Autistic Spectrum Label applied only to the "extra-impa

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what do people think about people being taken "off" the autistic spectrum as they get more comfortable with their personal and social life skills?

do people think it can "go away"?

does anyone think of it is an identity?

when reading through different criteria it is clear that people who diagnose individuals stress points of impairment over differences in thought and perspective.

is this done to make sure it doesn't become an identity of difference?

do doctor's ignore the damage something like this can do or think of the jarring effect to be beneficial in some manner?

as an acquaintance of mine often says - remember, we know ourselves best.

I think the idea is that if you're not impaired, you don't need services, and diagnosis is supposed to prove eligibility for services.

Plus it's a reaction to people who freak out about overmedicalization of differences - you can point to impairment criteria to say 'see? we only diagnose people who actually need help'.

To keep my funding, my son will need a refresher diagnosis at some point. I forget when it is. I'm sure the government will tell me.

Taken off?

TBH I think that's kind of insulting.

Since you are no longer seen as a social failure and a defect, you are no longer autistic.

O_O

I have changed a *lot* since childhood...I think I could have been diagnosed in the 4 or 5th grade, and was still pretty *odd* up until 8th grade or so.

So maybe if I ever had been diagnosed, they would have taken me off in high school.

Seems a little ridiculous, though.

I think this usually only happens when people are so mild they are practically indistinguishable from their NT peers. Why be held back by a label, when you nor anyone else can even tell that this label once applied to you?



So people never had it to begin with, but were misdiagnosed. Those who had it, can never get rid of it, but those who are very mild to begin with can learn strategies over time that become second-nature to them so much they no longer really need to identity with it if they do not want to. If it is not impacting your life in anyway, and you fit in more with NTs, then why bother?

I think a professional probably shouldn't do that to anyone under age 60 (or 70?). I can imagine some professionals are of the mindset that if you're doing well at 18 or 20, that you've "overcome autism," and will never have any difficulty related to it again. Things might work out that way, but then again, they might not. Expectations, and many other factors keep changing throughout life. So, I think it would be better for a no-longer-diagnosable person to keep the diagnosis, just in case they need it later.

(It just occurred to me that for AS, there really isn't good long-term outcome data, since people diagnosed at, say, 10 y.o., aren't even 30 y.o. yet).

Except for Asperger's cases - in Austria/Germany AS has been diagnosed since the 40s.

If I were to be undiagnosed (or in my case, never get a diagnosis), I would take it as a compliment. I know I definitely have autistic neurology, but if I can get to the point where it's no longer evident, then that could quite possibly be the most difficult thing I'll ever achieve.

Not really. If somebody else used Asperger's discovery before the 90s it was a lucky coincidence.

The ICD is in use here and AS wasn't included as a diagnosis and given a medical meaning until 1992 or so. And even then, it's hardly used, because psychologists don't learn anything about autism besides that "autism is a PDD" and psychiatrists are taught hardly more than that.

It's a rarity if a child gets diagnosed with AS before age 10 - because most specialists don't know even think of AS and/or don't know it. Even non-verbally children with autism are likely to receive various diagnoses for their first few years of life but not receive a diagnosis of an ASD.

Autism rates here are still low and English-speaking countries have gathered way more knowledge on ASDs during the past 10+ years.