4 ms·

The main argument in favor of treating it as a single condition tends to come from the advocacy side, rather than from the diagnostic side. In terms of advocac

by jawns 10mo ago

The main argument in favor of treating it as a single condition tends to come from the advocacy side, rather than from the diagnostic side. In terms of advocacy, there is strength in numbers, and arguably having such a large autism community has been good for both research and support. Potentially breaking that up into several smaller communities might lead to an overall decrease in impact. On the other hand, pretty much everyone with autism, or families who have children with autism, will tell you that there is wide variation in both severity and presentation. And I think most would welcome better definition of subtypes.

pseudocomposer 10mo ago
I think “neurodivergence” is a better label if the goal is gaining strength in numbers. It fully encompasses autism and autism spectrum related conditions, plus ADHD and others. A lot of people don’t want the label “autistic,” but share experiences with people who do, and would love to offer solidarity as an “inside” rather than “outside” member of the community. We now have “AuDHD spectrum” as a thing, but really, I think optimum numbers might come from including folks who identify as “broadly neurodivergent.” It also leaves room to start distinguishing/separating out more subtle variants of what we currently umbrella as “autism,” perhaps making it better defined in the future. And I kind of suspect doing this with “less profound” neurodivergencies could help folks with “more profound” (and rarer) cases. To look at a historical case: Gay Rights didn’t make a lot of headway. But adding lesbians, trans folks, etc. ultimately did a lot of good for that community in the US.
- reedf1 10mo ago
  I was recently labelled neurodivergent by a colleague at work, as far as I can tell this is simply because I am good with numbers and don't like parties. I'm not sure how I feel about this, I wouldn't say I am Autistic or show any representative characteristics.
  - cardanome 10mo ago
    Autism or well any form of neurodivergence are about how you work on the inside. It is not possible to observe how a person behaves and just diagnose someone. That is why getting a diagnosis is a whole process involving a trained professional. Your colleague is full of shit. Generally, neurodivergence is for everyone who regularly experiences that the way their brain works causes them trouble. Self diagnosis is surprisingly accurate but people also tend to under estimate the severity of their symptoms.
  - ACCount37 10mo ago
    Or so you think. Humans aren't any good at that whole "self-awareness" thing. Even the "no empathy" sociopaths can spend decades thinking that they're perfectly normal, everyone is like them, and people just pretend to be sad and grieving at the funerals because that's some kind of established convention and breaking it would be very rude. What I'm saying is: maybe you just think you don't show any signs of autism - because you think your experience is "normal", and you think that everyone has the same struggles as you do, even when it isn't true. Or maybe you genuinely aren't autistic at all! It's just very, very hard to say at a glance.
  - kayodelycaon 10mo ago
    I don't really like the idea of my coworkers playing armchair psychologist with the people they work with. Especially if person didn't ask for it. Symptoms of mental disorders can be normal human traits taken to the point it affects person so severely it's an impairment. This means anything normal can be pointed to as evidence of a disorder.
SubiculumCode 10mo ago
I have serious doubts that an autistic advocate with low support needs, as opposed to 'neurotypicals' or impacted parents, are meaningfully more qualified to represent the needs of autistics with high support needs (e.g. severe intellectual disability, nonverbal, severe self injurious behaviors). Those autism are very very different with very very different lived experiences....and yet, well-meaning autistic advocates often bristle at that idea, almost as if it is an attempt to divide and and destroy autistic advocacy. The neurodiversity vs profound autism battle for hearts and minds continues to rage, and even threatens how and what autism research gets conducted...sometimes with good consequences, sometimes with poor consequences. I am a proponent of finding neurobiological bases for subgrouping autism into different clinically meaningful etiologies so that the debate can move forward productively. Its one reason that more and more I'd rather forgo acquiring non-autistic controls in my studies, but just look within the autism sample for how to parse the heterogeneity into homogeneous subsets
- cardanome 10mo ago
  > I have serious doubts that an autistic advocate with low support needs, as opposed to 'neurotypicals' or impacted parents, are meaningfully more qualified to represent the needs of autistics with high support needs You think a parent without any autism is more qualified to speak than someone who has autism but a different cluster of symptoms? Because being a parent makes you an expert on what exactly? The is a video of the spokesperson of autism speaks. Her autistic child is in the room and can hear everything. She talks about how bad it is for her to have an autistic child. How she wanted to kill herself by driving down a cliff. Again, while her autistic child is in the room. She is acting like her child is not even a person. Autism Speaks is a hate group of abusive parents. Those advocates with low support needs are the ones that are actually making an attempt to give those high support needs a voice. Not by speaking for them but by taking down barriers so that they can advocate for themselves. Because guess what? High Support needs autistic people are still people. Just because someone is non-verbal does not mean they can not communicate in other forms. They can advocate for themselves if given the tools. Support needs are multi dimensional, one person might have sensory issues, another no sensory issues at all but more social issues. Who has more support needs? They are different. And they can change. You can learn better coping skills, you can need more or less support as you age.
cardanome 10mo ago
> The main argument in favor of treating it as a single condition tends to come from the advocacy side, rather than from the diagnostic side. Seeing it as one single conditions is established scientific consensus not some advocacy thing. The diagnosis "Asperger's" was invented by Hans Asperger, a Nazi scientist that was responsible for the murder of many autistic children. It was never about science. It was invented because he thought that some autistic children might have a potential to become scientist and the like and therefore useful to Nazi Germany and some might not. Hans Asperger decided which autistic children should be murdered and which one to be spared purely based on ideology. Autism is something you are born with but support needs can change over your life depending on many factors like you environment, if you are diagnosed early and so on. They are not fixed.
- dragonwriter 10mo ago
  > The diagnosis "Asperger's" was invented by Hans Asperger No, it wasn't. The diagnosis of “autistic psychopathy”, which loosely corresponds to much of the range of the modern diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder was invented by Hans Asperger (Asperger does not seem to be the first to have described the condition, though he invented that name; a Societ doctor seems to have recognized a similar condition a couple decades earlier.) The distinct separate diagnoses of “Asperger’s syndrome” was invented later (the term seems to have first been used in 1976), and roughly corresponded to the “higher-functioning” individuals within his diagnosis of “autistic psychopathy” that Asperger described as potentially socially useful.

