Uta Frith's comment

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Thank you!!

She's just saying that:

Hey, I have some trouble with looking at people in the eyes! I have a strong interest! I say inappropriate things without realizing it! People don't understand me! I have trouble making friends! I don't like loud noises! That must mean I'm autistic!

No.

I thought it was a good show and I like uta

I will watch it when I have time.

Sometimes I think Lorna Wing and Uta Frith must sit and scratch their heads and wonder if they shouldn't have kept their mouths shut when they think about what that little publication of theirs touched off. I don't, really don't, seriously don't think they ever thought, even for a moment, that it would get THIS BIG, or that 10,000,000 people would end up with their lives caught up in their observations and the dusty old papers they found.

Sometimes I think, if I were them, I'd be sitting there with my cup of tea going cold in my hands, thinking that it has all just gone too far.

How do you define a "normal life"? Just curious.

BTW some of us have heard the saying "we all have something" or "everyone is a little bit autistic" a lot. Frith's comment is a great answer to that.

Yeah, "everyone is a little bit Autistic" is a stupid and ignorant statement. Either your neurology is wired differently or it is not. Either you fit into the DSM 5 diagnostic criteria or you don't. Everyone might feel certain things or have some experiences with sensitivities or social awkwardness but experiences every now and then does not make one Autistic. You might even have conditions that may have similar or common symptoms with Autism but I assure you, everyone is not a little bit Autistic.

You won't have that speculation after you see the film.

She is really passionate about her work.

She does not for a moment suggest that the rate of diagnosis is too high or that many of those diagnose have been misdiagnosed. She says there is a real difference between neurotypical and autistic. She shows autistic people with a range of presentations and abilities and has a very interesting discussion with Simon Baron Cohen about what it means when someone has all the traits but is not negatively affected by them--the diagnosis is withheld because the impact is part of the diagnostic criteria. SBC points out that this interesting because it clouds the water from the perspective of identifying the trait-based population, as the goal is not to identify all those with the traits and how they function but those who need support.

I think she regrets nothing. And by doing a bit of historical diagnosis (she finds Newton to be neurotypical, but an 18th century echolalic Scottsman autistic) she makes the point that while society is only now noticing autistic people, diagnosable cases have probably always been there.

It was a good film.

I also thought it was a good film.

I think it's good to respect the amount of work these guys have put in even if you don't agree with everything they say.

If a programme like this opens a few more minds then it can only be good.

Comments like "everyone is a bit autistic" are just a product of the current world where everything important needs to summed up into a sound bite that is catchy, even if the truth is bent a bit. I also reject this statement but, "most people are a little bit like autistic, but some are more autistic than others" is probably not going to catch on.

Compare the graph shown in the programme (48mins) with a natural distribution to this one which is overlaid on to a spectrum:



Most people are in the center at 555, those with the most autistic traits are in the 750 to 780 range, there are not many of them and, ironically, almost invisible to the human eye. As you come down through 750 to 700 and then 650 the effect of traits reduce and the number of people affected increases. Below 650 and you have reached the eccentric type people that are not diagnosable. People below 400 are the least autistic in their behaviour and there are also very few of them too.

It's important to remember that "spectrum" is also a useful a description of all humans as we are all different.

(The graph shows the human eye response to visible light, so used as an example and is not the results of a scientific study. I hope it's easy to understand but I'll explain my version better if it's not. At the bottom we have autistic traits which range from 380 - Not at all autistic, to, 780 - Severely autistic. The vertical scale represents probability and the white line the number of people in the entire human population with those characteristics.)

How do you know? She didn't say the rate of diagnosis wasn't too high either.

I am curious about the argument that autism diagnosis is too high. What if naturally the population in general has a high percentage of autistic people of vary degrees of autism? What if there is not a high number of mis-diagnosis and the number is accurate? What difference does it make?

Hello Acedia, the last third of the program is devoted to diagnosis of autism, past, present and future. Have a another look from about 40 minutes onwards where she begins to try and explain why there seems to be a surge in the numbers.

I think it's good to remember this programme is made for the "general population" to increase understanding, and here on WP people will have their own versions to compare and a better understanding of the condition. It also must be pretty hard to sum up a life's work in an hour of TV.

Hurtloam, this is what I was trying to put into words above. I think the key again is the word "spectrum" and it shows that everyone is affected to a different degree.

From the program I think that two people could experience the same level of traits, or impairments if you want, but due to other factors in the environment one would be diagnosed and the other would not. These factors could include parenting, financial wealth, also affecting where the person lives, and which health professional did the assessment.

I feel these factors are involved, but there obviously could be many more too.

As long as there isn't a physical test then academics can draw the line wherever they want, on a whim. If you do some research on Frith then you'll find that she would undiagnose most of the people on this board (and prides herself on her numerous undiagnoses). Had a friend once? Undiagnosis for you! She thinks that Rain Man is upper limit of "high functioning."

So, she says what she says because she believes that even most diagnosed cases of ASD are mistakes.

She, Baron-Cohen and the rest diasagree with each other because there is no way to tell which of them is actually correct. They might even disagree for no other reason than academic competitiveness.

And on the other hand, without the work of these people, we might not even be having this conversation.

Right...as you say. "academics can draw the line wherever they want, on a whim..."

I watched this video the other day and have been thinking about it ever since, as it was so elusively off, but difficult to put the finger on exactly how. She seems like a nice person, though I don't know if it came down to it I would respect her, hiding behind her oh so warm and pleasant mask of professionalism--I see her as cut off herself--and it seems she made a special interest out of one aspect---lack of empathy and then honed in from that direction, perhaps selecting certain children to test based on her own bias. Not creative thinking, imo. Her lack of understanding really stood out to me, but.people including many autistic eat that stuff and other stuff about autism like pablum. whatever explanation appeals to their mentality,

Can you give any evidence to support this assertion, links to Uta Firth's research or an interview with her or anything where she says the vast majority of people diagnosed with ASD have been misdiagnosed? Where on earth did you get that idea? In the Horizons peice she interviews a boy with ASD who is in acting classes and seems very sociable. She describes him as "very likable" but says you can tell that he "just doesn't get it".She certainly doesn't seem to think he was misdiagnosed and does not say so. Then she talks to a girl named Sarah with a boyfriend who also had ASD and who masks her symptoms in public and gives no indication that she thinks this girl was misdiagnosed either. The girl is bluntly honest about some things and she said she didn't miss her boyfriend when he was away from her but other than that she seems completely normal.

*She does say that people who hear about autism and think "gee, I have some autistic traits, I might be a little autistic" are probably not autistic. She uses herself as an example and says that although she finds some social interactions baffling and she is very obsessed with her work and occasionally offends people unintentionally , that is where it ends and she is not autistic. She doesn't have a severe impairment in social interaction or restricted interests/repetitive behaviours to an extent that they cause severe impairment.

The video really kind of fascinating and I intend to watch it again, but one thing that bothered me was the experiment about opening the sliding lid on the box where she did the tapping first and then slid the box open and non autistic children mimicked the tapping before they slid the box open but autistic children just directly slid the box open. I though her interpretation was way off the wall. Maybe they were just smarter:-) ...at least in some way.

In a primitive tribal situation where people are struggling to survive and really on the day to day edge of doing so, you might want people like that and the other kind of people who did the tapping first, too. The problem is she is too focused on her specialty and thinking inside that particular box but expecting to get special credence for it because she is a professional. it is kind of almost in the line of a hoax. That irks me as her thinking is so mundane and encourages mundane thinking. She does demonstrate that certain people have different kinds of brains than other people, but so what?