There’s a common misconception that Autism itself is a disability. While this is unequivocally false, it’s understandable where the idea came from.
Most people have watched a meltdown some well-intentioned parent posted on social media. Many autistic children are non-verbal or only semi-verbal. And the archaic concept of “mental age” is still used to judge an autistic person’s mental competency.
Autism Is Sort Of A Disability
Autism does present some disabling facets and several learning and neurological disabilities co-occur along with the disorder. However, we first need to unpack why common manifestations of Autism (such as the examples listed above) are not signs of learning disabilities.
Meltdowns
Ah, the vaunted Autistic Meltdown™! The bane of every autism parent’s existence. Recordings of meltdowns (almost never obtained with the autistic person’s consent) are often used by parents as video evidence of how broken their child is and how hard their lives are.
Parents will point to the footage and yell, “See, see! This poor child is disabled!” But might I pose a question?
Have you ever broken down and cried? Maybe a loved one died? Maybe, the bills piled up and it overwhelmed you? Or maybe, you pulled several all-nighters in a vain attempt to conquer a vicious workload in college. I’m willing to bet you have.
Now, picture at that valuable moment, someone shoved a camera in your face and screamed, “See, see! This poor adult is disabled!” Then, posted it on social media without your consent. How would you feel?
Meltdowns are not our default. They only occur at our worst, most overwhelmed and most exhausted moments. Just as it would be unfair for your functioning level to be judged by your low point, it’s unfair to judge ours by our meltdowns.
Verbal Communication
Because speech has been the default method of human communication for about 10,000 years, it’s no surprise that a lack of speech is considered disabling.
But a person’s cognitive ability isn’t defined by an inability to communicate in a preferred method. If you moved to a foreign country and couldn’t speak the language would that make you learning disabled?
Once offered alternative forms of communications, such as AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) devices or sign language, many autistic children demonstrate an at-grade or near communication ability.
Mental Age
I’m sure you’ve heard it before, “Little Johnny with Autism is 7 years old, but only has a mental age of 2.” Mental Age is a short hand for an autistic person’s level of speech, academic proficiency, and Executive Functioning relative to their age.
As we’ve already discussed, a lack of speech isn’t an indicator of disability.
Academic proficiency is difficult to register for a number of reasons including, the quality of school, how good the child is at standardized tests, and how the child feels on the day of testing.
Metal Age also fails as a measurement, due to differences in societal expectations and a lack of consideration of socio-economics. For example, it’s common for children from low income households to struggle with reading well into their third and fourth years of school.
Co-Occurring Disabilities
For some reason that no one has yet to figure out, Autism likes to roll with an entourage. Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Hyperacusis, and Down Syndrome are just a few of a long list of legitimate learning disabilities that co-occur with Autism.
The majority of struggles autistic people face are due to co-occurring disabilities. Most of the rest is due to environmental factors.
The Medical VS. Social Model Of Disability
This debate has raged for decades across the medical, psychological, sociological, and disabled communities and is something this article will not be going in-depth with.
Here’s what you need to know:
- The Medical Model Of Disability is the default. It assumes someone is disabled because of some hindrance on their ability to function disabled in a way their society defines as “normal.”
- The Social Model Of Disability assumes that a person is disabled by their environment. (For example, a wheelchair is only disabled by a lack of ramps and elevators).
Autistic people often have sensory sensitivities and alternate ways of information processing. When our needs are not met, it can appear that we are learning disabled. Our struggle to adapt to a world not built for us leads to increased frequencies of meltdowns and burnout.
💡 Curious if you or someone you care about might be on the autism spectrum? Take our quick autism test for adults today and begin your journey toward understanding and support.
I am Ash and I celebrate Neurodiversity! Growing up with an elder brother with severe Autism was tough – but it has also taught me essential life lessons. I don’t believe that people with Autism are necessarily or have any disorder (except in extreme cases). They are just different! And that is something to be proud of! I am passionate about helping other families who may have Autism conditions in their family. So please reach out and drop me a note. I will be glad to help 🙂
This was not helpful. As the grandmother who raised and still lives with a violent autistic man sometimes I fear for my life. He has broken all the wallboard in the house as well as all chairs and most items. You look at it from the outside and don’t live with it everyday.
