Aspies, have you read this article?

Post Reply New Topic

I had opportunities like employment unfairly denied to me when I had no diagnosis because - as far as I can tell - I still displayed symptoms that interviewers interpreted as signs that I would make a poor employee. I don't understand how this argument is relevant. Also, a significant number of AS people have trouble finding work as adults, so there's already a problem here, but it's not specifically with the label.

Also, it is a personal perogative to reveal if you have Asperger's or not. If you need to use your dx to gain special consideration for consideration of a position, it is sort of irrelevent whether that dx is Asperger's or HFA or whathaveyou.

No matter how you look at, Asperger's is on the spectrum. You already have a form of autism. I'm not sure the average citizen knows one from the other anyway. We can only teach by example.

I have to concour with Verdani's sentiments.

I think what this boils down too is peoples prejudice of being associated with learning disabled people or "ret*ds" as you americains still like to refer to them as. I dislike that value judgement that is being applied to people with more profound intellectual disabilities. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to hear such sentiments and only provides greater reinforcement to the inbuilt established discrimination already tolerated and accpeted as a norm by wider society.

I think a lot of people misunderstood what the author was trying to say. If they simply read what the article PLAINLY says, they would realize that there's nothing offensive about it. This statement seemed to generate a lot of anger, "The label of Asperger’s at least gives observers the impression of intelligence and ability. But, when most people think of “autism,” they think of someone who should be institutionalized and cannot live independently. Therefore, if people with Asperger’s are merged under the autistic group, brilliantly gifted and capable individuals could be unfairly stereotyped as incapable and unprofitable." But, the author DID NOT say she agreed with that stereotype, she simply said that it existed. How is stating that a stereotype exists the same thing as agreeing with it? It's not! She already thinks it's unfortunate that people with autism are unfairly stereotyped and she just doesn't want those stereotypes extended to people with Asperger's. What's so offensive about that?
"Imagine how much worse this stereotyping will get when people with Asperger’s are placed under the same category as severely autistic people who never learn to speak, who never learn to independently tie their shoes or brush their teeth, and who need assistance with every aspect of their life."
This is NOT a stereotype of autistic people. If you just read the sentence carefully, you should notice that she didn't say ALL autistic people never learn to do these things. She said SEVERELY autistic people never learn to do these things. She recognizes that Autism has a wide spectrum. All she's saying is that if people with Asperger's are grouped with the autistic people on the SEVERE END of the spectrum, society might wrongly assume that people with Asperger's suffer from the same infirmities as people on the SEVERE END of the autistic spectrum.
"I don’t think it makes sense or does any good to put a strongly verbal Aspie with an advanced vocabulary in the same category as autism when some autistics never learn to speak."
Again, she didn't say ALL autistic people never learn to speak. She said specifically SOME autistic people never learn to speak. Big difference!

I honestly don't understand how people can come to these false conclusions about the author's intentions, when the BASIC TEXT says that the author clearly had good intentions and DID NOT stereotype or demonize autistic people.

I didn't think the author had bad intentions, but it was clumsily written and threw around too many stereotypes without being clear or definitive enough about saying that that they are wrong and misguided. The underlying subtext gives the impression that she doesn't want to be associated or lumped in with people that perhaps she herself, and not just society, finds inferior. That's why it feels offensive, even if it wasn't overtly meant that way.

I am sorry if you feel that I am "interrogating the text from the wrong perspective," but I don't find it convincing and I do not believe the article has the neutral tone that you insist it has.

For example:

"an insult and a mockery."



She's not even examining the fact that many autistic people of all diagnoses are brilliantly gifted and capable. She is also not examining the fact that devaluing people because they are not deemed to be brilliantly gifted and capable, or are deemed to be "unprofitable" is a matter of devaluing human beings. Rather than critique the idea that autistic people are characterized so harshly, she proposes to throw them under the bus so that at least Aspies can be seen as "brilliantly gifted and capable" and having "intelligence and ability" even though these things are not a measure of anyone's worth as a human being.

Also, as far as I know no one has to disclose their disabilities to their workplace.

