Imagining Autism in the future

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Aspergers is no longer a diagnosis. Everything is now Autism Spectrum Disorder level 1,2 or 3. One of the reasons the name Aspergers what removed from diagnostic manual was that Dr Hans Asperger, who did research into boys with neurodivergent symptoms, was found to have been part of the Nazis ethnic cleansing drive. Asperger managed to accommodate himself to the Nazi regime and was rewarded for his affirmations of loyalty with career opportunities. He joined several organizations affiliated with the NSDAP (although not the Nazi party itself), publicly legitimized race hygiene policies including forced sterilizations and, on several occasions, actively cooperated with the child ‘euthanasia’ program. The language he employed to diagnose his patients was often remarkably harsh (even in comparison with assessments written by the staff at Vienna’s notorious Spiegelgrund ‘euthanasia’ institution), belying the notion that he tried to protect the children under his care by embellishing their diagnoses.

From Wired Italy

Every year, February 18th is International Asperger Syndrome Day: in reality, since 2013, this condition is no longer considered a distinct diagnosis from autism and the corresponding picture is part of autism spectrum disorders.

Although an important identity issue still remains, the existence of Asperger syndrome as a diagnostic entity has been rather short, arousing great interest and conflicting opinions both within the scientific community and outside of it. Let's see how his perception has changed over the years and what the current situation is.

As reported by the World Health Organization (WHO), autism spectrum disorders belong to neurodevelopmental disorders and are a heterogeneous group of conditions characterized by a certain degree of difficulty in social interaction and communication, along with other characteristics such as patterns atypical activities and behaviors.


The abilities and needs of autistic people vary and may evolve over time: while some autistic people may live independently and may require a mild level of support, others may require a high level of support, even throughout their lives.

Speaking of numbers, according to the Ministry of Health, in recent years international epidemiological studies have reported a generalized increase in the prevalence of spectrum disorders, probably due, among other factors, to greater training of doctors, increased knowledge by the general population and to changes in diagnostic criteria, including that involving Asperger's syndrome ten years ago.



Brief history of a diagnostic entity


Let's take a step back.

As reported by the Higher Institute of Health, the syndrome takes its name from the Austrian doctor Hans Asperger, who in 1944 described a group of children who showed particular behaviors in social interaction, communication skills and restricted and absorbing interests.

Because Asperger wrote in German, his work did not become known in the English-speaking scientific world until

British psychiatrist Lorna Wing used the name "Asperger syndrome" in an article published in 1981 in the scientific journal Psychological medicine, proposing the term to refer to a group of 34 people between 5 and 35 years old who met the characteristics originally described by the Austrian doctor. While the number of publications on the "new" syndrome grew exponentially - reports a 2015 article published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology which briefly traces its history - the idea quickly took hold within the scientific community that autism and Asperger syndrome were different entities, mainly due to the fact that Asperger people had good cognitive and linguistic abilities, in addition to the fact that for several researchers the so-called impairment of social interaction differed qualitatively between the two conditions.

All this leads, in 1994, to the first (and only) appearance of Asperger's syndrome in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (the manual, drawn up by the American psychiatric association, of reference on psychiatric conditions and disorders), Dsm -IV, as a subcategory of pervasive developmental disorders, distinguishing it from autism due to the absence of intellectual disability and functional impairment of language. As anticipated, the new diagnostic entity does not have a long life: the introduction of Asperger syndrome as a distinct diagnosis, the authors of the 2015 article continue, has been surrounded by controversy from the beginning, showing numerous contradictions in its definition and in its diagnostic criteria.



The new diagnosis
In light of all this, not even twenty years after its introduction in the DSM-IV, the DSM-5 working group dedicated to neurodevelopmental disorders concludes that there is insufficient evidence to support a significant distinction between autism and Asperger syndrome. , sanctioning the disappearance of the latter in the DSM-5. In particular, in the new document, published in 2013, autism spectrum disorders are introduced, which include the diagnostic criteria of autism and concurrent conditions, according to which the diagnosis is autism with (or without) intellectual disability, which in turn may have varying degrees, and/or with (or without) functional language impairment (with varying degrees); Furthermore, the DSM-5 also defines the levels of support that a person may need on the spectrum, from a level 1 (mild support need) to a level 3 (high support need). The WHO has also removed Asperger's syndrome from its International Classification of Diseases and Problems


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I preferred to insert an article on the topic that is not mine.

