5 ms·

"Five times as many males as females are diagnosed", but the problem is of course that women are not diagnosed enough... What about there is a big problem in ou

"Five times as many males as females are diagnosed", but the problem is of course that women are not diagnosed enough... What about there is a big problem in our society that make males more prone to autism that we should fix first? That article seems to be political rather than informative to me.

fhayde 9y ago
I'm inclined to agree. Perhaps I'm just getting old and cynical but it seems like a lot of people consider it a badge of honor to be diagnosed with some sort of neuro/psycho disability. Granted, that's not a terrible thing per se, because if nothing else, it means there's a significant shift away from the stigmatizing perception of the past. I just have a hard time accepting the celebratory nature of things like this. Similar to the body positivity movement, which itself is a healthy shift towards acceptance and responsibility, there's always a fringe element who seem to romanticize and glorify something. I personally believe it's because many people want to feel included in "something", and that's fine, I don't have a problem with that. I just get grumpy when the initial context goes from understanding the way a disorder can impact your life and raising awareness to "let's make an exclusive group to carve out a little island only me and other special people like me can hang out on". It feels a lot like the reason and purpose are hijacked and unfortunately the message gets lost and tainted, creating more of a backlash than anything else. I don't have a problem with exclusionary groups at all either; my issue is when they use the growing awareness of something else to piggyback off of. I dunno, that's my $0.02 that no one asked for lol.
cryptonector 9y ago
It's mostly anecdotal. That's not devoid of value even if not very informative (because anecdotal). It could also be political and still be of value.
205guy 9y ago
I think the point of articles like this one is to raise the question of whether autism as it is currently diagnosed in young children is actually only diagnosing "male-pattern autism." By looking at adult female cases, where the subject is able to reflect on their childhood and their late diagnosis, we might be able to formulate better screening for children so that the ratio isn't as skewed.

fhayde 9y ago

I'm inclined to agree. Perhaps I'm just getting old and cynical but it seems like a lot of people consider it a badge of honor to be diagnosed with some sort of neuro/psycho disability. Granted, that's not a terrible thing per se, because if nothing else, it means there's a significant shift away from the stigmatizing perception of the past. I just have a hard time accepting the celebratory nature of things like this. Similar to the body positivity movement, which itself is a healthy shift towards acceptance and responsibility, there's always a fringe element who seem to romanticize and glorify something. I personally believe it's because many people want to feel included in "something", and that's fine, I don't have a problem with that. I just get grumpy when the initial context goes from understanding the way a disorder can impact your life and raising awareness to "let's make an exclusive group to carve out a little island only me and other special people like me can hang out on". It feels a lot like the reason and purpose are hijacked and unfortunately the message gets lost and tainted, creating more of a backlash than anything else. I don't have a problem with exclusionary groups at all either; my issue is when they use the growing awareness of something else to piggyback off of. I dunno, that's my $0.02 that no one asked for lol.

cryptonector 9y ago

It's mostly anecdotal. That's not devoid of value even if not very informative (because anecdotal). It could also be political and still be of value.

205guy 9y ago

I think the point of articles like this one is to raise the question of whether autism as it is currently diagnosed in young children is actually only diagnosing "male-pattern autism." By looking at adult female cases, where the subject is able to reflect on their childhood and their late diagnosis, we might be able to formulate better screening for children so that the ratio isn't as skewed.