by jawns 10mo ago

pseudocomposer 10mo ago

I think “neurodivergence” is a better label if the goal is gaining strength in numbers. It fully encompasses autism and autism spectrum related conditions, plus ADHD and others. A lot of people don’t want the label “autistic,” but share experiences with people who do, and would love to offer solidarity as an “inside” rather than “outside” member of the community. We now have “AuDHD spectrum” as a thing, but really, I think optimum numbers might come from including folks who identify as “broadly neurodivergent.” It also leaves room to start distinguishing/separating out more subtle variants of what we currently umbrella as “autism,” perhaps making it better defined in the future. And I kind of suspect doing this with “less profound” neurodivergencies could help folks with “more profound” (and rarer) cases. To look at a historical case: Gay Rights didn’t make a lot of headway. But adding lesbians, trans folks, etc. ultimately did a lot of good for that community in the US.

reedf1 10mo ago
I was recently labelled neurodivergent by a colleague at work, as far as I can tell this is simply because I am good with numbers and don't like parties. I'm not sure how I feel about this, I wouldn't say I am Autistic or show any representative characteristics.
- cardanome 10mo ago
  Autism or well any form of neurodivergence are about how you work on the inside. It is not possible to observe how a person behaves and just diagnose someone. That is why getting a diagnosis is a whole process involving a trained professional. Your colleague is full of shit. Generally, neurodivergence is for everyone who regularly experiences that the way their brain works causes them trouble. Self diagnosis is surprisingly accurate but people also tend to under estimate the severity of their symptoms.
- ACCount37 10mo ago
  Or so you think. Humans aren't any good at that whole "self-awareness" thing. Even the "no empathy" sociopaths can spend decades thinking that they're perfectly normal, everyone is like them, and people just pretend to be sad and grieving at the funerals because that's some kind of established convention and breaking it would be very rude. What I'm saying is: maybe you just think you don't show any signs of autism - because you think your experience is "normal", and you think that everyone has the same struggles as you do, even when it isn't true. Or maybe you genuinely aren't autistic at all! It's just very, very hard to say at a glance.
- kayodelycaon 10mo ago
  I don't really like the idea of my coworkers playing armchair psychologist with the people they work with. Especially if person didn't ask for it. Symptoms of mental disorders can be normal human traits taken to the point it affects person so severely it's an impairment. This means anything normal can be pointed to as evidence of a disorder.