I have DSM4 and 5th diagnoses.

They are not the same thing and there are continuous reviews from scientific researchers who do not assimilate them.

It is now a subcategory.

In my opinion simplistic: one, two and three.

Are we really that banal?

I think not.

I wrote about it but I don't remember where here.


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Regarding Hans Asperger, who is also probably Autistic, I cannot tell you with clarity and certainty that what they write about him is true.


It was a time of Fascism and Nazism.

In Italy, Germany, people with problems ended up very badly.

We too have adhered to the racial laws.

Here too there have been extermination camps and absolute denialism.

The absurd thing is that many Italian scientists either had Asperger's or had relatives of Jewish origins, including Enrico Fermi who immediately emigrated to the USA.

Majorana was possibly a Nazi sympathizer and had Asperger's.

Simon Wiesenthal had it in his archive 1950 with A.Eichmann.

I have feedback for everything I write, including studies. and photographs.



In nine points of the face and ears it corresponds exactly to the scientist ...Asperger.

I don't know what Hans Asperger was about that.

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We will review everything because scientific studies do not converge much on that DSM5.

The publications are much later from 2014 onwards.

From Asperger's perhaps a mixed condition, I am writing to you that they are subtly different things.

And they cannot be trivialized as they do.

ICD 11 has aligned with DSM5.

What to say...

We used the ICD until 1980 then we implemented 5 DSM manuals in 1980 onwards (there are also two appendices) and two subsequent DSMs.

The DSM5 is trivializing and simplistic and cannot be valid, you will see that that definition will disappear and not Asperger's.

Now it is true that we are penalized, just as by not recognizing ourselves, treatments are also denied,

Serious as it is.

science is finally recognizing that autism can not be trained out of us, that it is neurological in nature and not behavioral. I hope that soon DSM guidelines will be updated to stop the nonsense about "autistic people don't look you in the eye" and the things about social struggles, communication struggles, and repetitive behavior will be replaced with looking for inconsistent performance in neurological/psychological testing, with some performance features being brilliant and other results being dismal (sign of uneven neurological development that can be measured). Diagnosing professionals will be looking for struggles with our neurology, such as hyper or hypo sensitivity to sensory stimulus, problems with gait and perception of sound, visual processing, and other neurological based struggles. Instead of trying to lump us all together and find features besides uneven neurological development, we will be able to understand our own neurology, work to find ways to function better, and stop being blamed for things we don't understand or have control over due to our individual neurological strengths and weaknesses. "autistic people do this" "autistic people do that" as a way of diagnosis or description will be replaced with something closer to the actual nature of autism rather than behaviors that stem from our neurological differences.

I second that! Well said!

Yes.
True, it is neurological in nature on a largely genetic basis.

There are also very recent studies on the subject.

Essentially: we are different from neurotypicals.


Structurally.

I will not go into differentiations that I know quite well and precisely information about.


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The point is also that it is behavioral, in the sense that if we don't have any help and diagnosis from an early age, it definitely becomes behavioral.


We are human and sensitive beings as well as, as you can see from the answers, also very intelligent (Over media NT)
.

Could it be different than that?

Find me just one autistic person who doesn't have behavioral problems of any kind and I will point him out as a unique case in scientific research to researchers who publish their research.

Here we are.

And it's normal that we have them.

It means that mentally we are generally healthy, sensitive people, and structurally our brain undergoes specific modifications, just think of the amygdala sector which has increased by 20% compared to the average NT sector.

To the fact that being subjected to social oppression it is impossible not to derive behavioral disorders from it.

Many people with autism are socially phobic, have panic attacks, have comorbidities with other problems completely different from autism that accompany them, and are depressed. they have significant sensory disturbances, the list of behavioral problems is enormous.

some conditions go hand in hand.

They can exist even without autism.

And others like ADHD are overestimated in diagnosed individuals.

