Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, Everyone,
I've recently been diagnosed with High Functioning Autism/Aspergers in my 40's and I'm wondering if there are support services or groups for people like me who are just about coping with life but could do with a little extra support? From what I can see online so far, the majority of the support is aimed toward children and parents and those with more severe learning or behavioural difficulties. I understand that these groups have the most acute challenges, but I'm wondering if there is anything in the community for those, like me, that are just about muddling along. Any help in finding any groups or support would be gratefully received. Thanks for reading.
Chris
I think we're well aware of that here. Functioning is ... unfortunate terminology. I'm no expert but I believe it was adopted in the early days of autism research when researchers wanted to study the difference between autistic children based on their IQ. Telling a parent that their child is in the 'low IQ' group is probably a good way to get that parent to pull their child out of the research. Hence high and low functioning as terms. It's still useful to make a distinction between autistic people based on intelligence, the ICD-11 does for example.
P.S. 'Autism spectrum disorder without disorder of intellectual development' is even more of a mouthful than high functioning autism. So unless you're suggesting we adopt "high IQ autism" I'm not sure there is anything better.
Yes. It’s not ideal but I’m sometimes at a loss to think of a good alternative. Whichever way you word it it sounds unpleasantly judgemental in some ways - which I really hate.
I'm in my mid-30s and live in the North West, so I'd be interesting in this as well. I'm stumbling my way through life. More than anything, I'd like peer support. Simply being able to communicate with others who are in the same situation. We should probably form our own peer support group. snow rider 3d