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It might be neutral if they listed specific attributes (or said the word 'attribute' rather than 'impairment'). Saying only 'impairment' implies that all attri
by throwaway2245 6y ago
It might be neutral if they listed specific attributes (or said the word 'attribute' rather than 'impairment').
Saying only 'impairment' implies that all attributes associated with autism are negative compared to some mythical baseline, and creates a circular definition which stigmatises autistic people.
- tokai 6y agoThe positive attributes are not interesting or relevant in a psychiatric sense. This is from a research paper not popular journalism on autism.
- throwaway2245 6y agoThe fact that this research paper is classifying all such attributes as negative without justification is inappropriate. It's not scientific - it's not the science that this paper is doing.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Saying only 'impairment' implies that all attributes associated with autism are negative The ones that are diagnostic (except those that are about ruling out other diagnoses) are. If we understood the mechanism enough to identify anything other than observed dysfunction, that might be different. And, yes, like virtually every mental disease, the negative attributes are defined in reference to the concrete social context in which the individual exists, and could equally be viewed as problems with society. That's a problem for a different domain than the medical though.