*In some cases they are really heavy and really affect behavior.

I'll just give you an example.

A Swedish boy with ADHD could never sit still.

He couldn't attend school.

He went with his FarFar (grandfather in Swedish) around the woods every night.
In the morning, not having slept, he had to go to school.

Then there were the social activities, and then he came home.

His mind was like a volcano in constant eruption.

He had a destruction room.

His parents had dedicated an entire room to him in which there were objects to destroy with his baseball bat.

Every day the father rearranged for the next day and so on.

But these are just some of the behavioral problems that are denied.

They are definitely there.

So much so that the mother had consulted a medical specialist who prescribed Ritalin.

She asked for my opinion and that of my medical contact.

We both wrote her the same thing in response.

We didn't judge her and we didn't write to her not to let her take it, but that in that case it was sensible.

For 8 hours the boy could attend school.

For 8 hours he succeeded in what his behavior did not allow him to do.

Then after the effect passed.

He went back to being as usual.

Therefore unmanageable.


Although the little boy I was able to talk to personally was extraordinary and very good. besides that he possessed a very high IQ.

There are behavioral problems, of course.

Even those related to social isolation: I was Hikikomori for a long time.

I had an OCD that I managed to get out of, I still don't look people in the eye easily.

I don't do things like others do, I'm depressed, I have anxiety, I'm alexithymic, I have ADHD which persists even as an adult, I write and speak at a very rapid speed, I don't communicate socially as I would like...

I would say that I do not agree with this denial.

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Having been included in a US and Italian research, I can say that I carried out every possible test up to 2018 (then I don't know if they were diversified)

Test batteries with thousands of questions.

And continuous visits to also outline the specific diagnosis.

According to them, I fall into two diagnoses. That of the DSM 4th and that of the DSM 5th.



My case was perhaps interesting for them and there were so many tests, in addition to other specific tests that have already existed for many years, including Eye Tracking.

It was precisely this that struck the researcher in charge of the research.

My way of looking.

He had patented his Eye Tracking system and studied in detail how a person with autism looks.

He then told me that I had immediately hit him for that.

Then the answers I gave.

He only told me this at the end of the preliminary visit.

Which lasted 2 hours.

He also publishes in Nature and other international journals.

He collaborates closely with US researchers.

And with his colleagues he publishes continuously.

Only one Italian-American doctor had 120 scientific publications on autism at the time.

All his colleagues had many.

*I highly doubt that it will be possible to outline the neurology of a person with autism also because this varies over the years of his existence.

The post just above is very nice but here I don't really agree.

Sorry, I wrote quickly and I don't know if it's understandable.

I underline that the answer is calm, the answer didn't bother me, I write it because it can appear differently in an answer.

It's not even a post against .

Only, well, I don't agree with some parts of it.

Because I know that unfortunately it does not correspond to the reality of the facts.

*I really wish you were right.

In any case, both good faith and enthusiasm can be perceived in some of your answers.

Sorry but I come from hell as well as from the realm of the almost dead, I don't have a simple life.

I think about many things all the time.

And I have meditated on the ones I wrote for years.

Well, that was a very long post you wrote there! I have some trouble to understand what point you are trying to make. Of course being different neurological from neurotypicals will lead to a different behaviour. But I wouldn't say it makes the different behaviour a part of autism, but instead a frequent consequence. Blind people often use a white cane. But that doesn't mean blindness is also behavioural.

It will have a different name(s) because.

Language evolves and the label autism will be seen as dated like ret*d, mongoloid, and manic-depression is today.

Science will prove the entire premise behind the label is wrong, like the idea earth is flat.

Now brought together HFA and Aspergers will be broken asunder again because they will be recognized as being like...gophers and rock hyraxes...or like VW bugs, and French Citreons. Outwardly similar at first glance but very different under the hood, and under the chassis.

Aspergers will be revived as a seperate diagnosis.

But will be called "Sakarova Syndrome" after the Russian lady doctor who published about it even before either Kanner or Asperger did, back in the USSR in the 1920s.

Partially to give her credit, partially because Dr. A (rightly or wrongly) is tainted by supposed Nazi connections, and partially because it just friggin sounds better.

