AUTISM AND MENTAL RETARDATION ARE DIFFERENT!

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it isn't only trolls who use 'autism is mental retardation',it's one of the most common outdated beliefs still being used in institutional and residential care,as oldskool staff [of which there are many still left working] don't bother getting up to date autism training-they assume=know it all already,because of the years they've been working in care.
Like danielismyname has said-MR is a big part of autism,the problem is when the autism is seen directly as the mental retardation instead of autism and MR seen seperately,unless with specialist or well trained people,the service user [or whoever] is so often not taken seriously,and is treated as sub human,their complex autistic needs are usually ignored in favour of the MR,eg,they dont know any better-thats why they're banging their head on the wall [instead of thinking-this autistic could be trying to communicate,is a sensory seeker,could be in pain etc].


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Not able to watch the video as can only understand with subs.

It's funny but people don't call me ret*d unless I bring up the fact that I have aspergers and then I get the social ret*d label which may be true in some ways.

But I find it funny how people will label just about anything in the worst way possible just to get rise out of some of us.

It is to bad that some people who are aspies don't realize how hard it is for some of us to watch these videos that have poor sound without transcripts or subtitles but like some girl said 'we're just supposed to click on the link and watch it' so it's obvious she hasn't a clue about autism.

I guess I messed up. I was PM'd that the 'girl' is a guy who isn't diagnosed but she/he was trying to tell me how to watch a video like a regular person, not realizing of course that I'm not a regular person, but an autistic person who apparantly is a surprise for her/him to encounter on a site for autistic people.

Dave is right. Austism and metal retardartion are two separate, but sometimes, overlapping issues. I understand that it can be very frustrating for a young man who has been identified as autistic at an early age to be also labled metally ret*d by people who don't know any better. This is one advantage to NOT be diagnosed with an ASD in childhood.

When I was working with boys were classic Auties, one could not communicate very well. I never assumed that he was mentally ret*d. I always thought there could be a very intelligent person in there, and I thought there was. It's ignorant to make assumptions about someone's intelligence if they have a communication impairment.

I think maybe you really identified Dave's situation in that he has a problem with being labeled autistic or ret*d and would prefer to be seen as being an Aspie of some sort for some reason so he can calim to have some superior intelligence beyond that of those people who are putting him down for being somewhat lame on some website for one reason or another.

You know,I never thought about it that way. It didn't come to mind at first, about how some institutional and residential care staff still believe that autistic = mental retardation--but now that you said it, it makes a lot more sense than the picture I had before.

I suppose as an aspie it's easy for me to forget about the whole spectrum of experiences beyond my own little slice of it .I know that trying to reason with trolls is fruitless, and I know something about how to reach the general public--but I don't know much about institutional or residential settings. What has been your experience?

Well, one of the things I remember from my little trip in europe(forgive me if I spell it wrong), is in a danihs parking lot. There were signs all over that said..... Huske deres parke farve! In English, that means "REMEMBER your parking color!"! So THEY ALSO have trouble finding their cars! To say that shows a lack of intelligence is, IN ITSELF, STUPID!(No offense Gary!)

There are people who wouldn't even know the difference between Down's syndrom and autism. Some autistics have low IQs in the "ret*d" range and some way pas the genius mark but either way autism by definition is not MR. According to Facebook, I'm 128...I like the message.

"Mental Retardation" isn't a single disorder, it has various causes and manifestations, and Autism does, and is one of the causes of it in the majority of cases of those with Kanner's Autism.

Taken from the ever-present DSM-IV-TR on Kanner's Autism/Autistic Disorder:

Now, Asperger's Disorder (which isn't referred to Autism at all):

What would you do with a guy who was a ret*d with an IQ of 80 but at the same time designing rockets for NASA and doing advanced work for the DOD and it just so happended that he was also diagnosed as being autistic as a secondary comorbid condition to general retardation. I know this is a complicated train of thought so try and stay with me since you are so smart.
Now considering this how is the original post valid to begin with since retardation is the diagnosis but autism is the secondary contributor to the persons general condition. A very similar situation to Kim Peeks who is not autistic but diagnosed as being ret*d under one set of criteria but autistic under another set of criteria.

"According to Facebook". Are you really serious about that statement you just made and do you realize how uninformed it sounds?

Actually I did suffer with verbal and language delay for a long time. I had trouble grasping words and their meanings as a kid and would usually make up words as I went along.

Hard to believe that I wasn't diagnosed for a long time until an adult. Sometimes I wonder if there aren't other various impairments with aspergers as well as autism.

Does the topicstarter realise that PDD stands for pervasive developmental disorder?

Apologies to the topicstarter but your voice is hurting my ears so I didn't listen much longer after you talked about PDD

I think he said "progressive"

I don't know, I had trouble with the audio.

I have to admit that if the guy knew how to do real vids at a technical level and and took some more voice lessons that he could be almost as convincing as Alex when it came to making pitches about Aspergers and social integration and other yuppie topic type stuff popular at colleges.