Is autism becoming infantalised?

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I see it exactly the opposite way: in the US, public transport sucks
Not driving in urban Central Europe is not a problem at all.

People who think the ideas are harsh might grow to like them and find it useful once the anxiety has worn off.

Public transport does, indeed, suck, outside of major cities. Even within major cities, it can suck.

I live about 20 miles from the downtown area of NYC. My commute via public transport can be 1.5 hours on a relatively decent day. It's only about a 30-minute drive.

You didn't specifically, and I don't think I said you did, just that your ideology is the same as the ideology which is used as an excuse to remove benefits. Once the idea gets accepted that the disabled aren't disabled, the door is open to ignoring their disabilities.

As you say, a lot of people would voluntarily accept free driving lessons, and I don't see much good coming of applying force to the others. And I wonder how such force would be applied, and who decides what is just a bit of healthy stress and what is unacceptable? It doesn't look like you're saying the individual on the receiving end of this proposed coercion would be the judge, though I can't see who else would be in a position to know.

Compulsory job training - I thought that had always been the purpose of ordinary schools. It's one of the things about schools I have a problem with, so I'm not likely to support further pushing around. I'm more interested in the Steiner and Montessori kind of school ethos where they're gentler, and they don't make a kid do a thing till the kid is ready for it.

Personally, trying to force me to do anything usually does more harm than good. The few people who have tried haven't known me well enough to tailor their "suggestions" to me. For example, I can multi-task if I'm given the freedom not to and the freedom to decide what to multi-task and how to multi-task it. I'm the only one who knows how I tick, and I often find it very difficult to explain to others how that process works. So if somebody tries to multi-task me, telling me that I can spend x minutes on this and then while I'm waiting for x to come to the boil I can spend y minutes on that, etc., then it's not likely to work. I can't explain why it's not going to work, but the most likely work is that the interfering busybody who took the initiative will have just stressed me out for nothing, and resources will have been wasted. To a large extent, I have to do things my own way, setting my own pace and my own targets. And I think it's often like that for Aspies.

As for this free cars issue, my point is that most of them won't be able to afford to buy their own. You've already suggested they should do menial jobs. I suppose you think all they have to do is work hard and one day they'll be millionaires. There might be one in a million or so who somehow gets that far. But for most, they'll be stuck in that poverty trap forever. There just aren't enough places higher up. And to get one, you have to be ruthless and dishonest. Business is no place for the compassionate and sincere.

I've known one or two authoritarian communists who said something rather like that. But that kind of view of "I know best, you'll thank me for it one day" rarely works because usually the one who wants to do the forcing doesn't know what they're doing, doesn't understand the people they're trying to push around.

Not everyone can drive but assume you do the 20 hours of driving lessons and the instructor concludes you can't drive, then it'll be on record that you officially can't in black and white. Perhaps it would be cool to have a policy in place for people who are unable to drive to have free public transport or allow them to jump the queue.

It's an idea that if in place takes the ambiguity out of what people can and can't do and it extends beyond driving. One of the other benefits might be less BS from the benefits office who are notorious in wrongly assuming people lie about their disabilities.

That’s a big expense in terms of both time and money that is probably of little benefit to anyone.

The issue that Job Centre staff have is that they’re under enormous political pressure. The frameworks they work under are very narrow and don’t really capture most disabilities. They have a very idealised idea of the workplace and assume that if you can do basic physical tasks in controlled conditions then you can hold down a job, which is just wrong.

In terms of public transport - there are parts of the country where it is good enough and parts where it isn’t. Most Londoners will find having a car to be of little benefit, probably a net negative due to the lack of parking. Most people in towns could probably go either way. Then if you live in a village you probably need a car unless you’re very lucky.

Our railway system is fantastic, it’s very easy to get all over the country if you know what you’re doing. I can be in York or Manchester within 2 hours for only £20, or Exeter in 3.5 hours for £15. Bus provision on the other hand is a total lottery. Some towns I’ve visited had really patchy service and stock that was many years old. Others had really fantastic stock and regular buses that went exactly where I wanted to go.

In the US, driving is essential and I hate anyone who says "Can't afford driver's insurance, they shouldn't be driving."

How about making it be affordable for everyone? You need to have a car in the US, it is not a luxury. I know people even drive without a license either because they can't afford to get one. We even had a member here who lost her license for a bogus reason (according to her) and she drove without one for over 23 years.

I realize life isn't black and white and not all criminals are true criminals. Sometimes people end up in a bad place. I knew about someone who went to jail for writing bad checks except she didn't write bad checks, her husband did and she didn't know the money was gone because he had a gambling problem. But because her name was on the checks, she got in trouble.

Driving is absolutely essential in the US. The country is just to big to have an efficient public transport system. The length and quantity of railway lines needed for a half decent US wide transport system makes me cringe just thinking about it. I think as much should be done as possible to try and encourage autistic people get behind the wheel.

But compulsory driving lessons or work training proves some might be genuinely disabled definitively.

A lot of menial jobs might suit people with autism. Jobs that are menial are often jobs that you can just switch your mind off and go on autopilot and some are well paid. A job like that really isn't that bad compared to something more intense or demanding.

They'll all be best to have time limits to allow the stress to wear off and see how someone is getting along. 20 hours for driving is long enough to see if someone is making progress and assuming someone is finding every minute of it is horrific, it's still only 20 hours and a decision on perhaps giving that person lifelong eligibility for cut price public transport can be taken.

Autistic symptoms like fear of change and anxiety rarely know best though but we all listen to them more than we should.

I don't think so. In my experience, when I've felt anxious there have usually been real reasons for it. The feeling of anxiety itself can be disproportionate to the actual danger, but although I've often known that at the time I've been experiencing it, that knowledge doesn't take the feeling away. We commonly dislike change because our very brain wiring gives us more difficulty adapting to it than NT's have. It seems to me that you're trying to ignore our disabilities here, and to shoehorn us into square-peg-round-hole situations. What qualifies you to try to make these decisions on our behalf?

Time was when I strongly suspected my wife's daughter was being mollycoddled, but then I saw the state she was plunged into from time to time when some of that protection was removed and she was given that push you advocate so keenly. I didn't want to believe it, but it was quite clear that she wasn't ready for the challenge. She's doing better these days because we backed off before any damage was done, and allowed her to develop at her own rate.

an aspie will be stressed by A LOT of new experience and getting worried about a stressed aspie doing something new might be worrying for no reason. I think a lot of aspies let the worry of impending stress have far to much influence over their decision making and not all of those decisions are the right ones. In fact, I think a lot of them are bad.

That's why I am to a degree a fan of burst testing. Many aspies who will actually make great drivers or might like a job building houses are put off by the fact it's something new and will probably cause them stress in the short term. Left to their own devices those types of people will just miss those opportunities because autism told them to or as is increasingly often the case, they just settled into a "no stressors at all cost" lifestyle because that's what's being advocated for more and more. I always thought of the removal of as many stressors as possible is like making an aspie an alcoholic. Yeah it's stress free and makes life in the short term easy but a nasty hangover will catch up with them sooner or later and later still will be even bigger problems.

I'm not advocating for indefinite burst testing on people. It'll have it's limits when signs of progress should be obvious and after that no more if they're not showing any. Where those limits are isn't really up for me to decide though.