Why saddle folks who are already branded as dorks and nerds with a clunky label like ass-burgers? When you can give them something streamlined that just leaps off the tongue like a jet fighter?

Sorry for the long post.

The meaning is that an autistic person cannot fail to have behavioral problems.

We live in a society where we have to adapt.

To do this, our brain changes into different structures.

Let's just include the amygdalic ones which in neuroimaging are increased by 20% compared to non-autistics.

It is impossible that there are no behavioral consequences, only the structure described generates very strong anxiety, stress, phobias, panic, and other problems.


I'm writing to you in summary that it's not the same as how others have them, but that we wouldn't have them at all.

The control structures have grown in volume, and we do not control them.

It does not happen in non-autistic individuals.

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Give the example of a blind man.
But we don't have theory of mind: we are like socially blind people.

In the logical, mathematical and other tests I had no problems in diagnosis, but I was unable to answer questions on the T.o.M. at all.

A Neurotypical 6 year old would have done it.
I have an IQ over 150.

Socially I am very poor at it.

Autism affects my social behavior enormously, not even relatively.

I mean that we are different neurologically, we have a non-social IQ, even high, but a very clear impact on behavior, it is not low or non-existent at all.

It affected my life.

I am alexithymic, ADHD, I have sensory problems, I have been Hikikomori, I have very strong anxiety, I am dysgraphic...

It really has an impact.

I mean this.

Excuse my English because I express myself badly, it's not my language.

The response post is very calm, I don't know if it comes off that way.

I write this because it is important for me to dialogue.


Give the example of a blind man: I know a blind man.

He moves in a world he doesn't understand.

The stick helps him to find his feet, the senses help him to understand it.

But he doesn't see it.

He has no others sensory disturbances.

But not being able to see affects his social life in an absolute way.

He is proud of what he has achieved.

But he can't do a lot of things on his own.

Once he was attacked by a dog, it bit him.

He was bleeding to death.

In his reality that dog did not exist.

He was still, and silent, he involuntarily invaded his territory.

Now he is terrified of doing what he did before.

It has also affected him in the behavioral phase, he is no longer able to do anything as before even though he is blind and was able to do it before.

And it was a double event in his case.

Double events also exist within us.

We are born autistic, then our brain has to adapt, if it finds hostile conditions, and it always finds them, its behavior is definitely affected.

It changes structurally in different brain areas.

Last edited by Huckleberry Finn on 15 Oct 2023, 6:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The word autism, derived from the Greek autòs, meaning oneself, was used for the first time in psychiatry by Eugen Bleuler to describe one of the symptoms of schizophrenia, consisting of the withdrawal into oneself characteristic of some phases of the condition.

«Autistic thinking» conceived by Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939) as the characteristic component of the psychic dimension in which an individual is dominated by his inner life and actively detaches himself from the external world – was at the center of numerous early twentieth-century research in psychiatry , developmental psychology and ethnology. This essay, read by Bleuler at the III international congress of psychoanalysis in Weimar in 1911 and then published in a more extensive form in 1912, is one of the most important and widespread writings of the Swiss psychiatrist, together with Dementia praecox or group of schizophrenias (1911) and Treatise on psychiatry (1916).

Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939), director of the Zurich Psychiatric Hospital from 1898 to 1927, was one of the most original innovators of psychiatry of the early twentieth century. Many illustrious psychiatrists and psychoanalysts trained at his school, including Karl Abraham, Ludwig Binswanger, Carl G. Jung and H. Rorschach. In 1911 he published the book Dementia praecox or group of schizophrenias and in 1916 the Treatise on Psychiatry, revised and reprinted several times, two works considered among the classics of psychiatric and psychopathological thought.


Then 1916, I should look for the bibliographical references.

Although an examination of international publications from the last century revealed that it was a Russian neurologist, Ewa Sucharewa, who wrote the first account of the ability profile that we now call Asperger's Syndrome in 1926, the name was given as a tribute to the detailed and insightful observations of Hans Asperger, an Austrian pediatrician (Vienna, 18 February 1906 – Vienna, 21 October 1980), who also recognized that the profile is part of what we now call the spectrum of autistic disorders, rather than schizophrenia (Asperger , 1952)..