I also do not see in this quote any sign that she considers autistic people unfairly stereotyped:



If anything, she joined in. Admittedly, some autistic people do have these problems. Some AS people have these problems (not being non-verbal, but others). The matter of a diagnosis depends on who diagnoses you more than being objectively autistic or Aspie or PDD-NOS. There is no separate Asperger's spectrum. The reason AS exists as a diagnosis in the first place was because autistic people were slipping through the cracks and not getting needed support because of a very strict perception of what "autistic" means, and people who met the diagnostic criteria were not being diagnosed because they didn't have speech delays.

Anyway, I don't know what the author's intentions are, but I do not like what she wrote.

What are those misconceptions she's talking about?

...and while you're at it, give some examples of the opportunities Aspies could be denied and how a diagnosis could make things better or worse.

"I also believe that Asperger’s should remain separate from autism because a separate diagnosis is more logically accurate in my opinion. I don’t believe Asperger’s should be incorporated into the autism spectrum, but should be its own spectrum."

She thinks Asperger's is a separate phenomenon, she's painfully naive.

Yep, my BS radar went off the scale

Verdandi,
The misconceptions the author is talking about the generalizations society might make about autism based on the worst-case scenarios. She said, "Society tends to assume that all people with AUTISM AND Asperger’s are the same." People might already stereotype all autistic people as unproductive people who should be institutionalized, or who never learn to speak, brush their teeth, or tie their shoes, as it says in the text, because those are worst-case scenarios and people tend to think that worst-case scenarios represent the entire group. I hope that makes sense.
By the way, since she said, "Society tends to assume that all people with AUTISM AND Asperger’s are the same," that's another indication that she thinks it's unfortunate that people with AUTISM, AS WELL AS those with Asperger's, are unjustly stereotyped.

Did you register to post this Axelord?

Anyhoo I look foward to the DSM V and the doing away with the silly catagories we have, theres no clear distinction between me and an autistic except that I don't have a language delay, yet theres a bunch of auties who don't have a language delay, and aspies who do have a language delay, it's a mess that would be solved by ridding these arbitrary categories and basing diagnosis on severity.

And I also look foward to the DSM V because I'll be able to say with more confidence that I have Autism Spectrum Disorder instead of Aspergers, I think the latter sounds ugly/sounds like ass burgers (I'm sure you've all heard that one), autism spectrum disorder rolls off my tongue far better, which brings me to a thread imma gonna make now...

I feel that the DSM needs to be clearer on symptom presentation. I have AS, but my difficulties are not the same as your difficulties, my symptoms are not the same as yours. I feel I'm pretty functional. I have a job, I socialize, but I'm nowhere near trouble-free. I go to the same bar after work, socialize with the same people at that bar which are double or triple my age. I socialize better with older people. That is an AS trait. I'm active in my church, and most of the people I deal with in my church are double or triple my age. I'm a technical Aspie, I love electronics, so I was lucky to find a job with some electronic repair.

But others are not as functional as me, and there are others that are more functional. I experience great anxiety, others experience mild anxiety, and for the unlucky, some experience worse anxiety than me. Some are better at socializing than me, some are worse. I always felt there needs to be a way to categorize severity of symptoms and traits, and by severity I don't mean to use a negative connotation, but to kind of "grade" the symptom or trait, such as anxiety, and the many facets of socializing like nonverbal cues and eye contact.

But I don't feel offended if I were to be grouped into the same category as severely disabled autistics, because people don't realize that they have gifts too. Maybe I'm naive, but I always felt that the autistic brain, from the severely disabled to the higher functioning Aspie, is wired so that even though there may be deficits, there are also great gifts. I don't believe there is brain on the spectrum out there with no form of gift or great ability.

I understand the desire to keep the diagnosis separate for reasons of clarity and accuracy in diagnosis (which of course has implications for what kinds of supports a person is offered, and whether those supports will be effective), and I share the desire to avoid taking on more stigma....but I don't personally have a problem with Asperger's being subsumed under high functioning autism. I don't have a problem with it being separate either. For whatever they may be worth, these are my thoughts about the issue:

1) From a scientific perspective, it seem like until specific brain structures or neurochemical differences can be matched to symptoms, any diagnosis that falls into the autism spectrum is going to be lacking a measure of clarity, as far as the diagnosis explaining the symptoms goes.

Differing symptoms (for example, language development) could be the result of different brain structure/chemistry in Autism vs Asperger's....however, differing symptoms might be different manifestations of underlying biological differences that are, in clinical terms, identical between Asperger's and Autism.

