The reason the notion of autism spectrum should be offensive

Post Reply New Topic

Under the DSM-V, it's already "split up."

Into Levels One, Two, and Three.

With/without intellectual disability.

With/without speech delay.



It's all Autism Spectrum Disorder, though.

That's what I thought too but I am seeing, "mild level" "from baby age-was rediagnosed from severe ID to mild ID".
viewtopic.php?p=6259719#6259719 So I don't know.



That is true of Dylanperr and LivingWithAutism too. I did a lot of PMing with LivingWithAutism and we have a great deal of similarities in how we are both affected by autism. I wish she was in this thread because she explains things well.

In principle, yes, but in practice, the criteria used are very variable. My formal diagnosis is "Autism Spectrum Condition, Level 1, without intellectual impairment or functional language delay"; so essentially DSM-V, except that the word "condition" is deemed more sensitive than "disorder". However, a friend of mine with broadly comparable traits was formally diagnosed "Asperger's Syndrome". Our diagnoses were separated by only a few months, and were performed by two different assessment providers, but in the same town and referred by the same GP practice. My assessment took several hours over multiple appointments; involved family, a psychologist and an occupational therapist; and also examined non-diagnostic features of autism and the possibility of AD(H)D. My friend's assessment was done in a single appointment lasting little over one hour with only a psychologist. As far as I know, the consequences of this inconsistency have not been researched, but from what I see on UK autism forums, is very common.

The US uses both the ICD-10 and DSM-V, though probably more DSM-V.

I worked in a place that uses the ICD-10.

If you watch TV shows about hoarding, you will find what they hoard; outdated food, trash, other junk and their house is a health hazard. They have no much stuff, you can't even get in each room. It's always very emotional for these people to see their stuff being tossed out when the people come to clean up their place. I have heard of animal hoarding too and it also wrecks their house and makes their home not safe for the animals and the person because of animal urine and feces.

If you just collect stuff and keep it all organized, it's not a disorder and they wouldn't diagnose you as having a mental illness for it. It has to impact your life and others around you for it to become a disorder. I don't know if hoarding disorder has been recognized as a disorder in the DSM yet.

Okay, the only aspect of it I can relate to *is* avoidance/procrastination, but you say its different than that. If so, then what is stopping you from doing what you decided to do? Especially since you mention that it happens also with the things you enjoy doing?



Thats interesting. So why is thining it any less effective than saying it out loud?



The "repetitive behavior" in my case is only a disraction. Such as, I need to do something, but because of my internet addiction it gets postponed. If anything, the repetitive behavior is the cause of my procrastination, not a cure.



Okay in my case I don't shut down, I overanalyze. If anything, it seems like NT-s are the ones shutting down. Like when a girl is upset by something I did, she can't be bothered to talk about it. But then again, maybe she only pretends to shut down. If girls truly don't have time to talk about it, why do they have time to gossip with their friends?



Did you ever get a brain scan for seizure activity?



I thought autistics don't regard their autism as serious because they say they are happy being who they are and don't want a cure. They would, however, agree that mental retardation is a bad thing (I am yet to find an autistic that would try to challenge that). If so, then their opinion would be even more shifted in the direction of thinking that mental retardation is more serious than autism.

I think offhand the idea has pros and cons. For instance I was in a private special ed school for those with ASD. How would having entirely different categories affect a diverse student body like the school had? I don't know. Or WP for that matter. Should there be like 5 separate forums instead of one big one?



I've been pretty thoroughly routinely tested with all kinds of tests since I was 3 by all kinds of specialists. And my parents have always pushed for me to be as independent as possible. Which I am thankful for.

Because people with severe autism are often misdiagnosed as having a intellectual impairment, I can see why someone on here would be skeptical about that diagnoses and she took it personal. I guess that diagnoses means so much to her she felt attacked and called a liar when it got questioned. Even people with learning disabilities get misdiagnosed as being slow so people would also question their IQ as well if they seemed too intelligent. My mom even had a student who had a MR diagnoses but my mom didn't believe it because he was too smart by how he thought and processed things and how he talked so she taught him to read. The problem was he was just illiterate and because he was so smart, he was reading at the 3rd grade level by the end of the year and thanked my mother for helping him. He was in 6th grade. His mom actually cried when she found out he was just illiterate. Can you imagine how many years was wasted because of that diagnoses? I hope he turned out well despite the lack of education he was given over the years. Hopefully after that he was finally given the right to a normal education like his peers and he still did special ed to catch up on his education that was lost like I did. It would be all thanks to my mother.