In a 1977 conference Hans Asperger reported how the clinical and theoretical knowledge of the 1930s was unable to explain the particular characteristics of a small group of children he observed and how there were no existing descriptions or diagnoses that could describe their characteristics: these children showed peculiarities in their personality and problems in interacting with others.

Asperger wrote the first detailed descriptions in the early 1940s, later translated into English by Utah Frith in 1981.

Asperger described impairments in verbal and nonverbal communication, with specific characteristics in the pragmatic aspects of language ( in the social use of language), particularly in conversational skills: unusual prosody in speech, pedantic language.

He noted an immaturity in empathy and a difficulty in managing emotions and also a tendency to rationalize feelings, limited social understanding, a preoccupation with a specific interest or topic that dominated these children's thoughts and a need for more assistance in some autonomy tasks, as well as an extreme sensitivity of some children to particular sounds or tastes and clumsiness in gait and motor coordination.

All this cannot be explained considering the intellectual abilities of these children.

Lorna Wing, a famous English psychiatrist, in one of her articles, published in 1981, described 34 cases, aged between 5 and 35, who presented profiles similar to those described by Hans Asperger, and used for the first time the eponym “Asperger Syndrome” to designate a new diagnostic category within autism spectrum disorders.



In 1988 the first small international conference on Asperger's Syndrome was held in London and the exploration and study of this new area of autism spectrum disorders began.


Only when in 1993 the WHO published the ICD-10 (the tenth edition of the International Classification of Diseases), and the American Psychiatric Association in 1994 the DSM IV (the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) for the first time two diagnostic systems included Asperger's Syndrome, or more precisely Asperger's Disorder, in the set of Pervasive Developmental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1994; World Health Organization, 1993).

With the DSM-5, published in 2013, and the ICD-11, presented in May 2019 and entered into force on 1 January 2022, we have moved from a categorical approach to a dimensional vision of the autism spectrum, stating that disorders of the autism spectrum are positioned along a "spectrum", which goes from severe impairment in the key characteristics of autism and continues along a dimensional continuum that leads to very mild forms at the opposite end.


Asperger's syndrome is at the mild end of the spectrum. Asperger people on the spectrum are people who have no impairments in cognitive and linguistic abilities (despite obviously having impairments and peculiarities in the social use of language), indeed they are often above average.


The dimensional approach therefore tells us that there are different forms of autism, therefore different Autisms, and also opens up a vision of continuity of characteristics between the general population and the autistic population. This means that “autistic traits” are distributed evenly in all people, even if they are not autistic.

With the current diagnostic reference systems it will no longer be possible to formalize a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome, even if the term Asperger maintains and has validity and will continue to be used, having an identity meaning for these people: it identifies a way of being, a “culture” of belonging.

With current diagnostic systems the diagnosis, if all the necessary criteria are met, is for those who would once have been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome:

Autism spectrum disorder, in the absence of associated intellectual impairment and in the absence of associated linguistic impairment.


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and in the absence of associated language impairment, (usually) level 1 in both domains

Aspergers syndrome is a neurobiological condition, an expression of a neurodiversity, wich determines behavioral cognitive, affective and sensory paricularyity. It's not a pathology .


Clare Sainsbury, an adult with Asperger's, states: “Problems emerge not so much from Asperger's syndrome itself, but rather from a social environment that is not designed for people with Asperger's syndrome, but for people who have perceptions of the world and a style of thinking very different from ours".


(Clare Sainsbury, “An Alien in the Backyard”)

Asperger people have difficulty understanding and moving naturally in social contexts: difficulties in understanding social situations, in developing, maintaining and understanding relationships, they have difficulties in the skills of non-verbal communicative behaviors (gestures, facial expressions, posture etc... .), difficulties in emotional reciprocity. They have restricted behaviors and/or interests and/or activities, emotional vulnerability and difficulty managing emotions, neurosensory peculiarities, i.e. the senses respond differently to stimuli.

The clinical expressivity, i.e. the manifestations of this neurodiversity, can be multiple and different depending on the subject and her temperament. There is no Asperger's (or autistic) person who is the same as another.

