"I think your pretty confused with your ideas on autism" - ?

Post Reply New Topic

Anyone else get this from a non autistic person or persons ?

I sometimes get "you don't seem really autistic to me" - I guess because I don't look and act like Charlie Babbitt and can mimic small talk and other social interactions well enough to fit in most of the time.

Ive had a few "well I guess that its quite fashionable these days" comments. This makes me cross.

Yes, if I understand the context of your question correctly. I have a neighbour, actually a retired teacher, who when I mentioned that my lover is on the spectrum she responded with a look of absolute horror. It became clear that she thought all autism equates to intellectually challenged, mutism, lack of independence. When I told her he worked in cyber security for a cutting-edge company she insisted that he can't be autistic then. I on the other hand was horrified that this woman had been responsible for educating children for 40 odd years and had never attempted to identify the source of her pupils struggles or indeed implement recommendations for HFA, PDD or in fact ADHD and ADD or bother to read the many screenings that she must have been handed from psychologists and neurologists throughout her career. I have friends who think autism exists just at a low functioning level. They insist my friend is not autistic.

The basis was they were arguing that those with ASD and those with sz had different personalities. That was fair enough . What wasn't was their belief that I didn't agree with that . I mentioned some things that can occur with ASD(EF difficulties,spiky cognitive profile and adaptive functioning difficulties) , but are not part of the diagnostic criteria , to be told I'm 'pretty confused'

Raymond Babbitt was Rain Man.

Charlie was his brother.

SZ= schizophrenia .

Many people still have pre-DSM-IV/ICD-9 notions pertaining to autism.

They believe that if you can talk and socialize—that you cannot have autism.

This includes some psychologists.

Surely both autistic people and schizophrenic people exhibit a wide range of personalities.

There’s certainly a lot of symptom overlap at least on a superficial level. An autistic person and a schizophrenic person could probably find common ground. At the same time I think that the differences between the conditions are more pronounced than say the differences between autism and ADHD.

Everyone has different personality regardless of whats going on upstairs

I can well imagine what Firemonkey, and Velorium are saying. Millions of folks have heard the term "autism", but have no notion of what it is, nor know that it is a spectrum. Some folks are aware of low functioning autism and do have some grasp of what it is, but don't know that autism can be a spectrum. Others don't even have that much grasp on it, and think that autism is the same thing as Down Syndrome.

But I rarely discuss my diagnosis with folks. So the issue doesn't come up much for me.

The world is just a great big onion .....

Prevalence of Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders in Average-IQ Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Meta-analysis.
Lugo Marín J1, Alviani Rodríguez-Franco M2, Mahtani Chugani V2, Magán Maganto M3, Díez Villoria E3, Canal Bedia R3.
Author information
Abstract

Since their separation as independent diagnostics, autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) have been conceptualized as mutually exclusive disorders. Similarities between both disorders can lead to misdiagnosis, especially when it comes to average-IQ adults who were not identified during childhood. The aim of this review was to examine the occurrence of SSD in average-IQ adults with ASD. Electronic and manual searches identified a total of 278 references, of which 10 were included in a meta-analysis. The pooled prevalence of SSD in the total ASD sample was close to 6%, pointing to a high co-occurrence of the two conditions. Further research is needed to determine the factors that predispose members of this population to the emergence of psychotic disorders.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28980099