We should keep the separate Asperger's category

Post Reply New Topic

So you are high functioning enough to be able to hide it by not telling others. But what about those that can not hide it.

That is one of the things which makes Blacks a BIG target. They can not change their skin color or physical features. You're basically saying "screw the unlucky one's who can not hide it. I can "pass as normal".

Until discrimination is seen in all its colors and flavors we will all suffer.

Even the "spectrum" designation rings a little hollow. The average person thinks of a spectrum as linear. For example red-orange-yellow-green-blue-purple-all-I've-seen. But look at the real color spectrum: it is way more complicated than a simple rainbow. There are so many shades (white or black content), hues (overlap to next color), gray content, browns, a million shades of off-white. The simple color wheel of preschool has morphed into a crazy looking cutaway sphere with x, y, and z axes in an attempt to account for all possible colors.
The human brain is far more complicated. Even just the autism "spectrum" is more complex than the most modern color diagram. I think that a hundred years from now any deviation from so-called normalcy will be chartable in three-dimensional space relative to and overlapping with comorbidity, and today's "spectrum" will look as primitive as stone tools.

Last edited by dtoxic on 05 Mar 2010, 12:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

People know we're different but they just think we're weird or odd or strange, rude, not using our common sense. They might also think we are making our issues up (some aspies have had that experience).

AS is so close to normal people think we're normal. They might not even guess we have a condition unless they know about AS. Then they might pick it up.

Good point. Black, purple, red, yellow, and red are all colors. But take away the names, it be confusing.

Take away AS and PDD-NOS, it be very confusing. Tell someone you have autism, people won't know what type. Same goes for colors. If someone says "color," people won't know which color.

Personally, I tend to agree with Orwell. Unless and until there is a clear objective way to slice up the spectrum, I being pink am still red with Miss [Ms?] Scarlet.

I have found there is a profound difference between getting by and passing. I get by enough that when I suggested Asperger's to my brother as accounting for a wide range of aspects of my being he poohpoohed it. Of course, he rejects about anything I say. But it is very clear that with no official diagnosis and no standard labelling the majority of people I have dealt with have recognized me as unambiguously Green [not red] Monkey. A through H ignore me; I through P reject me; Q through T fear me, and X, Y and Z recognize me as "one of us". I can try to fake it, but my true colors shine through - incorrect eye contact patterns, asking the wrong questions, and so forth.

I do not know how to get the human race to where Difference is not stigmatized.

Then the stigma will never be overcome.

Do you know anyone with low functioning autism? I know one - a friend of my wife's. When I met her she was in her 20s and had never said a word in her life. She was extremely nice, and she was also alert and obviously - to me - engaged and thinking inside that head of hers, despite having been rated at a very low IQ of 60 or so.

However, what was obvious to me was not obvious to neurotypicals, not even her own parents. They married her off to a nasty, mean spirited moron just because he had an even lower IQ rating than she did. He proceeded to abuse the heck out of her because he thought he could get away with it - to the point where she uttered her first words, a completely articulate sentence: "I want a divorce."

Do I empathize with her? I certainly do - far more than I empathize with her neurotypical parents of average IQ. But you are **** right that I do not want to be associated with her in the minds of neurotypical hiring managers, government officials, or even the general public - the kind of people that would marry her off to an abusive moron because of her diagnosis. I can do a heck of a lot more for her and people like her if I have a job and autonomy than I can from the inside of a padded room.

If anything, we should do the opposite of eliminating the "Asperger's" category. We should expand Asperger's to include high functioning autism, and leave "autism" to include low functioning autism only. Then us aspies, from a position within mainstream society, will actually have a chance of making things better for the remaining auties as well.

Last edited by psychohist on 05 Mar 2010, 12:41 am, edited 2 times in total.

deleted

Last edited by timeisdead on 05 Mar 2010, 12:35 am, edited 4 times in total.

I was referring to the "stigma", not any actual acts of discrimination or hate crimes.