You also observe it from the outside, just a much closer outside than most of the population, you don’t have experience actually being autistic
The writer of this article is clearly autistic and there for DOES live with autism every day! If your grandson is violently hitting out at walls and breaking furniture then it’s because he’s trying to tell you and maybe other people around him that someone or something in his environment or life is negatively affecting his brain. If you and/or they ignor this and don’t listen to and try to understand him then he will continue to behave violently until you do. Has he ever hit you or any other person? If not, then thar’s most likely because he knows that violence towards people is wrong and doesn’t want to hurt anyone. However, he does want to listened to and understood and if that’s not happening then he’ll hit out at things until he is. He’s trying to tell you something and if you care about him you need to listen and try to figure out what that is. I say this as an autistic man myself and who’s exhibited similar behavior as your grandson. However, I’m never violent towards other people and I actually hate violence. However, because your grandson and I live in a world that isn’t built and mostly doesn’t cater for our needs we sometimes feel overwhelmed and unable to cope. Therefore, we let out this pent up energy on things or objects. However, if people listen to, respect, and help us then tbis enables us to calm down, feel more at peace, and be happier. I hope this helps
As an autistic person myself, this article is insulting… Autism is a disability, it’s not a misconception. The majority of struggles autistic people face ARE due to their autism. I don’t know if you’re autistic or not, but either way, you’re spreading misinformation. By saying autism isn’t a disability it’s like you’re allowing us to not have our needs met. Autism IS a disability and that’s OK, there’s nothing wrong with being disabled.
Also, I’m gonna add some things that I didn’t cover in my first comment. Of course, you CAN be autistic and still identify as non-disabled (not sure why), everyone on the spectrum is different and experiences autism very differently. On that note, you also can’t just shove your beliefs towards people and say “I’m right so listen to me”, because again, everyone experiences autism differently. For me, I have higher support needs than most autistic people. And my high support needs are because of my autism, so that means autism is a disability in my case. However, if someone on the spectrum doesn’t need that much support, then it’s ok if they identify themselves as able-bodied. But either way, autism is still a disability, since it’s literally in the DM-5 and is also a diagnosis.
ALSO ALSO, you saying that the lack of speech isn’t a disability is actually stupid-
It’s like saying someone with a prosthetic limb isn’t disabled, even though they are most certainly disabled. This article is laughable at this point. I’m probably gonna add more comments to this horrid piece of text, because this is just…. pain….
Also, for my second reply on it, I meant to say DSM-5, not DM-5, a small typo i was urging to fix.
Isabelle,
As someone who was diagnosed with Autism at a young age (2-3 years) accompanied with communicative speech delays, I was later diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome (now Level 1 Autism) as my speech/vocabulary continued to improve during young childhood. However, that was the past, and even though I am considered “Autistic”, I’ve found that being more outgoing/social has drastically helped my communicative skills, although many non-verbal cues (such as most hand gestures) lack sense to me. Since I have a job where I talk to customers on a continual, frequent basis, my ability to observe their dialogues and actions helps me fit in as someone with at least average communicative skills.
I think it’s actually insulting to label high-functioning Autism/Asperger’s Syndrome as a disability, whereas it’s obvious that classic non-verbal Autism is a developmental disability due to severe deficits with motor skills. Instead, I believe that “disorder” is a more appropriate term for all levels of Autism, including my Asperger’s/High Functioning diagnosis. What I find rather unfortunate is that most mainstream media articles (including people in general) declare high-functioning level as a disability, like it’s an official term. In addition, being called “disabled” as a reference to Autism seems discriminatory to me, making it seem like non-disabled people are more “powerful”, much like how ableism works to insult the disabled.
Everyone can have their needs met with assistance, not just those with an Autism diagnosis like you and I. Also, I wasn’t too bothered by Kearns’ interesting article; I found some of the information fascinating.
Instead, we should be called “neurodivergent” rather than “disabled”.
I do get what you’re saying and I actually agree with a lot of it. Now that like, a few months have passed and I’m surprisingly a lot more mature now, I wanted to re-read the article and… surprise, surprise, I still hated it. I also read my comments on this article and I still agree with most of what I said. I think I was probably a bit too harsh and maybe a little bit condescending, but other than that my opinion is mostly the same.