Asperger's syndrome goes unnoticed for some time, even after the child has entered primary school and the increased demands highlight his difficulties in terms of relational skills, socialization and communication. Unfortunately, very often these difficulties are more nuanced and/or receive a different and erroneous interpretation and the diagnosis arrives later, even in adolescence, or even in adulthood. The clinical expressiveness, i.e.


the manifestations of this syndrome, can be multiple and different depending on the subject and her temperament. Contrary to what happens in autism, children with Asperger's functioning do not show delays in language development and the difficulties in social interactions are also less accentuated.



They often have linguistic and cognitive skills above average, and in any case within the norm.

Not infrequently, Asperger children and young people, in the eyes of an inexperienced observer or even a close relative, appear absolutely "normal", only with a slightly different personality from that of their peers, more shy or simply with different interests.


In the vast majority of cases, children, teenagers and young adults with this functioning want to have relationships and friendships with their peers, they have a strong desire for sociability, they are very sociable, but not very social, in the sense that they often do not know how to start relationships and then maintaining them or they show bizarre ways in their initiative.




Relationships are so unstable that they tend to end early.

They show less interest in what their peers like, less willingness to play games or activities that they don't choose, they may show reduced empathy towards others and some of them may be perceived as a bit particular or strange and for this reason they may come often isolated.


They struggle to always give a complete and/or correct reading of the social situations in which they find themselves, both as actors and as observers, to understand the unwritten rules of living in a social context (the so-called "hidden curriculum") and therefore can demonstrate socially incorrect, dysfunctional or inadequate behaviors.


On the communicative side, they struggle in social conversation, they tend to talk about topics of interest to them (in which they also achieve considerable notional competence), they have difficulty in dialogic rules, in conversational reciprocity, they struggle to read the interlocutor's non-verbal messages and to modulate their communicative behavior accordingly; they struggle to understand linguistic pragmatics (they tend to take things literally).


They struggle to take on other people's perspectives, they tend to have rigid, "black/white", rational thinking, they tend to be pessimistic, critical, hypersensitive to judgments and criticism.


They have difficulty controlling their emotions, especially when they are negative but not only that, they have an emotional vulnerability which sometimes leads them to exhibit explosive behavior following frustrations.

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They have special interests that can also be very particular and strange for their age (even if in recent years the interest so frequently present in children and teenagers for video games does not differentiate them from their peers), and these interests are not simply a hobby or a pastime, but they are very intense and can become almost an obsession and therefore become very competent. They may have neurosensory peculiarities - sensitivity to specific sounds, flavors and textures or tactile sensitivity - (hyper-, hypo-sensitivity; anomalous responses to sensory stimuli, etc.).

Theo Peeters, Belgian neurolinguist, one of the leading experts in autism spectrum disorders, stated: "...we must absolutely take into consideration the fact that intelligence tells us nothing about the social abilities of Aspies. This does not mean that they are "non-social" or "asocial" people, indeed there is often a strong desire to come into contact with others. But they are affected by a sort of "social blindness", that is, by a limited ability to grasp "social meanings".

Asperger females are less “visible” because they possess a range of camouflage behaviors. Females are more often encouraged to behave well and more socially sensitive, have a greater awareness of the importance of social rules and conformity to them. To do this, they realize very early on that they need to learn to imitate expected behaviors, they learn to play a role, they demonstrate appropriate social behaviors in a way that is not natural and spontaneous, but learned and thought out each time at the cost of a strong expenditure of energy and stress. . However, this does not also mean that they are able to build adequate social relationships or that they are not considered "different" from others.

As Dr Francesca Happé, director of the MRC Center at King's College London, says: “Without their self-reports telling you how stressful it is to keep up appearances, you wouldn't really understand... surface behavior isn't very useful for a diagnosis, at least for a certain set of women".

In some people, difficulties can become more pronounced in adulthood when the need for autonomy increases and when social skills are fundamental for personal, academic and professional fulfillment.

At the same time, several longitudinal and cross-sectional studies suggest a trend towards a general reduction in symptoms in adolescence and adulthood.


