3 ms·

What types of autism? High functioning? Severe? My eldest had high school friends diagnosed with autism who seemed higher functioning than either of my childre

What types of autism? High functioning? Severe? My eldest had high school friends diagnosed with autism who seemed higher functioning than either of my children.

garbagecoder 4y ago
If you liked through, you'd see it was "without intellectual disability." I couldn't find what the data itself was based on, but as I commented above, this is often an approach parents with lawyers use to get accommodations when they don't quite fit into another category. If this is disproportionately a phenomenon of higher income ZIP codes, that's what I'd look at first.
- asdff 4y ago
  I bet you could model the likelihood of this, seeing if the respondents are enriched for families who are likely to be in communication with each other to some degree (family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, in the same school, etc) or if its not significantly enriched compared to random chance.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  My brother was diagnosed with autism to get accommodations for a learning disability that didn’t fit any available diagnoses. The school advised my parents to do this. As an adult, he is certainly neuro-divergent in a significant way but not autistic. Having extra help in his early grades was absolutely necessary. He’s doing pretty well.
hgsgm 4y ago
> "High functioning" "Severe" FYI these terms are considered passe now. There is no "functioning" scale, and autism is a brain type that includes a spectrum of attributes that differ from median of population, that has no severity. Specific symptoms might have severity.
klooney 4y ago
You need the mental health diagnosis to get access to study drugs and testing accommodations for that extra leg up.
- humanizersequel 4y ago
  Are those often prescribed for autism? It seems much easier to just fake ADHD — there's practically a whole industry based around this practice.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    I'm not sure whether a non-ADHD person can convincingly fake ADHD, at least not without putting huge amounts of effort into it. What's more likely is to find a doctor who doesn't really care and prescribes things without doing proper screening.
    - humanizersequel 4y ago
      Article from a psychiatrist about this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mo... TLDR is that you seem to be right (with the caveat that "a doctor who doesn't really care" seems to describe the majority of doctors)... but that still doesn't really explain why someone would fake autism to get access to amphetamines.

What types of autism? High functioning? Severe? My eldest had high school friends diagnosed with autism who seemed higher functioning than either of my children.

garbagecoder 4y ago

If you liked through, you'd see it was "without intellectual disability." I couldn't find what the data itself was based on, but as I commented above, this is often an approach parents with lawyers use to get accommodations when they don't quite fit into another category. If this is disproportionately a phenomenon of higher income ZIP codes, that's what I'd look at first.

asdff 4y ago
I bet you could model the likelihood of this, seeing if the respondents are enriched for families who are likely to be in communication with each other to some degree (family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, in the same school, etc) or if its not significantly enriched compared to random chance.
kayodelycaon 4y ago
My brother was diagnosed with autism to get accommodations for a learning disability that didn’t fit any available diagnoses. The school advised my parents to do this. As an adult, he is certainly neuro-divergent in a significant way but not autistic. Having extra help in his early grades was absolutely necessary. He’s doing pretty well.

hgsgm 4y ago

> "High functioning" "Severe" FYI these terms are considered passe now. There is no "functioning" scale, and autism is a brain type that includes a spectrum of attributes that differ from median of population, that has no severity. Specific symptoms might have severity.

klooney 4y ago

You need the mental health diagnosis to get access to study drugs and testing accommodations for that extra leg up.

humanizersequel 4y ago
Are those often prescribed for autism? It seems much easier to just fake ADHD — there's practically a whole industry based around this practice.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  I'm not sure whether a non-ADHD person can convincingly fake ADHD, at least not without putting huge amounts of effort into it. What's more likely is to find a doctor who doesn't really care and prescribes things without doing proper screening.
  - humanizersequel 4y ago
    Article from a psychiatrist about this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mo... TLDR is that you seem to be right (with the caveat that "a doctor who doesn't really care" seems to describe the majority of doctors)... but that still doesn't really explain why someone would fake autism to get access to amphetamines.