I don’t think this article had bad intentions and I do believe the person who made it IS autistic, however, it does feel like they’re saying that ALL autistic people should consider themselves as abled, which is false. Yes, you can have autism and still identify as non-disabled if you don’t really need any support for it, but a lot of autistic people need support for their disability. Which is perfectly fine since autism is a spectrum, no one on it is exactly the same and have different struggles.
All in all, autism in general IS a disability, there’s no denying that, though you can see yourself as non-disabled if your autism doesn’t really affect you all that much. Also, with the last thing you said, that does vary from person to person. I see myself as neurodivergent AND disabled, though someone else with autism could just see themselves as neurodivergent, and that’s alright because as I said before, autism is a spectrum.
Anyhort-hort, thank you for your comment! I was kinda curious if someone replied to my tangent after several months of not touching this website.
I do get what you’re saying and I actually agree with a lot of it. Now that like, a few months have passed and I’m surprisingly a lot more mature now, I wanted to re-read the article and… surprise, surprise, I still hated it. I also read my comments on this article and I still agree with most of what I said. I think I was probably a bit too harsh and maybe a little bit condescending, but other than that my opinion is mostly the same.
I don’t think this article had bad intentions and I do believe the person who made it IS autistic, however, it does feel like they’re saying that ALL autistic people should consider themselves as abled, which is false. Yes, you can have autism and still identify as non-disabled if you don’t really need any support for it, but a lot of autistic people need support for their disability. Which is perfectly fine since autism is a spectrum, no one on it is exactly the same and have different struggles.
All in all, autism in general IS a disability, there’s no denying that, though you can see yourself as non-disabled if your autism doesn’t really affect you all that much. Also, with the last thing you said, that does vary from person to person. I see myself as neurodivergent AND disabled, though someone else with autism could just see themselves as neurodivergent, and that’s alright because as I said before, autism is a spectrum.
Anyhort-hort, thank you for your comment! I was kinda curious if someone replied to my tangent after several months of not touching this website. Also, I just realized but you commented on my birthday!
I commented twice, I want to throw a table
I agree with this! I would take this a step further as well and say that the medical establishment is grossly misleading people by using the term “spectrum” and lumping together “classic autism” and “high-functioning autism” (or Aspergers as I prefer it to call it, since it differentiates the two). If you have experience of both you know that they are actually vastly different. Aspergers is a “difference” ( i.e. a variation of “normal” since there isn’t one type of normal.After all, as Temple Grandin pointed out, not everyone wants to sit around the campfire drinking beer and talking about sports), whereas Classic Autism is correctly termed a disability (sorry Ash! Feel free to disagree), since those with it require a great amount of support.
To claim that autism isn’t a disability is foolish, especially since you have it yourself. All autism is disabling, even in people who have broadly less severe cases.
Asperger’s isn’t now level 1 autism, “level 1 Autism” isn’t a diagnosis, it’s all just ASD now.
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
My experience as a disability advocate is that many people with autism want their condition to be considered “a version of normal” and that is why being lumped with who they consider lower than them (disabled) is galling. It is quite the tug-o-war, these competing ideas. Really normal but “neurodiverse normal” rather than disabled.
At the same time, be careful what you wish for. If you tell a court that someone didn’t hire you because you are autistic but that you are not disabled, that may be fatal to your ADA claim. Your pride may actually defeat your rights.
While others may or may not discriminate, it is also unfair to the entire rest of the world for you to justify every behavior you have as you being misunderstood. Take accountability for your actions, just like everyone else is expected to do, if you are “not disabled.”
You are absolutely right, Andrew. Every time an autistic person claims that autism isn’t a disability, we shoot ourselves in the foot.
