Criticism of Broad Autism Phenotype.

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I have some criticism of Broad Autism Phenotype.

Broad Autism Phenotype seems to blur the lines between a neurotypical that has persistent autistic traits and a person with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Tha argument can be made is if s person has a diagnosis or not.

There are also some people that have Unspecified Neurodevelopmental Disorder that have symptoms similar to Autism Spectrum Disorder, but they may not meet full diagnostic criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder.

It's just so confusing.

I pretty much ignore the "professional" descriptions of types and labels. I have not heard of any definitive reason for what is called Aspergers which I consider a simple neurological variant and not some as yet undiscovered pathology. While classical autism has definitive and observable brain damage or malformation, sweeping every thing undefinable into the same category to me simply declares the desire to maintain an authority and a show of expertise that is unjustified.

It's inherently confusing because it's not like you get people that are slightly outside of the diagnosable range and are suddenly good to go without any sort of supports.

I do think that the broad autism phenotype is significantly less than ideal, but I'm not really sure what the proper solution to it is in a world where people are absolutely obsessed with purity standards for autism and can't be bothered to create proper diagnoses for folks that share a bunch of traits with autism, just not enough to be diagnosable even with a thorough evaluation and mountains of documentation. Just being slightly outside of the diagnosable range does not necessarily imply that somebody can't be severely impacted by their traits, it just means they fall somewhat outside of the diagnosable range and are somewhat outside of the diagnosable range as a result.

It may not be a popular opinion, but I kind of wish we'd go back to autism being a more specific portion of the population with developmental disorders. When they eliminated PDD-NOS and AS they opened up a significant gap that Social Pragmatic Communication Disorder doesn't completely fill and when Schizoid Personality Disorder goes away, the gap is going to get even larger.

That actually makes sense.

It is confusing but it is a very important distinction. The distinction comes with the level of impairment. We get a diagnosis of Autism because we are significantly impaired by our traits. One of the problems with Autism is that most of the things we experience that impair us are extreme versions of things that everyone experiences. What makes us Autistic is the severity and frequency that we experience these things and the fact that they actually really do impair us of a very frequent and regular basis.

There are people who experience some of the Autistic traits on a a level that is more than what is normal for neurotypical population but they either don't have enough of these issues to qualify for the Autism diagnostic requirements or they are simply not severe enough to cause the level of impairment that the Autism diagnosis requires. . But BAP is a real thing and it is often used to understand more about how Autism can be inherited genetically. Many parents of Autistic people find that they are not Autistic but that they are BAP. This is actually important information in this kind of research. It is also important because people with BAP can sometimes get accommodations that they need.

Now that makes sense.