4 ms·

The spectrum doesn’t work that way, it’s more like a grab bag of traits than a “low to high” thing. High functioning is often just a way to dismiss the needs fo

• bigfatkitten 1y ago
  And for girls in particular, who go mostly undiagnosed because they tend to present very differently to boys.
• PaulHoule 1y ago
  I'd say otherwise. My wife has a student in her riding academy who is a severely autistic adult who is not independent and gets intensive support from her mom and aides that she hires who turn over rapidly because of the difficulty of the job. She has several seizures on some days. One beautiful day when they were tacking up the horse she thought it was a great day to take a walk (it was!) and took off down the driveway and they pressed me into service looking for her. She wandered onto the neighbor's property and when they asked her what was up she took one of them by the arm and started walking back to our place, she then let go of their arm and grabbed onto mine and I brought her back to everyone's relief.
  • al_borland 1y ago
    You know what they say, “if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.”
    • tedk-42 1y ago
      Yep it's like they're grouping all kinds of mental disabilities as autism
      • PaulHoule 1y ago
        It is the so-called "autists" who do that. It's become a vanity diagnosis for the rich and powerful. Look at the case of Kanye West https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/sick-people-are-sick https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/sick-people-are-sick There was this study that found that "autists" have 5 different diseases https://www.princeton.edu/news/2025/07/09/major-autism-study-uncovers-biologically-distinct-subtypes-paving-way-precision https://www.princeton.edu/news/2025/07/09/major-autism-study... If it wasn't something people were flocking to like neurotypicals that is now a valuable part of their identity they'd just be honest and say that a lot of these people would have to give up their diagnosis. Funny enough, before autism became a fad there were 5 different conditions for it in the DSM... https://spectrumofhope.com/blog/5-different-types-of-autism/ https://spectrumofhope.com/blog/5-different-types-of-autism/ Now we need an "awareness of everybody who isn't autistic" movement.
        • al_borland 1y ago
          You’re arguing semantics here. You seem to acknowledge there are diagnosable issues, both with the subtype article and older DSM, but because it’s under one umbrella currently you want to throw it out instead of acknowledging the issues?
          • PaulHoule 1y ago
            See https://www.amazon.com/Autism-Matrix-Gil-Eyal/dp/074564399X https://www.amazon.com/Autism-Matrix-Gil-Eyal/dp/074564399X One issue is that special ed has taken all the air out of the room for kids who are not thriving in school but don’t have a diagnosis. I went to a PTA meeting where the superintendent completely dismissed any concerns I had about the school but gushed over how the mother of a “special” kid was a partner in his education. (Other parents and teachers did show some sympathy) If you want to have some rights as a parent you are practically forced to get your child a diagnosis: if they are in the bottom 25% of readers that have ‘Dyslexia’ which similarly seems to have distinct enough subtypes that an honest definition is ‘bottom 25% of readers’ So autism went from being a disabling condition to something that applies to many people who really ought to have “no apparent distress” in their chart because you can’t be different without some reification of the difference.