability

search.php?author_id=2474&sr=posts

And her blog

http://theresidentialautist.blogspot.com/?m=1

Last edited by EzraS on 18 Jul 2018, 5:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

As mentioned above “severe” autism does not automatically mean mental retardation. There is nothing in the manuals I know of preventing clinicions from diagnosing somebody as intellectually disabled with autistic features. I know of a person whose diagnosis is depression with autistic features. As I said earlier it is a matter of clinicions not applying the manuals correctly. Automatically diagnosing the intellectually disabled as autistic is not the fault of the current labling system. Automatically lableing a bright kid with social issues as ASD is not the fault of the current lableing system. We can and should rename some labels but mislableing and misdiagnosing will always go on. The severe autism as retardation idea comes from functioning labels which is defined by intellectual impairment. The proffessionals are moving away from functioning labels because it bieng realized the intelligence and severity issues are not same.

There are enough of percentage of people with core autistic traits that are intellectually disabled that it does belong as a subcatagory of autism. In my opinion depression and sensory issues should be added as subcatagories for the same reason.

I don't know why people bother creating threads like these, they only end up getting locked.

They should be locked, anyway...

Why, because some people's knickers get easily bunched?

I think it goes deeper than that. Think of the words "high functioning" and "low functioning". Both refer to the level of "functioning". Now, am I right that someone whom you would classify as "severe autistic with high intelligence" would be able to take care of themselves, their "severe" problems would all be social? If so, wouldn't you classify that person as "high functioning"? If yes, then you would have to rethink the entire terminology so that the terms "high functioning -- severe -- autistic" and "low functioning -- mild -- autistic" are commonplace. And then you would have a severe autistic who holds down job and have successful life and mild autistic who is completely disabled?



Just curious: how were they able to diagnose autism and schizophrenia on the rats? In case of autism, do rats rock back and forth or what do they do? In case of schizophrenia, how do they know rats have delusions/hallucinations if they can't speak to describe them?

It would be really interesting to read that article if you could find it.



I haven't heard of that research, but the relation between autism and OCD sounds quite likely just from pure behaviorist point of view. I would associate OCD with Asperger specifically rather than autism spectrum at large, since it doesn't have speech delays. I would also suspect the same might be true with OCPD (not to be confused with OCD: OCPD is a personality disorder -- which is what letter P stands for -- while OCD is an anxiety disorder).

Yes I have those questions too. I mean, you were the one who told me you are like rainman. So those questions naturally arize as a result of you telling me that.



But you seem to be aware of your problems. So then why would you need a supervision? You mentioned you would wonder across the street in front of a car. But, the fact that you mentioned that, implies that you know this is something you shouldn't do. But if you know you shouldn't do it, why would you do it? Also, what would have happened if you are left in the house alone? There are no cars in the house. So what would you be doing? And if you know its bad to do, why would you do it?



Okay thanks, that looks quite fascinating, I will take a look at it when I have time.

(NB: Not answering for Ezra, only for myself.)
I am formally "level 1" (Asperger's equivalent), so no official intellectual impairment, but there are still circumstances where I might do this. Firstly, it can be a result of executive function and attentional impairments; I sometimes get so dissociated from my surroundings due to sensory/anxiety overload or hyper-focus on an inner train of thought that I am simply not able to pay enough attention to my surroundings and forget to be vigilant for traffic. Secondly, if I have a melt-down, I'm likely to run away and have no rational thinking, only the "fight or flight" response, which leaves me even less aware of potential dangers and with no memory of the event. In a sense, you could say that I have a situational intellectual impairment, as my usual intellect becomes inaccessible to me at such times. Likewise, I can become non-verbal, illiterate, unable to operate my phone (or to even know what my phone is), etc.

IMHO, this is one of the difficulties of categorising autistic people according to their intellectual abilities, as they may be extremely variable according to the current situation, recent events, specific kinds of task, degree of dissociation, etc. IQ tests under laboratory conditions are an extremely blunt tool for assessing this.

The symptoms of autism are the same across functioning levels: social impairment, sensory issues, repetitive and obsessive behaviours, and so forth. Someone can be mildly or severely impaired in any of them. Intellectual disability is a comorbid that can affect people's ability to function. Autism with intellectual disability isn't a completely different disorder from autism without, because they have the same traits. The separation seems to be based on what the person appears like on the surface and how well they can fit in with society.

Exactly.

Thanks for posting that Carly's Café thing. I'm verbal, but I can TOTALLY relate to the external auditory and visual stimuli having equal weight piled one on top of the other until I shut down and become semi-nonverbal.

I will show that short video to my wife. I'm always looking for things to show her that illustrate "my world".