Many adults have gone through childhood and adolescence without receiving a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome and now we are increasingly faced with this diagnostic question to answer.



It should be underlined that many people who superficially present nuanced characteristics continue to go undiagnosed, especially if the assessment is based exclusively or predominantly on what is observed in the one-to-one relationship.


It is believed that approximately 50% of Aspergers are currently recognized and diagnosed.

It is important to recognize Asperger's functioning not only in childhood and adolescence, but also in adulthood.


First of all for the recognition of the difficulties that the Asperger person may have in managing some experiences of daily life (and which even other people, without Asperger, do not find problematic but even pleasant), the recognition of the feeling of confusion and exhaustion in social situations, for a positive change in the expectation of other people (encouragement rather than criticism regarding his social skills), above all the person will no longer feel stupid, crazy, sick or defective and will be able to access a greater understanding of himself, to better decision-making ability in choosing work, friendships and interpersonal relationships and to pleading one's case (self-advocacy) with the possibility of accessing support for continuing studies or employment.

As regards the prevalence data on the autistic population in general, according to data collected by the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (ADDM) of the CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention USA, of a survey carried out in 2014 on the prevalence of autism among 8-year-old children in the United States, 1 child in 59 (1.68%, therefore 16.8 children in a thousand) has a diagnosis of the Autism Spectrum. 1 in 44 children in a CDC survey performed in 2018 (Original article: Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Children Aged 8 Years — Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, 11 Sites, United States, 2018)


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A study conducted in 2016 in several European states by Autisme Europe on 631,619 children between 7 and 9 years old determined an average estimated prevalence of 12.2 per 1000 (one in 89). the value of the various countries varies between 4.4 and 19.7 per 1000.

In Italy, according to data from the National Observatory for the monitoring of autism spectrum disorders, the prevalence is approximately one child in 77 (age 7-9 years), therefore more than one person in 100, with a higher prevalence in males : males are 4.4 times more than females.

Regarding Asperger's functioning, in 2015 it was estimated that Asperger's affected 37.2 million people worldwide = 0.5% of the population. Currently it is estimated at 1%. The exact percentage is not known.

The increase in prevalence may be due to several factors:

increased awareness of autism in the medical community, parents and public opinion
change in diagnostic criteria (broader diagnostic criteria)
increase in screening at an early age and in diagnostic capacity by specialists
better access to services and early diagnoses
a real increase is also likely, perhaps due to gene-environment interactions


Among children who meet criteria for an autism spectrum disorder, the true male-to-female ratio is not 4:1, as is often thought; rather, it is closer to 1:1(Attwood). There appears to be a diagnostic gender bias, which means that females on the milder end of the spectrum "mask", disguise themselves, have a remarkable ability to learn a sufficient number of rules to disguise their characteristics, are much more difficult to identify and therefore do not receive a diagnosis.

Huckleberry Finn, thank you for your reply. I will ponder over it.

Sorry because I write too many things.


The posts are immense, I have to write very briefly.

Sorry for the poor readability.

The next posts will be very short.

As if there's ever going to *be* a future.

(1) From my biased position, what I am reading is people with Asperger's Syndrome characteristics are different than NTs and those differences have been declared to be defects. Personally, I don't think my differences are defects...I fault current social norms for persecuting my differences even though they don't harm anyone.

(2) But this topic is "Imagining Autism in the future". What about those elsewhere on the Autism Spectrum?

You have a very mild affiliation but you fall within the autism spectrum, I can also perceive it from how you answered me.
Your diagnosis is cognitive.
My indispensable: Imagine many very intense symptoms. And withdrawing from life.

Even if it didn't allow me adaptive therapies.

Many diagnoses from those over 50, if not with serious impairments, are denoted as "serene"
.

You always write in such a beautiful and positive way.

Except that autism is now trivialized.

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In my case Duoble Retired is problematic.

Very.

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In fact, various conditions exist.

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In any case I don't see "a future in autism", it's genetic, it will be genetically canceled, and that's it.

Even in Italy, I stopped writing complex and detailed answers.

They don't reach the goal and no one reads them.

I will do the same here too