Are Scientists Overstating Symptoms of Asperger's?

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Again... it is all about the excessive self esteem that is heaped upon us by many parents

"If we have the self esteem required to be comfortable with ourselves, then we are not capable of the mindset required to benefit from any possible training, therapy or help."

So we should make sure to lower the self esteem of autistics so they are easier to mold into good little robots who behave as neurotypicals? Sorry just not following the logic in that....in my experiance I find the better my self esteem is the more I benefit from things like therapy, training or whatever because then I can take a bit of constructive criticism and evaluate what I could improve upon without getting all down on myself.

Just my take on it though. I think there is a difference between self esteem and thinking your better than everyone else because you're 'special'....So I kind of feel the article is confusing self esteem with being conceited.

This is the first I've commented on this thread, and I'd say I'm a bit confused. Since the symptoms of ASD are new to me - by this I mean I was "me" for many years before diagnosis. Example: I never thought of being able to focus on particular topics a BAD thing, or being highly intelligent a BAD thing, or enjoying my own company a BAD thing. I'm still in shock that NTs consider these behaviors to be abnormal! My reaction is - What is wrong with these people?

The negatives are bad: overstimulation, high anxiety. Minor social obligations suck the life out of me. But, how many of the negative aspects are a reaction to how we lived as kids? I remember being lost and kind of battered by expectations I couldn't understand. No one around me had a clue that I was scared and not intentionally acting weird.

I think it would be good if the diagnosis stuck to a tighter group of symptoms, and the effects of being ASD in an NT controlled world as a psychological aftermath -

I think that the characteristics of AS that some of us struggle with at least need to be stated.

If you fail to spot nonverbal cues, fail to understand turn-taking in conversation, talk too much, too little or oddly, miss conversational nuance, fail to understand social boundaries and so on, at best this will be interpreted as "odd". At worst it will be seen as creepy. Either way you risk social ostracism, which can lead to depression and/or anxiety sooner rather than later. That is disabling.

If you struggle with the overwhelming sensory experience of human environments, that is disabling.

Is it a disability?

I would argue that, at least in part, these things are disabling because my society is set up in the interests of allistics (particularly mentally and physically healthy, heterosexual, male, Caucasian allistics who come from the "right" social background).

If we are going to be accepted for our differences, the first thing we need to do is make allistics aware of those differences. The problem, inevitably, is that allistics don't have a good record in doing that - they tend to use such things as an excuse for discrimination, and I'm not sure how you navigate around that.

One result of that ostracism and discrimination is that my self esteem is in the sewer.

Perhaps a constructive message is to point out the positives while acknowledging the problems in the hope that they will make allowances for the negatives while allowing us to end the isolation many of us (me included) do suffer.

If we are supposed to always follow the crowd then there is no room for technological advancement because the crowd thinks that if the new invention were any good everyone would be already using it.