Yes, I'm actually better functioning than my NT co-workers.
Which makes it real easy to fit in, but I also recognize that what works for the low functioning also works for higher functioning autistics. Though there is also the issue of access. If you are wealthy you can just buy adaptations typically not available to those lower on the spectrum, like a well maintained car with keyless door locks. And you can afford housing with fewer triggers than most.

What is the meaning of the term "executive function"? If I were to just look at the words, it seems like it basically means an ability to carry out what you decided to do. But, if so, there is a lot of room for NT-s deciding that an aspie lacks executive function simply because an aspie does whatever they do in their own way, but NT doesn't get it so NT thinks they don't know how to do it. So why would you take the way NT-s judge you and believe them instead of trying to correct their misperception?



As far as sensory overload, thats an issue I don't have, never did.

As far as being overfocused on my own innner thoughts, yes I do that all the time. But the result of this is that I am messy, forget to tuck in the shirt, etc.; but it would never disract me from crossing the street in a safe way.

Yes, I can cross the street in a way that *my mom* thinks is unsafe (not waiting for green light, or not waiting for some distant cars to pass) but that has nothing to do with being fixated on my thoughts and a lot more to do with the fact I see how fast the cars move, I know how fast I run, and I am completely confident I can run across the street before those cars get even close, so why wait if I don't have to? My mom tells me "what if the driver gets disracted and forgets to slow down", but what she doesn't get is that I never expect the driver to slow down, I am basically assuming the driver will drive at the exact same speed they are already driving, and, given that speed, I can safely cross the street before they get there. Now, the fact that I actually *run* across the street should tell you that I am not being totally disracted the way you described: if I were so disracted, how come I remember to run?! And also: if I have even slightest doubt the cars are too close or moving too fast, I would wait till they pass (I remember times when I was waiting for quite a while while crossing the freeway for example). Once again, my mom probably doesn't know it, she thinks I do things exact same way in all situations since thats the stereotype of Asperger. Well, not true. I run across the street only when cars are driving slow enough and are far enough away. I know exactly what I am doing, I am just doing it my own way, not my mom's way.

In any case, the bottom line is that every single thing I mess up (whether it be my wrinkly clothes OR crossing the street) are the things where I am totally safe. If my immediate safety was in question, I would be able to pay attention to prevent that situation.



I have meltdowns too, but they are different from yours. My meltdowns have to do with anger at what others said or done. So there is no way I would "not remember what happened" -- I sure would, in fact I would dwell on it for weeks. And what I do during meltdowns is also quite deliberate. A typical situation is that I get angry at Person A, but I wouldn't have guts to say anything to them, so I would instead say something offensive to Person B, get them upset, and then explain afterwords that I only said it because I was mad at the Person A. Also, Person B wouldn't just be the person in front of me, but, instead, I might go on facebook, and look for someone who is a) online now b) knows me well enough to care and be hurt by it c) someone whom I feel safe enough to let them see this site of me.

Now, those meltdowns don't put me in danger. Notice how I said I choose whom to send the message to? I wouldn't send it to someone who would get me in trouble.

But what you described sounds totally different from that. So what triggers your meltdowns and how come you don't remember them? I read that some autistics have seizures, do you think your meltdowns are triggered by a seizure?

Last edited by MalchikBrodyaga on 18 Jul 2018, 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree that the symptoms of autism are the same across the intellectual levels. But what I am trying to say is that, in case of intellectual disability, the latter becomes more serious problem than all of the symptoms of autism put together. Thats why its odd to emphasize the symptoms of autism instead of emphasizing intellectual disability.

Okay, I watched that video. I never had that kind of experience, which brings back the issue of splitting up a diagnosis: why should I have the same diagnosis as her if I never had the same experience she has?

Here is another question I have. A lot of autistics claim they want to be who they are, and even if the cure for autism was available, they would refuse it. But if having autism entails the kind of experience she has, why would anyone want to stick with this sort of thing for life?

Now I realize that, if you look at this thread, then I was the only one saying I am happy who I am and the rest of you were saying you weren't. But if the context was different -- say, if there was a threat about cure of autism -- then you would all of a sudden be talking about being happy who you are. So it feels like you are going back and forth between those two statements depending on which one would further the agenda of holding autism community together.

I guess so. But I think the reason autism tends to be emphasized is because there's such a stigma around intellectual disability, arguably more so than with autism. I don't think the solution to that is to separate ourselves from intellectually disabled autistics.

I am happy with my autistic self. I don't know if Carly is. I did read a book about her, and I remember she said that her OCD and apraxia (I think it's called) are more disabling for her than her autism itself. I don't want to speak for intellectually disabled or severely affected autistics as to whether they want a cure or not. I don't think we can judge that just based on how disabled they appear to be.