My mom was the only one who looked at him as a person than the label and believed in him.

So in some cases, some people do truly have a low IQ and they may take it as an attack when anyone questions it. But it's the same as when anyone questions your autism and your level because of how well you write here and how articulate you sound. But it's all based on stereotypes when people make these assumptions and question your (the general your) diagnoses.

WP has had threads about that and many do not feel that way. I am one of them. One was something like if you could push a button to take away your autism would you? I remember one guy said "I would hit that button so f*****g hard".




Mental retardation is a comorbid of severe autism as far as I know. Some have it and some do not. Of all the kids I have been in school with who were severe, I can only think of a few who might have also been mentally ret*d.

Last edited by EzraS on 19 Jul 2018, 11:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

The UK uses different terms. They call intellectual impairment a learning disability. It does not mean the same thing in our country. I don't know what they call a learning disability in the UK. Here we just called a intellectual impairment, no longer mental retardation.

KoC said intellectual disability or intellectually disabled is what they call learning disability or learning disabled in the UK.

Thank you to the OP for starting this discussion.

I would like to submit a very different perspective.
I find the notion of Autism Spectrum anything but offensive.

The notion of a spectrum appears to be the best approximation to what is observed and experienced, very many differences in degree, severity, but still coming down to the sensory, social, deep rather than wide, one thing at a time rather than multitasking, very different communication profiles compared to the population as a whole.

However, I do find the notion of writing off, or distancing self from peoples whose presentations of Autism, or for who the severity of the difficulties it presents or the needs for support are very different from ones own is rather offensive.

There are rather too many people who want to write off or worse people whose neurology is rather different to the population as a whole. There are some, for example, who use their position as the parent of such a person to reveal most inappropriately very personal information about their child in book. I take some grim satisfaction that the book in question has received many negative reviews from people across the whole wide spectrum of Autism. That parent recieved an important lesson all bullies need to receive. They picked on someone powerless only to find lots of people wading in and calling them to account.

In both cases, all I can say for sure is that whatever the reasons, they are not apparent to my conscious mind and the behaviours are essentially empirical observations based on self-reflection. However, neither have responded to multiple attempts at various psychological interventions, and no investigation has ever indicated psychosis or amnesia, which leads me to infer that they are somehow related to interconnections between different neurological "processing units".


Naturally, we can never know for sure what the cause of the "silent treatment" is, but I would say that the distinction can be made between "shutting down" (involuntary loss of mental faculties) and "shutting out" (a conscious decision to avoid interaction.)


No; though it is something (along with my persistent insomnia) which I wish would be investigated further, both personally and regarding autism in general. Unfortunately, of the interventions indicated at my assessment, none has happened yet after over three years for lack of resources (except for joining self-help communities like this one.) Thankfully, I can manage it to a large degree by "rationing" my exposure to triggering stimuli - and since it took until I was 45 to be referred for an autism assessment, and there are so few resources available for autistic adults, I have learned to be a very patient patient! I have, however, joined an organisation which arranges study cohorts for autism research, so it's possible that I might discover some answers that way.


I have seen a wide variety of opinions regarding this, from "I'd give anything to not be autistic" to "autistics are the highest point in human evolution", including intermediate positions of acceptance or wishing for treatment of specific traits rather than autism as a whole (which is closest to my own wishes.) We also shouldn't forget that forums, blogs and many surveys present a strong self-selection bias, which may be more likely to exclude autistic people with particular combinations or categories of traits, who's opinions we might never hear.


Indeed, I am finding it fascinating too; and I'm glad to see a debate about such a potentially controversial subject being conducted in such a spirit of good faith and acceptance of differing opinions.

I say this has to be the calmest discussion ever on this topic I have seen. I like it. Also the OP seems to be open minded with his questions. I sense no questioning or judgment in them. The OP didn't start this topic to argue and be right.

I think we've been getting more of these sorts of good, calm threads more often than previously.

What NTs typically do is embellish the description.

Baseball player. Professional baseball player. Major League Baseball Player. Gold Glove baseball player. MVP Baseball player for a team that won the World Series.

While I'm on the Spectrum, I'm one of the few that saved for the down payment on a mortgage, bought a single family house, and paid it off before I was 50!