The way many people think about autism, you don't have to pass as neurotypical to have people not detect it right away. It's possible to be visibly impaired (as in social skills for example) and have no one around you suspect a thing. There are many who mistake autism as a condition automatically characterized by smearing feces, constant self-injury, and little or no verbal communication. Their perceptions are inaccurate but it's an unfortunate reality we have to deal with.

We must also remember that the vast majority of human beings are not analytical or detail oriented. They don't take the time to categorize unless it's to their own benefit. When the DSM revision is made, more will associate high functioning autism with mental impairment.

For the record, I have nothing against LFAs. However, I don't want job discrimination for Aspies to further worsen. I believe that we should combat these prejudicial attitudes through educating others on the spectrum. However, until society is further reformed, I wish to keep the Asperger's label.

I am sad to hear you say that.


Yes, I do. I went to school with one particular guy who was mostly nonverbal. He was nonetheless one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, regardless of what IQ tests may have said.


My hope would be that by identifying ourselves as autistic, we could be living examples to remove some of the stigma. People who meet me do not regard me as mentally disabled or in any serious way defective- they view me as odd, they wonder about my lacking social skills, but as far as I can tell, no one views me as unintelligent. What you are saying is only that you do not wish to be stereotyped- the same is true of all of us, but that doesn't mean we need to distance ourselves from each other. I am not ashamed of who and what I am, and I will not deny or hide who I am for sake of fitting in.


Oh, that sounds like a great idea, let's further marginalize and isolate those who most need help. We have positions in mainstream society. We program the computers, we build the bridges, we design the jet engines, and we teach mathematics in almost every university in the country. But because too many of us are content to pass for normal, or even to pass for slightly odd, rather than associate with nonverbal autistics, the stereotypes and the stigma persist.

Once it is understood that autism (including "low-functioning" autism) is part of a broader spectrum of characteristics, there will be more will to help those on the "lower" end to realize their unique gifts.

Nonsense. You think people are going to conclude that droves of mathematicians and engineers are mentally impaired? Once obviously intelligent people are labellled autistic, people will have to rethink their notions of autism.


With that type of strategy, society will never be reformed.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

So if we expand Asperger's to include High Functioning autism how does that work? You're leaving HFA off autism, which in your perfect world is only LFA, but the problem here is it's called HIGH FUNCTIONING AUTISM. So it's called autism but it isn't autism, because according to you the only autistics are low functioning.

What we should do is to educate people on what autism really is. Sure it can be low functioning, but then with the help of early intervention they become high functioning. Do they really need to go in for a separate diagnosis when that happens?

I couldn't care less what this disorder is called. I've been diagnosed and I've received help for it.
And this whole thing about people not getting hired after the name change - it's happening now! It has taken me seven years to find work since I turned 18.

I fear your hope is born of youth and naivete. I think we will just have to agree to disagree on this. I think timeisdead has a much better idea of what is achievable and what is not.


Why? They can as easily rethink their notions of intelligence. I think many neurotypicals would be more than happy to redefine "intelligence" to include the nonverbal social skills that they have and we lack, and would have no problem with redefining mathemeticians and engineers as "idiots savants" rather than "intelligent". Such a redefinition is in their interests, as it gives them more power.

So what happens when you can't do the job properly due the difficulties in multi-tasking, precessing information carrying out cognitive tasks that inevitably befall Aspies? No allowances will be made for your condition and you'll get the sack.

I agree we should keep the separate Asperger's diagnosis, if for no other reason that I believe it is being abolished purely as a cost-cutting exercise to prevent health trusts from having to give diagnostic referrals to aspies at all. This will lead to a higher rate of unemployment due to aspies being undiagnosed and therefore unable to access any of the specialist services they need in order to help them find, and maintain, work.

I also agree that, whether rightly or wrongly, autism is often associated with being ret*d and I don't want that stigma.

That explanation completely ignores reality.
APA is doing this and they do not make money from people not accessing services.