Is autism becoming infantalised?

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You're right I don't know for sure if I was excluded from working in my field because of my aspie traits. If I don't know I was discriminated against after my own interviews and you acknowledge that, then how do you have such a strong view when it comes to her?

When it comes to assumptions discrimination, people need to be always air on the side of caution and look at the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that being unable to find a job in a chosen field after graduation is VERY common for everyone.

I'm not saying discrimination against her isn't happening or her traits are making it harder to find a job in her field, I'm actually neutral on that. Saying that it might not be discrimination isn't insisting its NOT discrimination.

I would appreciate it if you all dropped that kind of chatter about other users.
It may not be literally against the rules but it tends to be quite unhealthy for the community.
Thank you.

Sorry. Nades, I just felt you were being a little unfair was all. So I waded in. Maybe a shouldn't have, but what's done is done I guess.

Apologies Magz, will take that on board.

That's OK. No worries.

I knew this thread was going to be decisive to be honest but it was one of those things I thought needed to be posted because of the issues Iv'e seen personally over the years. I didn't mean to sound personal with anyone or seem like I'm belittling people. I just have different ideas compared to others on how to help people with autism and have over the years come to a personal conclusion that I feel it's best to empower them and push them out of their comfort zone if it seems like it could be of benefit to them on a case by case basis.

Some autistic people are unable to live happily without support and there is nothing wrong with that and I think they should have the support they need. I probably should have made that clearer in my OP. Others I feel can with a little push surprise themselves. I think it would be cool to see as many autistic people as possible driving around in sports cars, having jobs they're happy with and hell.....even becoming millionaires.

That's the type of world I want to see. People have different ideas on how to get to that goal but I think it's a nice goal to try and achieve.

I actually agree with that. I sometimes wonder how much I would have achieved if I had been diagnosed earlier and not had to just get on as well as I could. I didn't get diagnosed until I was in my mid thirties.

I can see pros and cons like. If I had been diagnosed as a kid, maybe the other kids wouldn't have been so nasty. But on the other hand, that made me learn to look after myself and when it was appropriate to punch that kid on the nose. It would have limited me a fair bit too- I certainly wouldn't have been able to join the army where I spent 5 happy years until my knee crapped out on me.

You're right though, this was always going to be a twitchy topic!

I wasn't diagnosed until I was 21. During my teens and formative years, nobody cared about my autism because not surprisingly I didn't have the diagnosis. My parents seen me as a bit of a delinquent and badgered me into driving and getting a job (I literally cried when my mother told me I was going to work full time in a supermarket at the ripe old age of 18, if I wanted to or not). Years later I realised despite it being a huge amount of stress at the time, in the long run it benefited me and will continue to do so for the rest of my life. I now have another job in a metal fab shop that I thought would be a TERRIBLE fit for me but actually isn't that bad but the hours can be annoying. What terrified me back then just isn't an issue anymore for me. I'm now starting a small property portfolio in the next town over that I would have never been able to do without those horrific long hours in work.

Had I got diagnosed earlier, I worry my parents might have been far to gentle on me and have lead me down a path that done me more harm than good.

Reckon it depends on the person tbh. No idea how you would predict which people would be better off with which approach though.

It certainly depends on the person but I think the approach doesn't really matter a huge amount. What matters more is how well an aspie does after the initial shock of trying a new approach and pushing the boat out has worn off. Learning to drive for example might really fluster a lot of aspies to begin with but after say two months and the initial stress should have calmed, it'll become apparent if they're warming to driving or not. If they're not warming to it it's no big problem, driving just wasn't for them but if they are then they have tried something they initially would not have entertained and are starting to enjoy a new skill that'll help them for life. The same applies for most new challenges.

It's no mystery that a huge number autistic people hate change of any kind. I think making great efforts keeping an aspies life overly stable and free of change like a lot of advocates are pushing for is in my eyes the type of misguided approach that instead of helping them, harms them. It doesn't matter how old an aspie is or what problems they think might impede them in doing something, only trying can give them the final yes or no to any new challenge they try and I don't think it's up to others of even the individual aspie to rule out what they can or can't do until they try a new challenge head on for a decent amount of time.

I have a PDF re the test, but unfortunately it's not possible to upload it here. It's sad, in this day and age, that a person's work can be dismissed for evermore because they have a mental illness . For me the person with such a reactionary attitude is far less decent and reputable than a person who's experienced mental illness.

I

I have experienced mental illness, too.
Jung has, too.
Truth is truth and false is false, approximation is approximation and bias is bias, regardless of mental health state of a person who speaks.

When it comes to psychiatric testing I think its always better to go to a psychologist/psychiatrist in person. For example a big problem with self testing is if your dyslexic, you might incorrectly read questions causing havoc to the results. Another issue is that pretty much all the online IQ tests I have done bare little resemblance to an official IQ tests.

Some online IQ tests might be well thought out but so far I generally steer clear of them.

Both me and Firemonkey have experienced significant misinterpretation of symptoms followed by mistreatment from mental health specialists.

To be honest I actually agree with this. If we keep to the current system, it would be nice if as many autistic people succeeded as possible. And in general, it's good that a society makes use of autistic people's talents which I feel isn't happening at the moment.

It would be nice if autistic qualities were valued in the workplace, too. That's what I mean about tech. I think tech is one of those fields where that still is the case. And it used to be the case in libraries, as well. A librarian was an expert who worked in a quiet environment and helped those who needed more expertise than an assistant could provide.