There is no other way to label the people who wrote this article but as ignorant. As a father of two autistic kids, I cannot express enough how much I worry about organizations like this one advocating to neglect the most vulnerable people in this world. One simple rule: can they survive one day by themselves? The answer is no. No matter how much these blood-sucking leeches claim they can help just to get your money. My two sons received early intervention since they were 2 years old. Now, at 7, they cannot talk, wear diapers, and if I leave the door open, they will run until they get hit by a car or worse. Yes, there are different levels of autism, so those on the milder side of the spectrum have hope. However, for those on the severe side, a group home is where they will end up until they die. Comparing a non-verbal person with someone in a foreign country not knowing the language is absurd and a foolish analogy. Perhaps one comment is correct: a person with Asperger’s or very mild autism wrote this, tired of being labeled as autistic. The ones who truly are autistic are the ones who are genuinely disabled, and no matter how much treatment you give them, they will never make it on their own. Shame on the people who support this website and downplay the severity of an illness that has different levels
I think you have nothing but legitimate points accept for one important thing. Labeling someone as not having “real autism” just because it’s not severe enough and you’re kind of PO’d about their opinions and attitudes is wrong on a number of different level. It’s one thing to disagree with someone? It’s another thing to insult the whole demographic they, “probably” belong to just because you got emotional—even when you have a good reason to be upset. High functioning autistics may be able to change into their pants on their own, and that’s great—good for them! But they wouldn’t need a diagnosis if certain accommodations and considerations didn’t need to be made due to their own level of neurodivergence, and balancing life in a neurotypical world while masking their issues, getting behind at work and catching up at lunch breaks because the office has too many distractions regularly, having a lot more sensory overload issues than an NT but fully expected to perform at the same levels as the NT people can be exhausting and stressful.
Autism is considered a disability from a medical and legal standpoint.
This is so frustrating. I was the nanny for a totally non-verbal autistic boy twenty years ago. Because his mother is my mother’s best friend, I’ve continued to hear a lot about him for the past decades. He’s now nearly 30. He’s never spoken a word. He still can’t use a communication device, he still can’t clean himself or use a toilet, he still hits and punches. He lives in a group home, and his parents have nearly broken their backs setting up a trust to cover that once they’re gone.
I understand you want mild autism to be looked at as advantageous. I get it – I’m neuro-spicy myself. But to say flatly that autism is not a disability erases the experience of people like my mom’s friend. It implies that there’s nothing too much the matter with her son, and that she could’ve kept him home with her, or she could’ve taught him to speak or identify images or use a toilet, if only she’d tried harder. But there was no “harder” to try. She was at maximum hardness.
I hope you’ll be careful with the phrasing you choose going forward. And please know that, for many families, autism is still a rightly devastating diagnosis.
Wow. I can’t believe what I just read. I’m glad to read I’m not the only one who found this invalidating. This is such an insulting article. Not being able to function in “normal” society IS disabling and people deserve help. This just reads as ignorant to the pain and suffering people with disabilities have to deal with.
Autism is considered a disability in UK law under the disability act (Equality Act), in the USA, and in Australia, and tens of other countries. It is recognised as a disability by national sociayeies including the National Autistic Society in the UK. This doesn’t mean it’s disabling to be autistic in all circumstances. This is also true for wheelchair users. It seems that the author is unaware of this, or the attitudes of actually autistic people, who write as autistic people, not as family members. Labelling autism “neurodiversity”, “neurospicy” or “superpower” does not detract from the sometimes disabling nature of autism, which also tends to come with mental and physical conditions, is associated with a very high unemployments, and suicide. In short, a very unhelpful and disabling article.
Well I am what I like to call for lack of a better word, a “True Autistic”, honestly not even sure if someone has already labeled us as such but that is how I label myself and I really do not care what people think about that because since finding out I am Autistic at 46 mind you, I feel whole for the first time in my life. I am self diagnosed and again I don’t care to hear anyone’s thoughts on self diagnosis, I know how people feel about it as I was one of them until it happened to me. You would be wasting your time commenting about it, its your time but know I probably wont even see it as I am a notorious what I like to call “Drive by commenter” I too made that up, wow how creative I am and that was Sarcasm which is definitely a way to get me to believe you as I have always had a problem identifying it….. sarcasm, but I thought I was just gullible, I used to be called Mr. Gullible and that is just 1 of the thousands of questions I would wonder about myself, and since my discovery I no longer have those questions about myself. I just assumed I would have to research Autism to truly learn exactly why and how it effects me the way that It does. As time has gone by I have done little research on it as I don’t want people, by people I mean my people as in my loved ones to think I just researched it all making myself “thirsty” for finding something wrong with me. All I asked Reddit is “why do I think so much” which I am sure any humans can relate to that. Then a few people mention more like Autistic and I then took 2 different online tests and the results on both said I have an extreme number of Autistic traits, then said due to the results I do not need a referral from a general provider. That was enough for me so I looked up the symptoms to see if I matched but I felt that I cant just claim I am until I get a professional to