I'd like to see some analysis of the cohorts used in these studies.  I've seen the figure of 54 bandied about too.  It's good in a way, as it draws attention to the difficulties we face and obviously charities will use it for that reason.  However, it can also be very anxiety provoking.  If I took it seriously (I really don't), I guess I'd be led to believe that I'm living on borrowed time!

I think this is the basis of it. A large Swedish study, leading to teh article

Premature mortality in autism spectrum disorder 

by Hirvikoski et al. 

• 10.1192/bjp.bp.114.160192

Not sure how flawed or otherwise the methodology is, my brain isn't good with that stuff. 

I'd have to have a good look through but at a glance I'd suggest that the figures are already out of date and have been superceded by a new understanding of what autism actually is, as well as a sudden surge in diagnostic rates which includes a lot of people who were previously missed.  Things have changed a lot, even in just the past 10 years.  

Those guys see like high flyers. Such ratified heights (in NT terms) that it’s useless for anyone (autistic or otherwise)  to compare  against them. 

Yes, that question can seem to contain assumptions and values that jarr. And I can see how it could lock in to certain thoughts straight away.  Mind you, it sometimes seems automatic and akin to, "How are you?", so I maybe read too much into it if it's just a social nicety kind of thing. 

It reminds me of some of the more careless questions asked by various CPNs we've seen, who, while being very affable and well meaning, would ask what we were doing for the weekend or on holiday, or which pub we preferred, as if those things were a possibility for us (they quite obviously weren't and it felt a bit "normal-waving"  and presumptuous to me).  I felt a bit disappointed in them after some very open and difficult conversations as they'd always revert to things like that just as they were leaving, as if they'd just been pretending to listen and were now a bit like Mike Yarwood at the end of his show saying, "And now this is me" (what a great guy I am!).

Anyway, I'm probably overthinking it, but I feel aghast that someone can be left feeling "useless and worthless" by it when that's  really not the case.  It might be yet another of those ways in which the prevailing culture bears down on people and those who "belong" engage in a bit of social signalling.  

Contemporaries:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Tyrie  Same year. Same D.O.B. Different school house.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Helm Year above me.Same school house.

I have an equivalent to that (for some other time, and likely it’s own thread) so you are not alone in being triggered by the ‘No harm’ presumption of others in that way. I feel your pain. Just from another angle. And to some extents even from the same one is terms of my workplace ‘limitations’ (in NT terms) 

Jenny Butterfly said:

need to be born in mind.   

I also think that, generally speaking, there'll be a significant number who have never been in paid employment

One of the regular questions asked on all kind of forums is 'What job do you do?' People mean no harm by it,but it brings out a lot of self disapproval/self disgust in me. I tend to think I'm the only person who's like that .That I'm useless and worthless.

That's certainly true.  We're a self selecting group of people who like forums like this and have the wherewithal and motivation to access it.  Some of us will be more vociferous than others and some will be parents or carers.  We can't be representative of the whole autistic population and that does need to be born in mind.   

I also think that, generally speaking, there'll be a significant number who have never been in paid employment.  There are plenty in my own family who fall into that category (and they're not on here).  It's just that the real proportion seems to differ depending on which studies are referred to, and many of these studies are limited, out of date or skewed.     

I suppose I'm still trying to work out what the 'average' autistic person is, and am not at all sure I'm doing better  than whatever that is. Or by what objective standards (if there are any) 'better' should be defined. There's a trade-off across the board I think?  In some respects I feel very inadequate compared to some others on here in ways I don't have the emotional energy to go into right now. And how right or wrongheaded that kind of thinking of mine might be is something I'm having to navigate tentatively and carefully. I can say with certainty that I don't believe I'm struggling internally any less than many autistic people, so in that sense I feel very average indeed.

I don't see you as either an infiltrator or an imposter. That was not what using this forum mistakenly as a proxy for autistic  people etc generally was about. Doing better than the average autistic person , as is the case with many of you here,doesn't make you an unsuitable participant here .