SubiculumCode 10mo ago

I have serious doubts that an autistic advocate with low support needs, as opposed to 'neurotypicals' or impacted parents, are meaningfully more qualified to represent the needs of autistics with high support needs (e.g. severe intellectual disability, nonverbal, severe self injurious behaviors). Those autism are very very different with very very different lived experiences....and yet, well-meaning autistic advocates often bristle at that idea, almost as if it is an attempt to divide and and destroy autistic advocacy. The neurodiversity vs profound autism battle for hearts and minds continues to rage, and even threatens how and what autism research gets conducted...sometimes with good consequences, sometimes with poor consequences. I am a proponent of finding neurobiological bases for subgrouping autism into different clinically meaningful etiologies so that the debate can move forward productively. Its one reason that more and more I'd rather forgo acquiring non-autistic controls in my studies, but just look within the autism sample for how to parse the heterogeneity into homogeneous subsets

cardanome 10mo ago
> I have serious doubts that an autistic advocate with low support needs, as opposed to 'neurotypicals' or impacted parents, are meaningfully more qualified to represent the needs of autistics with high support needs You think a parent without any autism is more qualified to speak than someone who has autism but a different cluster of symptoms? Because being a parent makes you an expert on what exactly? The is a video of the spokesperson of autism speaks. Her autistic child is in the room and can hear everything. She talks about how bad it is for her to have an autistic child. How she wanted to kill herself by driving down a cliff. Again, while her autistic child is in the room. She is acting like her child is not even a person. Autism Speaks is a hate group of abusive parents. Those advocates with low support needs are the ones that are actually making an attempt to give those high support needs a voice. Not by speaking for them but by taking down barriers so that they can advocate for themselves. Because guess what? High Support needs autistic people are still people. Just because someone is non-verbal does not mean they can not communicate in other forms. They can advocate for themselves if given the tools. Support needs are multi dimensional, one person might have sensory issues, another no sensory issues at all but more social issues. Who has more support needs? They are different. And they can change. You can learn better coping skills, you can need more or less support as you age.

cardanome 10mo ago

> The main argument in favor of treating it as a single condition tends to come from the advocacy side, rather than from the diagnostic side. Seeing it as one single conditions is established scientific consensus not some advocacy thing. The diagnosis "Asperger's" was invented by Hans Asperger, a Nazi scientist that was responsible for the murder of many autistic children. It was never about science. It was invented because he thought that some autistic children might have a potential to become scientist and the like and therefore useful to Nazi Germany and some might not. Hans Asperger decided which autistic children should be murdered and which one to be spared purely based on ideology. Autism is something you are born with but support needs can change over your life depending on many factors like you environment, if you are diagnosed early and so on. They are not fixed.

dragonwriter 10mo ago
> The diagnosis "Asperger's" was invented by Hans Asperger No, it wasn't. The diagnosis of “autistic psychopathy”, which loosely corresponds to much of the range of the modern diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder was invented by Hans Asperger (Asperger does not seem to be the first to have described the condition, though he invented that name; a Societ doctor seems to have recognized a similar condition a couple decades earlier.) The distinct separate diagnoses of “Asperger’s syndrome” was invented later (the term seems to have first been used in 1976), and roughly corresponded to the “higher-functioning” individuals within his diagnosis of “autistic psychopathy” that Asperger described as potentially socially useful.