diagnose. I quickly learned the stigma behind Autism first hand, as I could not get my family to see it and the more I talked about it the crazier I would sound to them, whats worse is I had lost my father a week prior so i am sure you can figure out why it has been such a struggle to just get the people I cared about most to see it but it was clear as day for me. I will say almost instantly going down the symptom list I started feeling butterflies in my stomach and as I read each symptom confirming each one while also able to answer a ton more. For each symptom I would read, It felt like these life puzzle pieces getting put back on a puzzle and the puzzle is my life. Then almost instantly my mental state of mind went in a positive direction because the main questions I have always had about myself which were all negative traits in my eyes so they were not exactly traits I would run around and tell the world about and I especially wouldn’t have told my younger brother my negative traits as that would have been the same as a lifetime of ammunition for him. I had always known I was a little bit different but I could never figure out why it was, I would get really anxious while just walking through the mall or any public place. I have been very open and honest about how I am terrified of public speaking so much so I didn’t even graduate from collage because of one pre-requisite class, Public Speaking class. Who do you know who didn’t get their collage diploma because of something like that. The confusing thing for me is that people actually considered me to be a “people person” when the reality is I was masking it by coping a different way yet still comfortable for me at the same time and can only be my true self around my loved ones. Let me guess your reading this thinking that sounds just like you, now your thinking wow j/k. All I am saying if you are anything like me then you to might be Autistic and the rate of self diagnosis that are being discovered are alarming to say the least and NO it is not because of this spectrum, don’t even get me started on that. The reason they added a spectrum is simple and is because of a spike in autism prevalence in the 2000s suggested that clinicians were sometimes swayed by parents lobbying for a particular diagnosis or influenced by the services available within their state. Let me remind people before I proceed as I just feel like I should, I do not think it is cool to be Autistic, and IMHO I also don’t see anything wrong with it either, if you know you are as in my case. It is amazing how a mental state can dramatically change the course of someones life and literally flip in a second. As a child and teens I would always feel anxious and cold with arm pits sweating like crazy, hitting puberty in college may have been a dead giveaway in today’s times but it was something I was too embarrassed to even just talk to my family about nor did I know that was even a problem I looked twelve when I was 21, I always would have excuses why I would act a certain way, for example: In grade 7 my whole family left Vancouver B.C. for a little farm town in the U.S. so we uprooted so with any problems or incidents that would involve my behavior a therapist or myself and even my parents would say it was because of the move or I was behind because I started school in a all french school from grade 1-4 and assumed i was behind because of that. I had these big events in my life that were used as excuses to why I may have had behavior changed. I would stick out in everything I did which i just assumed I was just awesome jk, it was because I just figured it out in a different way than everyone else. I say all that to say this, In my humble opinion and I have been told I have a deep knowledge of Autism and people assume that is because I researched it but it is just because I am Autistic and I refer to myself when explaining it and I honestly think people can and should know as soon as they are looking at Autistic symptoms list. It is hard not to think that we are in this mess because of the uneducated people who are always assuming and I think we all know whgat assuming does so I wont say it even though I really want too. If you are not Autistic and you might have trouble doing something, do we automatically think you have a disability? How we think is the difference and it is just another way humans think and we are the same as a non Autistic person but not that the so called “professionals” who really don’t know what they are talking, clearly have really made it more challenging for us now more than before. What good does that do? If you consider yourself to be an “outside the box thinker” then think logically like myself and hear me out as this is just my opinion but not to sound conceded it is very rare I am wrong. Human genes evolve right? So wouldn’t that make it possible that humans might be evolving and so would it be possible to see the change happen with a naked eye as it is an extremely slow process and again I don’t have evidence to support this as it just make sense to me. So I know nothing on evolution so this is just a hypothesis. I know we are evolving and the body but that is all I really know about it but what I think the body realized we can still thrive and succeed without a certain part in the brain which is why we lack empathy as well as some other traits just as non-Autistic people have some weakness where I might thrive in. I have been navigating 46 years of my life where I govern myself and learn only from my past experiences, so I have to have it happen to me for me to truly understand whatever that may be as I have done my entire life making me extremely gifted in reading people and problem solving and I was able to figure that out just from me knowing I am Autistic. As a child I could not retain or learn anything from someone explaining it to me unless you are demonstrating as you go. I have always thought I think to much but all I have ever done is try to figure out anything and everything I see at any given moment. You would be gifted in certain areas if you did it your life. IMHO a “true Autistic” will know as soon as they started reading the symptoms and describing myself when talking about it or with examples involving it I am always talking about my experiences and mine alone. What I have been thinking since I have made this discovery is that it is indeed mis-categorized just as this Author described the reasoning for that and I agree with, because of people just like the ones who are leaving