[chownie]

It's really disheartening to read stuff like this as an autistic person.

So let's dispense with some of the mythology:

> Yes. It's a mental disorder.

More accurately it's a neurodevelopmental disorder. It's not like OCD or depression which can come on with age and be mediated with therapy, it's more like the albinism of the brain. I recall reading studies that point toward autism being characteristic of over-eager neuron connectivity but I don't know if that's actually accurate or not.

> You can try sweettalking what it is, but mild versions of autism are already insanely disruptive

There is no "mild", "severe" or "low functioning" autism, these labels are not descriptive. Autistic people have a spiky profile, they struggle/excel at different things in the categories of language, perception, executive function, motor control and sensory processing.

"Low functioning" is used to deny people agency, "high functioning" is used to deny people support. Neither of these terms tend to be used by autistic people because they aren't at all useful. If you're someone who struggles with sounds and you're in a busy office then people will rate your functioning lower than if you're in a quiet office, environment affects everyone's ability to function it's just more obvious in people who specifically struggle with that stimulus.

> both to the parents, but also to all other children and people that are forced to interact with them

What do you mean by "forced to interact with them"? I can guarantee you have interacted with autistic people throughout your life without knowing some of them are autistic, and without some of them knowing they're autistic too. The very fact that adults get diagnosed with autism kind of flies in the face of this idea you seem to have that we're all severely disabled people that good ol' normal people are "forced to interact with"

What you think of as severe autism is more likely autism in addition to another developmental disability. Autism is diagnosed by behavioural analysis but the conditions for failure arent specific, so any learning disability can potentially be shortcut diagnosed as autism and this is often the case for people who start out incapable of communication.

[zozbot234]

> What you think of as severe autism is more likely autism in addition to another developmental disability.

A reasonable guess, but if that was the case we would expect low functioning autism to be extremely uncommon compared to either "mild" autism or other developmental issues, since very few kids would happen to fall under both conditions.

Unfortunately, low functioning is more common than that, common enough in fact that some people think of it as the typical case of autism itself.

[chownie]

> A reasonable guess, but if that was the case we would expect low functioning autism to be extremely uncommon compared to either "mild" autism or other developmental issues, since very few kids would happen to fall under both conditions.

Diagnosis of autism requires running through a checklist as part of an interview, or a behavioural analysis if younger. If you're completely non-verbal and thus incapable of being interviewed you can still be shortcut diagnosed as autistic, which is actually my entire point, the behavioural checklist is not that stringent. A number of severe learning disabilities can pretty easily be swung into an autism diagnosis, making the spectrum seem more like 20 conditions we can't distinguish rather than 1 condition with vastly differing presentations.

[AllegedAlec]

> It's really disheartening to read stuff like this as an autistic person.

I'm sorry to hear that.

> neurodevelopmental disorder

Fair enough. I didn't delineate the two because we tend not to, because there's fairly little use. Schizoid cluster disorders are also considered personality disorders, in spite having a geneteic component, and all you can do is manage that, not cure it.

> There is no "mild", "severe" or "low functioning" autism, these labels are not descriptive. Autistic people have a spiky profile, they struggle/excel at different things in the categories of language, perception, executive function, motor control and sensory processing.

Psychology disagrees. It classifies autism on three levels, from 1 (high-functioning) where the person needs relatively little support, to level 3, where the person requires very substantial support.

> "Low functioning" is used to deny people agency, "high functioning" is used to deny people support. Neither of these terms tend to be used by autistic people because they aren't at all useful

I disagree. Categorisation is useful maybe not to the guy with autism, but it is to the system that has to provide support, in order to have rough estimates of how much and when.

> If you're someone who struggles with sounds and you're in a busy office then people will rate your functioning lower than if you're in a quiet office, environment affects everyone's ability to function it's just more obvious in people who specifically struggle with that stimulus.

At that point you're already talking about a high functioning autistic person. Labour force participation overall for people with autism is roughly half of that of those without.

> What do you mean by "forced to interact with them"? I can guarantee you have interacted with autistic people throughout your life without knowing some of them are autistic, and without some of them knowing they're autistic too.

Yes. That's high functioning autism. But I've also had people, in my class, at work and in hobby spaces, that were very much not like that. One example that springs to mind is a class grinding to a halt for an hour after an autistic kid started throwing with stuff because the teacher deviated from the regular schedule to have a group discussion about death because someone's mother had passed away.

> The very fact that adults get diagnosed with autism kind of flies in the face of this idea you seem to have that we're all severely disabled people that good ol' normal people are "forced to interact with"

I never said any of that; that's pure projection on your part and I'd rather you didn't.

> What you think of as severe autism is more likely autism in addition to another developmental disability. Autism is diagnosed by behavioural analysis but the conditions for failure arent specific, so any learning disability can potentially be shortcut diagnosed as autism and this is often the case for people who start out incapable of communication.

How do you make a difference between comorbidity and several disabilities melding into another? A third of autistic children also have a severe intellectual disability (IQ < 70). Another 25% is borderline that (above 70, below 85). About a third also has epilepsy, and people with autism are at least 4 times more likely to have schizophrenia.

And don't get me wrong. I don't say we should round all of these people up and take them behind the shed. My point is is that autism is not some way of being that's equal but different to 'neurotypical'. At best, you'll suffer some disadvantage that you'll have to overcome during your lifetime (and if you do: kudos to you).