2) People who are diagnosed with Asperger's vary widely in their abilities, skills, interests, and personalities....and the degree to which their Asperger's symptoms/Aspergian ways of being negatively effect their ability to function successfully in the world varies widely. The same things can be said about people who are diagnosed with Classic Autism. I think the same can be said about people with any diagnostic label. Given this:

3) If interventions and supports are offered to people, I think they need to be individualized to be effective--regardless of the label. It seems like the differences between individuals with Asperger's, and the differences between individuals with Autism, could be at least as big as the differences between the two diagnoses (I don't know, though, because I'm just one person!);

4) The stereotypes and social stigma attached to any diagnosis don't come directly from the specific diagnosis itself--they come from bigotry, prejudice, and ignorance...all of which are fuelled by over-generalization and the way that the media so often portrays autistic people as deserving of pity, instead of deserving of understanding and respect.

For example, there are people who believe that every person with autism has absolutely no ability to communicate with others, and is therefore incapable of doing anything that requires communication (work, education, etc.). If someone applied the same sort of illogical generalization to a diagnosis like "myopia" ( maybe based on watching a TV program about people who had such severe myopia that they were legally blind), then they'd conclude that "myopia" meant "legally blind." They'd think that every person with myopia couldn't drive, had to learn to read braille or listen to books on tape, and needed assistance or accomodations to do anything requiring sight. This would be ridiculous, given that most people with myopia just need to wear glasses or contacts, and myopia can be so mild that a person doesn't even need to wear their glasses unless they're driving.

I think public portrayals of the autism spectrum need to change at least as much as the diagnostic categories need to be clarified. They need to take into account the huge variety of strengths and weaknesses, needs and experiences that exists among people with ASD diagnoses. They need to be more informative and less dramatic--balanced information is more likely to get understanding, whereas dramatic "worst-case-scenarios" often get people to respond with pity/fear/rejection.

And ultimately, individuals are responsible for treating each other with respect. My impression is that people who choose to pre-judge the abilities of others based upon stereotypes--or even based upon the symptoms associated with a label--aren't always just misinformed or lacking knowledge (although this may be part of the problem); They are often choosing to be closed-minded instead of being open to hearing what an individual has to say about their experience/skills/needs, and judging the validity of what the individual says after giving them the same chance to prove themselves that they would give a "typical" person. They are ignoring the fact that every individual has abilities, and an individual with a diagnostic label may have learned how to use abilities to cope with/compensate for the things that cause them difficulty (i.e. the symptoms associated with a diagnosis) in the same way that people without labels use their abilities to compensate for things they find difficult.

So for me the issue isn't so much the label.

I find it peculiar that people constantly talk about Asperger's Syndrome, PDD-NOS, and autism as if they are separate things when which diagnosis you get depends a lot on who you see, what they observe, and their own notions about who fits where. The only reason that Asperger's Syndrome is commonly seen as being a difference in kind as well as severity is because speech delays exclude a diagnosis of AS - which is to say the division is entirely a matter of human definitions (but then so is the idea of being autistic, so this isn't a discreditable notion).

I have Asperger’s myself and I agree with this article 100%! Axelrod is absolutely right! There’s nothing offensive about this article and the author NEVER degraded autistic people. With the “should be institutionalized” comment, she was talking about how SOCIETY tends to view people with autism, NOT HOW SHE HERSELF views them! These readers are acting like you can’t even point out that a stereotype exists without agreeing with or perpetuating it and THAT’S NOT FAIR! The statement that people with Asperger’s have strong verbal skills, while autistic people don’t is a STATEMENT OF FACT, NOT an insult. She didn’t say that people with Asperger’s are better than autistic people because of that fact. It just means we’re different. That’s all. Also how can anyone think that the author said ALL autistic never learn the basic tasks of normal life or that ALL autistic people never learn to speak when she SPECIFICALLY said “severely” autistic people in front of the former and “SOME” autistic people in front of the latter? It just doesn’t make sense! I think the only reason anyone would offended by this article is because they have too much of an emotional connection to autism to read it objectively and rationally. I’m sure the author of this article must be really pissed off that so many people are completely misinterpreting what she’s saying because I know I would be.