these messed up comments who would rather trust what these so called “experts” say when you have a “True Autistic” person telling you otherweise who has alot more experience and has the right too especially when it is the truth, thats on you if you chose not to believe the truth you still choose to side with someone who does not have the mind power to even know what is it like to be in our shoes. You spend your whole life thinking there is something wrong with you when really it is because we we have fewer synapses—crucial junctions where nerve cells send signals to and from each other or other types of cells—than the brains of neurotypical people. What that means to me is that Humans are evolving whether you believe it or not does not matter it is a fact and when something evolves i am pretty sure they evolve to make it better not the other way, I am assuming that but logically that makes the most sense to me and that is why I think we would evolve for the better. If that is the case then it could be possible that Autistic people are just Non autistic people that have evolved and logically thinking I wouldn’t think evolving would involve adding more components I would think that for something evolving it would be something that can function the same or better and we can clearly function just fine with fewer synapsis, so in my case being a child and wondering why I felt the way I would feel and went on unanswered until this year at 46 years of age. I will tell you all, that as soon as I found out I am Autistic I have had nothing but positive things happen in my life and my mental state changed almost instantly for the good and only now do I feel whole for the first time in my life. So I have a tough time thinking that was the right decision to add many disabilities in the same category when I clearly should not be and I am a “True Autistic” and if you are someone getting upset because you have a loved one with a disability then one us is clearly mis diagnosed and not to sound conceded but it is rare I am wrong, though it does happen. Clearly we lack empathy but if you really truly think about it Empathy is a weakness and I am lucky to lack it in my opinion and I would never use that info as weapon like some of you might be thinking as your reading this but if you really knew me I just wont lie to myself or anyone else for that matter and that is a good thing in my book. I am sure there are also many Autistic people who also have a disability and I can only imagine how difficult that must be and that should be reason alone to make sure the “experts” truly understand and know the signs. The online tests are accurate if you are honest with yourself and to the test which is rare anyways but most Autistic people I know wont lie to themselves and are only out for the truth and fairness with everything. I’m willing to bet that with every Autistic person who has figured this out for themselves, at least for me and many others have moved in a positive rather than a negative direction and again this all comes from my own experiences as we govern our life from our own experiences. People just learn things in different ways and that is exactly what Autism is, just another way of thinking and it keeps getting put in the disability category we just don’t and have not known enough about it and currently are right at the threshold of change but is needs to be categorized right because it was not easy living life always wondering why I would or think a certain way. If I would’ve have known about Autism in the 90s I can say my life would be completely different in a good way. If we are getting the categories and some diagnosis wrong then that would mean many people who have much bigger obstacles to go through on a daily basis are also in the wrong categories and to me those are THE PEOPLE WHO DESERVE THE RIGHT DIAGNOSIS. I know my diagnosis and I have never thought I had or even thought maybe I had disability. I actually thought I was just better than everyone but that was not the case I would stand out because of how I would figure it out was different form everyone else and to me it felt good as I didn’t want to be like everyone as that is all I witnessed people doing, people just trying to be like someone else and I just thought that was dumb as I always thought you would be more valuable if you’re not the same as everyone. I was having all these thoughts as a young boy with no answers for them as the people around you or family would tell you it was because of something else going on in your life at that time like a move from one country to another. You may not agree with me which is great but I think we can all agree that if there is many of us that are categorized wrong, then we certainly should get more eyes on this situation as the effects just from not truly knowing who you are can be devastating everyone with a diagnosis and the people who self diagnosed like myself needs to shed some more light on this so everyone involved can get the proper care they need and I think that is the one thing we can all agree on right? You may not agree with me and frankly I don’t care you didn’t grow up with Autism for half your life and instead was depressed and down on yourself, until I found out I had Autism. If you grow up thinking there is something wrong with you but never knew why, then finally figuring this out only for someone who really has no idea, tell you its a disability, truth is a disability is looked at in a negative light and we have thought in a negative light our whole life when it is not a disability, the real problem is people don’t think at all and these decisions and diagnosis are pressure from these paranoid Mothers who do more harm than good. Being a Mother is no easy task but you mine as well as throw all that work out the window if you feed these “know it all” theories to the doc while getting your child looked at. Believe it or not your doing way more harm. All I am saying it makes sense morally to take another look. What I think has happened is that Autistic individuals without a disability are the same as a person who does not. Evolving is the reason behind these changes, you are naive to think we don’t evolve, and you do know these type of changes take years and years unseen by the naked eye because of the amount of time it takes for changes to happen and would be something like what has changed in Autism patients like myself so to anyone who has a disability and diagnosed as Autistic which is extremely rare but definitely possible.
