The negative bias of representing only delayed speech

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This piece strongly resonated with me. https://awnnetwork.org/actually-its-cro ... us-speech/

It talks about delayed speech being talked about as a symptom of autism, while the precocious autist children are airbrushed out.

The same kind of "highlight only the negative aspect" occurs in many ways from the promoters of stigma.

In my infancy, I had a foot in both the delayed and precocious camps... I didn't say a word until I was two years old, and then astonished everyone by speaking in complete and coherent sentences. I learned to read largely self-taught before I went to school, occasionally pointing to words on the page I wanted someone (a benign auntie figure) to articulate and define for me, though as she was rarely available, I used logical association to work out word meanings. Starting school, I spent only half a day in the infants class, by lunchtime the teacher pronounced "this child can already read" and escorted me to another class where the children were older in their second year. There are others here who can also testify to this precocity of their own.

There is a powerful underlying linkage - in my view - between the negative bias commentariat and the dehumanisation of AS people, both children and adults. Point out the positives isn't such a money-grabber for the charities, though that doesn't explain why so many "experts" reinforce the bias. One would hope the latter would be more objective, though they are not, and I think many highlight the "deficits" to promote their careers, improve their chances of getting big "cure grants", fit in with the mainstream of their group, and recruit clients. It's so driven by self interest, in every area.

So we have to advocate for ourselves as a group, and there is huge scope to increase and improve this.

To sum that article up, sounds like it's talking about hyperlexia. It's believed that somewhere between 5-20% of all those with ASD's are hyperlexic.

The article rang a lot of bells for me; I certainly fit what I know of the hyperlexic profile, and my spoken language developed rather like B19 described; late coming, but immediately functioning beyond expected for my age (I fitted the "little professor" stereotype rather well.) I totally agree with the sentiment that precocious (or even typical) development of functional language is both a barrier to recognition and can lead to unreasonable expectations; in social communication particularly.

I think that we also need to be careful what we mean by "language delay", too. Language has many components which all have to work in harmony for fluent social communication, and there is no reason to assume that their rate of development would be affected by autism in the same way. For example, a person with very good understanding of semantics, grammar, pronunciation etc. may, because of poor understanding of non-verbal communication, develop a much poorer understanding of pragmatic language - what people often describe as "literal mindedness". This is less readily observed by practitioners because the strict rules of the patient/practitioner relationship don't exercise pragmatic language very much, making it appear that there is no language delay; yet, the delay to development of pragmatic language can be just as big a handicap socially as having a limited vocabulary.

The one size fits all term commonly used "developmental delay" - concerns me too. Like Trogludite, I could be described as either delayed nor advanced, and both would be true.

The bigger truth is that we were not developmentally delayed, but developed on a different trajectory from others. I won all the English and essay prizes at primary and secondary schools. But the moment -decades later- that I am recognised as AS, suddenly I am categorised as automatically having experienced developmental language delays.

Neurodiversity writers can easily see the range and distinctions, but it concerns me that the "autism experts" who pontificate as if one size fits all can't broaden their narrow minded views, though I suspect the reason is that they were taught to use these narrow heuristics at college or other training places, so they just do, rather than ever really applying their own critical thinking and if they are conformists they may be afraid for their own prospects if they question these established cliches.

The mind bias of those who use the sloppy heuristics prevents them from seeing the talent and potential in AS people, and this prejudice has no honest place in the 21st century.

Those of us with a particular interest in the various attempts of different groups to dominate the primary narrative space around autism might find this article "The Four Kingdoms of Autism" making some familiar but well articulated points: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director ... tism.shtml

Precociousness used to be in the criteria for aspergers, like an interest in people. this part is fased out of aspergers like aspergers is taken away from diagnose.
Actually it can't be surprising seeing the worlds' fondness of underdevellopment and dependency and the combined forces to fight intelligence and originality.

Like i would disagree with the anxiety thing, what's measured against what?