I must admit that the 'proxy' thing has hurt me a little, as the last thing I want to feel like on here is an infiltrator or imposter. I really don't think I am. And I don't think you meant any slight by it in a conscious way, so I know it's probably over-sensitivity on my part. 

In many respects I have a brain full of turnips, and am even struggling with those stats I looked at when many would assimilate them easily, contextualise with ease, etc. Life/workplace skills that I'll never have or master (for even personal interest) without considerable mental effort and energy cost. I think 'differently intelligent' (as you've atteseted to in your own case) covers our collective situation for that particular dimension of things. 

Thanks for the apology,but it wasn't necessary. You're not  the first person, and won't be the last person.,to use a forum such as this(or a mental health forum) as a proxy for how well the general autistic etc population does. It's obvious from the flow of conversation here  that there's a high level of brainpower involved.

I apologise for needlessly over-smplifying - that could have been better put, and tbh I'm not sure I'm accurately tracking the averages even on here. Especially insensitive of me given that you raised this very issue in another thread - how typical/atypical you are as an autistic person in this forum in terms of employment status - and you are by no means a rarity in that regard, or anything close to it. You can't be. And, like everyone on here. you intersect with a complex venn diagram that can barely be conceptualised, never mind drawn. 

Ah, wait: "We should bear in mind that 'part time' work might mean 30 hrs a week and more than enough for basic needs"

That begins to help me make sense of it more. So the majority of people would still be in a 30-37+ range of hours. OK, I've not been so far off the intuitively correct path o understanding as I thought. That was a very weird moment!

Thanks so much for that link! So insightful and exactly what I needed to read for more clarity on the whole issue. But now I'm shocked by a whole new statistic, for the general population: "the figure for full time employment in the general population of the UK is only 36%"

So only a third of people in general work full-time? Does everyone know this? How do they afford their homes? Are the majority of the other ?% all coupled up and that's how they make ends' meet? I'm genuinely baffled as I thought the majority of employment would be full-time (37 hours a week or whatever). Why am I so easily unsettled and fixated by this stuff?  suppose it's another one of those world tilting on its axis things? I've misperceived what's been clear to thers for, somehow, my entire life. And then I get blindsided and scramble to get my bearings again, and it's anxiety-causing. But I'm still grateful to have seen the article! I'd rather know and adjust my skewed perceptions than remain in ingnorance. 

People posting on a forum such as this can't realistically be used as a guideline to how the average person with ASD is  doing re employment,or anything else for that matter. I'm probably in a very small minority here re never having had a paid job. Even then it's due to severe social anxiety and falling between a rock and hard place employment wise, rather  than the ASD.

I don't well under pressure. Stress is my green kryptonite. Therefore a high powered job is out of the question. At the other end I have poor manual skills so I'm totally unsuited for that. I'm more brain than brawn by a large degree but to be at my best cognitively I need to be in a low stress environment.

Yes, I agree that it's bad and we're faring worse, much worse than the general population.  My own work experience hasn't been exactly easy either, as you'll have seen from my other posts, and it's looking as though my sons might never work, at least not in the conventional ways. 

But I also think that, here again, the figures are more anxiety-inducing than they need to be.  And we're a very anxiety-prone population already.  It's a fine line between highlighting the very real issues and overegging the position in quite a scary way.  

I'm with Ann Memmott on this one, although this blog post is a few years old already.