Oh one more thing, i forgot to mention this… I don’t see HF schizos as a disability either, they are like the cousins of autism. LF zoids may hallucinate or hear voices, HF zoids do not. I also have Schizoid Personality Disorder, and lots of highly intelligent people are zoids. Zoids are gifted in the creativity department as well, and often make some of the greatest art.
See this is why we need a new, 3rd model of mental “disorder,” or you could call it a 2nd model of neurodiversity. I am no professional, however, I have began writing my own alternate dsm which recognizes the pathologies of NTs as well, rather than treating NT as the only “norm” and everyone else being just a defective NT that needs to be “cured.” We live in a neuracist society, unfortunately. Neuracist is my word for it, because in the position of HF autism (seeth social modellers), I am not disabled in the classic medical sense of the word. I’ve had some mental health struggles, but they were more caused by environment and things which happened to me, than any biological factors. If that’s a disability, then MLK Jr was the greatest disability rights champion the world ever seen. Despite being a black man, which IS a biological factor, we would have to assume any challenges black people faced was because they were black, not because society was rigged against them.
Social modellers lose it with this fear of “offending” lower-functioning autistics. But there is an obvious difference between a 25 yr old with low support needs, who often learns to mask and fly under the NT radar, vs someone wearing diapers and smearing their fecal matter on the walls at that same age. I have nothing against disabled people, in fact I see them as allies. Due to our neuracist system treating all levels as a disability, we share the same stigma. But know that we lose any merit as HF autistics to ever be taken seriously as a minority normal, when you lump severely LF autistics in with us (against this is not to insult them, if anything it’s quite pompous and dare I say, naive, for us to diminish their struggles by saying they aren’t disabled when it is clear that they are. It’s not about fitting NT norms, it’s about being able to function and thrive, and survive on their own.
My 2nd model of ND (or 3rd model of disability +/difability ) is the evolutionary model.
basically you combine evolutionary psychology (which mostly deals with the relationships between NTs and psychopaths, without explicitly stating it) and evolutionary psychiatry (which deals with other neural… what word to use, tribes? Neural tribes? Or Neural races? We’ll just call us neural races). NTs don’t really run things, they are just made to think they do because the psychopaths at the top are very good at masking as NTs, modern society is not only a social construct, centralized from the top down, it’s also weaponized against the many for the 1% of psychopaths at the top. It is no secret that psychopaths are routinely attracted to positions of power, so they can abuse their authority, and the current system is set up for them, by them, and using NTs as the bulk of their useful idiots (sorry if I sound like I am insulting all NTs, I don’t dislike NTs I just dislike the current NT-supremacist model of neural-race relations.
So basically, you’ve got the following neural races:
Allistics,
Autistics,
Schizophrenics
Psychopaths
I thought about considering Bi Polar one as well, but one of my main criteria is that it’s something you are born with, and while there is a genetic component which makes people succeptible to becoming bi polar, the environment has to trigger it for it to take effect. But they too in some ways have advantages, so they are a question mark right now.. Anyhoo, I suspect most of them exist on a spectrum of functionality, and as we live in an unnatural top down centralized slave grid basically, evolution tried to branch in many directions, and even uprooted it’s normal methods of sexual selection. How, I’m not entirely sure at this point, but more and more NT couples are having sperg or zoid babies. I also think the current system has compromised this attempt at evolving, and has ushered it largely into where they want it to go– they use a certain type of aspies (the trekkie tech nerd types) to use as pawns to further their agendas. This is why folks like Bill Gates and Elon Musk are herolded as beacons for autistic people (and I cringe, they are horrible people, not because they are autistic, but because they are also psychopaths).
