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Fuck BAP and all these people with ASD who don't have it severe and end up being in denial, proposing masking and "getting over it" and other tough boy talk. I

by Fnoord 3y ago

Fuck BAP and all these people with ASD who don't have it severe and end up being in denial, proposing masking and "getting over it" and other tough boy talk. If you got diagnosed with ASD, you have ASD and there are tons of false negatives out there (undiagnosed people) as well as those claiming they're true positive (in reality undiagnosed, they may very well have ASD in some form, or not). It is also possible you have misdiagnosed false positives. Psychopaths, for example, could very well benefit from such. I know I am not the latter. I know I have empathy, and when I don't, it is likely because of overstimulation otherwise. I recognize this in my children as well. My mother's late best friend (geez, typing this makes me realize how much I miss her) who was different in life as status quo in a way irrelevant to this discussion described my kids when tbey were very young as "friendly". A simple thing to say, but her observation was so aptly sound, I shluld remind myself about it more often next temper tantrums.

skissane 3y ago
> Fuck BAP and all these people with ASD who don't have it severe and end up being in denial, proposing masking and "getting over it" and other tough boy talk. BAP is a construct developed by researchers, see e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30995078/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30995078/ – we can debate its value as a scientific theory, but all this stuff about "being in denial" is irrelevant to its scientific status. > If you got diagnosed with ASD, you have ASD There's this MIT PhD thesis I really like, Phech Colatat's Essays in the sociology of autism diagnosis. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/90070 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/90070 In the first half of his thesis, Colatat looked at three specialist clinics in the US, all run by Kaiser Permanente (which in his thesis he refers to by the pseudonym "Allied Health") – management was already aware that three clinics had significantly different diagnosis rates, but those differences were being ascribed to patient characteristics and referral patterns. Based on statistical analysis of medical records, Colatat argues that neither of those explanations actually work, and instead the real explanation is differences in the professional culture of each clinic – an explanation he backs up by considering the organisational history of the clinics, and the different diagnostic philosophies which influenced their respective founders. He concludes that approximately one-third of the outcome of an autism diagnosis in those clinics is determined by the culture of the clinician – and he notes that, despite these significant differences in clinical culture, they were all specialist clinics which put great emphasis on diagnostic rigour, and many diagnoses are done in generalist clinics with significantly less rigour, so it is entirely possible the cultural contribution might turn out to be even bigger if one brought those diagnoses into the analysis. So, one third (maybe even more) of the time, whether you have ASD depends, not on you, but on which clinician you see.
- h0l0cube 3y ago
  > instead the real explanation is differences in the professional culture of each clinic A cultural aspect is that some practitioners believe the line between ASD and 'not-ASD' is in a different place. In my view, the pathologized label of ASD only really belongs to people that need support (even then I find the 'disorder' label problematic), but a broader autistic label belongs to anyone affected by autistic traits. The distinction of how many traits is the minimum for a autistic label is somewhat arbitrary, and whether someone cares to identify as autistic in light of these traits is outside the purview of the clinic.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > and whether someone cares to identify as autistic in light of these traits is outside the purview of the clinic Yes, because autism is a cultural construct, and each individual gets to negotiate their own relationship with that cultural construct Which is not saying it is purely a cultural construct - we started with some very real traits, and then cooked up a family of (unproven) scientific theories to try to explain those traits, and then erected a cultural construct on top of that, which has a rather complex relationship to the traits and theories which it justifies itself with
    - h0l0cube 3y ago
      It's not exactly what I meant. If you have the traits, you may not wish to describe yourself as autistic. Some of that comes down to the stigma. If you don't have autistic traits and you claim to be autistic, that's just being dishonest. The 'cultural aspect' is that every society develops tacit rules around conversation, dress, eye contact, politeness, taboos, how to move and touch etc. and penalizes people who can't divine and follow them. However, some cultures are more aligned with autistic traits. Like in Russia it's considered strange (even false) to smile without reason. Some countries have avoidance of eye contact as a feature. Edit: Interesting aside is Sabine Hossenfelder's video on autism. She takes a self-assessment at the end which yields a positive result, and then concludes, "I don't think I'm autistic, I'm just rude and German", which I think isn't some confirmation that autistic traits don't exist in the context of Germany (Hans Asperger was a Nazi instrument and from nearby Austria after all) but that some countries don't exclude people with autistic traits. And that kind of tolerance is really the ideal end goal.
s1gnp0st 3y ago
I'm sorry for whatever caused you to feel the need to respond this rudely to the discussion, but I was talking about myself in my comment, not you.

