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Ettina
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13 Feb 2021, 8:16 am

Edna3362 wrote:
Everyone's a little pregnant. :lol: :lol: :lol:


I hate that analogy. It's so inaccurate!

You're either pregnant or not. There's no grey area. (Well, except for the two week wait when trying to conceive, or the times when you might be having a miscarriage but aren't sure, but those are temporary situations.)

There's a lot of grey area for autism. In fact, people who are in the grey area outnumber people who are clearly autistic. Autistic traits are normally distributed, with autistic people at one pole of the distribution.



Joe90
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14 Feb 2021, 2:46 pm

I sarcastically agree that everyone is basically autistic, but in a different context to what the article here is saying.
It seems that these days people are getting diagnosed with autism when they hardly have enough symptoms to qualify for autism, or have symptoms of other mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety or PTSD.

"My kid is shy and worries about things, let's get her diagnosed with Asperger's"

"My 2-year-old isn't talking yet, he must have autism, let's get him diagnosed"

"I keep getting emotional and easily stressed, maybe I have Asperger's, I better get diagnosed"

"I prefer to stay indoors and study for college than go out with my friends, maybe it's autism, I'd better get diagnosed"

Then when you say that it can't be autism or Asperger's, the answer is always "but all people on the spectrum are different". So where is the line drawn then???
Years ago when I was a kid, Asperger's (the least obvious form of autism) meant a kid who had frequent meltdowns, didn't like change, had sensory issues, and had some sort of difficulties with making friends. Nowadays every other kid I know is diagnosed with not autism but Asperger's, just because they're a bit shy. And so many adults are getting diagnosed too, just because they're introverted or got poor grades at school or something.

If my extroverted, popular, highly sociable 26-year-old cousin suddenly decided to get a diagnosis for Asperger's she'd probably get one, just for saying that she gets panic attacks without feeling panicky at the time, and that she is only this extroverted and popular because she's a brilliant masker but all this time she's been a struggling Aspie.

Why don't we just say that we are all Aspies and be done with it? :roll:


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Deinonychus
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14 Feb 2021, 2:51 pm

I agree with the sentences highlighted in the OP (didn't read the rest, too long...). About the question in the title, I think this says it best:

Benjamin the Donkey wrote:
It's like saying everyone with glasses is "a little blind."

If you drill down into semantics, you could argue that it's true that "everyone with glasses is a little blind" (you don't really need to be 100% blind to be functionally or maybe even legally blind after all, so it's not a strict distinction). But it just doesn't matter, because it's not a meaningful thing to say. Because there isn't an experience of continuity, even if statistically it might be a continuous distribution. There's an experience of disconnect instead.


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Whale_Tuune
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14 Feb 2021, 5:33 pm

Ettina wrote:
Edna3362 wrote:
Everyone's a little pregnant. :lol: :lol: :lol:


I hate that analogy. It's so inaccurate!

You're either pregnant or not. There's no grey area. (Well, except for the two week wait when trying to conceive, or the times when you might be having a miscarriage but aren't sure, but those are temporary situations.)

There's a lot of grey area for autism. In fact, people who are in the grey area outnumber people who are clearly autistic. Autistic traits are normally distributed, with autistic people at one pole of the distribution.


If this is just a normal distribution of personality traits, why do we single Autism out as an identity and/or diagnosis? (Depending on whoever you ask.) We could easily do the same for, I don't know, people who are good cooks, bad at math, and like opera. I'm certain there are people who are extreme about those characteristics. Are they also a neurominority group?


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kraftiekortie
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14 Feb 2021, 5:44 pm

Edna was just kidding. She wasn’t serious.