And yet, others, who I will call failed neural races (not as an insult, please don’t get overly sensitive and act like snowflakes here)… Groups like Down Syndrome, or TICS (which includes turrettes), they do not have enough clear advantages to override or offset their deficits. The highest functioning DS person is about average intelligence at the most. Again, this is not to demean them, I think it was yet another genetic mutational attempt by evolution to build another branch, but in these cases they failed to properly evolve. Even among most neural races that were successful towards evolutionary goalposts, such as auties and schizos, the lower functioning ones are the genetic burn-off in the gene pool to accomplishing these goalposts. Not even evolution can make omlets without cracking eggs. Harsh? Maybe, but nature doesn’t concern itself with the morals of humanity. And we’re subject to our human nature in many more ways than we are consciously aware of…
If we are to assume the medical model is the right wing, or the social model is the left wing, consider the evolutionary model as neither. Most SMers are hardcore lefties, this is why they get so sanctimoniously butt hurt about acknowledging different functioning levels, despite being all or 99% HF themselves, and while not all MMers are right wing, because tbh society in general most people are MMers because they haven’t thought much about it, no doubt the right are far more likely to be attached to the MM… the EM is neither left or right, it’s about finding truth and removing such restrictive labels. Because EMs realize “politics” is a play on human nature, not by NTs, but by psychopaths manipulating society using a NT majority (and some pockets of neural minorities too).
Oh one more thing, i forgot to mention this… I don’t see HF schizos as a disability either, they are like the cousins of autism. LF zoids may hallucinate or hear voices, HF zoids do not. I also have Schizoid Personality Disorder, and lots of highly intelligent people are zoids. Zoids are gifted in the creativity department as well, and often make some of the greatest art.
If you don’t have persistent defecits in social communication and rigid repetitive thinking and behaviours that cause significant impairment in functioning then you’re not autistic. Autism is being overdiagnosed. If you aren’t disabled by your autism (even at level1) then you don’t meet the diagnostic criteria.
These type of articles really make me upset because it’s essentially gaslighting or some people’s experience and invalidating. It . my brother, who I love with all my heart has a severe form of autism and left to his own devices. He would not be able to survive. That’s just the facts. He’s a beautiful and wonderful human being, but he needs to be taken care of because he is mentally the age of a kid I can say that because I have kids in my own and I’m the oldest of six kids. I know how kids are. He acts like a little kideven though he’s 37 he cannot work and I wouldn’t never put him in that situation clearly. We as his family take care of him and love him and nurture him, but being in denial about the facts of his abilities and what he can and cannot handle is dangerous and gaslighting people into thinking that their truth isn’t real is also dangerous. this is very black-and-white thinking you have to see the whole truth as it stands in front of you in order to address a situation. Autism is a huge spectrum and each case is individual and you have to look at those particular needs without any kind of filters or barriers in order to openly and honestly address the situation without any bias or preconceived ideas about what autism is or isn’t.
i have two different brothers with autism, who are both on different sides of the spectrum. One is 14 years old and one is 7. They both have a hard time SOMETIMES explaining how they feel. Yes, they can have meltdowns, mostly the 14-year-old old but he is a little further, but he is so smart in some areas, like smarter than and i graduate in a year. You can imagine an 8th grader smarter than me, and it is fascinating that he is so smart, he isn’t dumb, he isn’t disabled, he just needs more help with some things, like social interactions and he has been through so much threapy is anyone had heard on minroe myers that has helped him explain his feelings instead of melting down. different parts of the spectrum can be different it IS different and espessally with kids with autism that doesnt help either so you can imigine. and with the 7 year old he is so smart hes just so stuck in that baby age right now and sometimes yeah i get mad because im like why are you crying over a tv show or why are you throwing a baby fit over something so small and stupid but i have to remember his brain works different he doesnt compute things like i do. if you live with anyone who has autism you know its not a disablity.
NDIS-cam is all of so-called autistic. Drop the mild cases & end their fundings; the society shall never promote autism!