by Fnoord 3y ago

skissane 3y ago

> Fuck BAP and all these people with ASD who don't have it severe and end up being in denial, proposing masking and "getting over it" and other tough boy talk. BAP is a construct developed by researchers, see e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30995078/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30995078/ – we can debate its value as a scientific theory, but all this stuff about "being in denial" is irrelevant to its scientific status. > If you got diagnosed with ASD, you have ASD There's this MIT PhD thesis I really like, Phech Colatat's Essays in the sociology of autism diagnosis. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/90070 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/90070 In the first half of his thesis, Colatat looked at three specialist clinics in the US, all run by Kaiser Permanente (which in his thesis he refers to by the pseudonym "Allied Health") – management was already aware that three clinics had significantly different diagnosis rates, but those differences were being ascribed to patient characteristics and referral patterns. Based on statistical analysis of medical records, Colatat argues that neither of those explanations actually work, and instead the real explanation is differences in the professional culture of each clinic – an explanation he backs up by considering the organisational history of the clinics, and the different diagnostic philosophies which influenced their respective founders. He concludes that approximately one-third of the outcome of an autism diagnosis in those clinics is determined by the culture of the clinician – and he notes that, despite these significant differences in clinical culture, they were all specialist clinics which put great emphasis on diagnostic rigour, and many diagnoses are done in generalist clinics with significantly less rigour, so it is entirely possible the cultural contribution might turn out to be even bigger if one brought those diagnoses into the analysis. So, one third (maybe even more) of the time, whether you have ASD depends, not on you, but on which clinician you see.

h0l0cube 3y ago
> instead the real explanation is differences in the professional culture of each clinic A cultural aspect is that some practitioners believe the line between ASD and 'not-ASD' is in a different place. In my view, the pathologized label of ASD only really belongs to people that need support (even then I find the 'disorder' label problematic), but a broader autistic label belongs to anyone affected by autistic traits. The distinction of how many traits is the minimum for a autistic label is somewhat arbitrary, and whether someone cares to identify as autistic in light of these traits is outside the purview of the clinic.
- skissane 3y ago
  > and whether someone cares to identify as autistic in light of these traits is outside the purview of the clinic Yes, because autism is a cultural construct, and each individual gets to negotiate their own relationship with that cultural construct Which is not saying it is purely a cultural construct - we started with some very real traits, and then cooked up a family of (unproven) scientific theories to try to explain those traits, and then erected a cultural construct on top of that, which has a rather complex relationship to the traits and theories which it justifies itself with
  - h0l0cube 3y ago
    It's not exactly what I meant. If you have the traits, you may not wish to describe yourself as autistic. Some of that comes down to the stigma. If you don't have autistic traits and you claim to be autistic, that's just being dishonest. The 'cultural aspect' is that every society develops tacit rules around conversation, dress, eye contact, politeness, taboos, how to move and touch etc. and penalizes people who can't divine and follow them. However, some cultures are more aligned with autistic traits. Like in Russia it's considered strange (even false) to smile without reason. Some countries have avoidance of eye contact as a feature. Edit: Interesting aside is Sabine Hossenfelder's video on autism. She takes a self-assessment at the end which yields a positive result, and then concludes, "I don't think I'm autistic, I'm just rude and German", which I think isn't some confirmation that autistic traits don't exist in the context of Germany (Hans Asperger was a Nazi instrument and from nearby Austria after all) but that some countries don't exclude people with autistic traits. And that kind of tolerance is really the ideal end goal.

s1gnp0st 3y ago

I'm sorry for whatever caused you to feel the need to respond this rudely to the discussion, but I was talking about myself in my comment, not you.