I didn't dream of being a librarian. I wanted to be a lecturer since I was a kid. But that isn't practical. You need a PHD and a lot of luck. If it was up to me, I'd be a student forever but that's not an option. I did a really boring vocational degree in hopes of getting a job and didn't get one.

I don't see autism as being 100% bad. I think it brings with it some qualities as well as detriments. I think of dyspraxia as being 100% bad, and it makes both driving and getting maths GCSEs very difficult - which is a pain when nearly all jobs require one or the other of those.

I don't like the word 'infantilised' being used as 'assumed to be more disabled'. Maybe that's because my mum works in special needs so I grew up around and hearing about teenagers who were severely learning disabled. Even the ones who drooled, couldn't talk beyond (I'm trying to think of a PC word for 'screeches'), were in wheelchairs and needed changing regularly, were still teenagers who (hopefully, not always) became adults. This is me being aspie and pedantic, I know that.

I don't think it's good to assume anything about 'all autistic people' especially assuming we're all learning disabled when we're not, or we'll all find the same things hard or easy. I do agree that society sometimes makes those assumptions. I don't think we do that to ourselves, though. If anything, most HFA people I know do the opposite - cos we were smart at school, we think we'll succeed, which sets us up for failure.

I'm surprised by how much you got given. In my day, I didn't know I was autistic & although I knew I was dyspraxic, teachers didn't respect the diagnosis as it was a very recent idea that someone could be dyspraxic. I got told off over things like handwriting every single time I had a new teacher. Achieved nothing. What did achieve things was patient teaching or me learning in my own time which is why I only got good at handwriting as an adult.

My mum works with Deaf kids now and I think their system is sensible. If a kid needs a hearing aid, they're given one, if they don't, then they don't get given one. If they're in secondary (like you were with your things) and keep taking it off, they have a serious conversation with the kid, go through various options, but ultimately it's their choice - just like if a 14 yo hearing kid chooses not to listen in class. But if it's a 6 yo, they insist the kid wears it (mostly with very young children it's cos they're autistic or something and it's hurting them physically, little kids don't care as much about being 'cool').

It goes much deeper than that. I've known him for a long time, and he is, absolutely, irrefutably, not a reliable test designer or scorer these days (though he once may have been), and he is also a rude and disrespectful guy, who has personally been verbally and psychologically abusive to me, friends of mine, and others in the community. There has been proof of this and corroborated by people who have known him, interacted with him, etc. I personally feel it is due to his mental health issues, which is regrettable, because I believe he is a good guy beneath it all. I've already argued about this enough on FB, and other reputable test-takers and authors have supported me, and have backed me up. I find your attitude about the whole thing to be very disappointing and unduly resistant. To say "I don't like his tests" would not be honest, it would be only the partial truth, and it would be obscuring the salient issues. What I'm saying is honest, and the truth. The fact that you don't want to hear it shows you may very well be biased towards your own score and performance on this test, which to the trained eye, is not valid, and should be replicated on other tests by individuals with sterling records.

I've personally seen evidence that he doesn't score fairly. He has been quoted to suggest to someone who co-authored with him that they should "give higher scores so as not to hurt someone's feelings". His norms have been shown to be quite inflated (verifiably). I've also seen him give a high score, and then accuse the testee to have cheated, when there is 0 evidence of this...among many other culpable deeds. It's really too bad if he has duped you and misled you, but you deserve to know the truth. So now I am at fault for giving you valid information? What more do you need to hear about the issue? Forget that he has a mental illness -- you're using that to cover for him, which is very unfortunate. There are dozens upon dozens of other test authors out there, and I'll readily accept scores from them. This does not have to be about you personally, but you are making it that way. If you want to dismiss my opinion, that's fine, but do so at your own risk.

"If it seems like it could" - seems to you? What form exactly would this pushing take? Who would be the judge?

Last edited by ToughDiamond on 31 Aug 2020, 3:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

IQ does not have to be about mental health, which is what psychologists and psychiatrists specialize in. Though often IQ tests are used to help figure out what a person's relative cognitive strengths and deficits are, i.e. to help identify intellectual disability, I think many other individuals are simply curious "how smart they are", and they will be deluded if they think the proctored IQ test fully encapsulates insight into this subject. I personally don't think there is something very specific called "IQ" that we all have in some measurable degree, which is what psychiatrists and psychologists presume to be able to efficiently extract the truth about, with their mass-marketed tests (designed by psychometricians). But I do believe you can get insight into someone's intellectual abilities, by giving them cognitive tasks and assessments to complete, that are to be scored objectively (in the tradition of the IQ test), correlated with statistics of supervised tests, and allocated statistical scores to estimably gauge one's performance. There really are many good tests out there of such a variety, with robust statistics, and intelligent, capable people involved in their development. But they aren't all that easy to find, and exist in niches online, like many things people generally don't know about. I co-authored a timed numerical test with a friend, which currently has 301 testees (and increasing). He and I and some others considered making more of a business out of it, rather than having someone else host our tests (he has a business), but ultimately we got sidetracked for various reason. The materials on this test (and others like it) are not like what you'd find on a traditional test, they are more of an experimental nature, but have been revealed to be of a high quality, using various mathematical and statistical methods, and comparative analyses with supervised tests as well. And that's just one test, there are many others out there, some timed, some untimed, which offer something different, unique, and reasonably priced, which can be independently solved without having to go into a psychologist or psychiatrist's office to take the WAIS or whatever, to give a valid estimate of one's IQ without having to take the supervised tests. But there are also bad tests. So you have to know how and where to look.