annsautism.blogspot.com/.../autism-mythbusting-employment.html 

Yes, the employment stat - under 20% for secure on-going work for those that  supposedly can, on paper, work- that I first read shocked me so much that I thought 'that can't be right.' About a fortnight ago, it was troubling me so much that I came to the conclusion that what had happened was that the overall autistic population statistic for that had been inadvertently (or over-simplistically) mapped onto 'high functioning' autistics too. So I went searching for something more definitively and rigorously/explicitly focused in on that subset. And the only thing I found was a Canadian study that had the figure at a still low, but more believable, 40%. Yet I keep seeing people on here talk about their jobs - what seems the majority? -  and this community as a ready-made sample therefore  feels counterweighted to even that Canadian figure. Intuitively, I feel that all the factors you mention above collectively make a more truthful average something like 60%+. Undoubtedly lower that the general populace, but significantly less drastic than the perception the oft-cited figures are perpetuating - albeit with good intentions. I fully accept that fewer professions and roles allow for successful adaptation (I'm grateful to have found a niche that fits my narrow parameters of sustainable functionality  in a way that still lets me have a decent- if below average- salary, and I appreciate not everyone has such luck) - there aren't enough places to go around even for the best of maskers. And there are attendant health complications, co-morbid conditions and so on that again must have an impact. But I think 'Aspergers' people are probably 25%-35% less employed than NTs rather than 45%-65% less. So speaks the recently-diagnosed layman merely dabbling so far in the research, in a way that hopefully doesn't sound arrogant - the opposite of my intentions!

Yes, it's wheeled out an awful lot.  It's mentioned in Aucademy and Ausome Training and elsewhere too.  And I can't deny that there are major issues here and that these affect our life expectancy.  This should all be highlighted and that's clearly what they're doing - "That's the science" as they say. 

But...    I just don't see how this figure can be a definitive fact for autistics in general when the cohorts being studied aren't fully representative samples.  And, given that our understanding of autism is almost  constantly changing, which most autistic advocates will admit and push for (leastways if those changes are autistic-led) , I'd expect those figures to change too.   

It's like the figures on employment, which are also dire.  Well, if many of the autistics in employment aren't diagnosed, moreover might not even realise that they're neurodivergent and, even if they do, might not wish to pursue a formal diagnosis, well they're excluded from the stats straight away.  If the researchers are looking at an (easy to find) subset of autistic people who are diagnosed early, have multiple co-occurring conditions (incl. learning disabilities), present in a more stereotypical way (per the DSM) and are engaging with sevices, then the results MIGHT have some relevence to that subset.  Although even then I'd wonder about recent improvements and understanding over the past 2 - 5 years that might not be reflected in those studies by the time they're published.      

Overall I think individuals need to be quite guarded about accepting these figures as gospel (much the same as the 1 in 4 figure for mental health problems which is also bandied about an awful lot), especially when many within our community tend towards anxiety in all its forms.   

Take it all with a pinch of salt, I say.  I could, of course, be monumentally wrong, but my take is that, yes, things are bad, but that bad?  I have serious doubts.   

The odd thing is though that (while I’m persuaded by what you say) it seems to get wheeled out as definitive fact by people who I’m starting to get to recognise as the most nuanced and progressive public figures in the self-advocating autistic academic community. Kieran Rose for instance mentions it in an Aucademy video. It’s not said to be of questionable validity even though he must be aware of exactly what you’ve said - changing times and parameters changing the adequacy of the measuring and cohorts. So I hope it’s not a case of conscious cherry picking to suit an understandable wish to be on our/his side. That does nobody any favours. 

I've noticed this within my own family too and it's certainly led to health issues worsening when at least some of it could have been prevented.  Generalised anxiety, health anxiety and then also the fact that services just aren't autism friendly have all contributed. 

It's really hard though, because the anxiety puts up a good argument each time and services aren't changing fast enough.  And I've had these "arguments" both inside my own head and with other family members. 

Still, at least we can say we're onto it now.  Perhaps strangely (and confounding the stats) I think we're much safer now that we know we're autistic because it's become easier to see what's going on and, once patterns are identified, we can make better efforts to interrupt them.  

I do feel bad about the past though.  And yes, it can play out in some horrible ways.  These mistakes can come as very harsh lessons.  I'm glad you're still here to tell the tale though and, as you say, your children are unlikely to forget or give anxiety the casting vote should something similar arise again.  

I've noticed this within my own family too and it's certainly led to health issues worsening when at least some of it could have been prevented.  Generalised anxiety, health anxiety and then also the fact that services just aren't autism friendly have all contributed. 

It's really hard though, because the anxiety puts up a good argument each time and services aren't changing fast enough.  And I've had these "arguments" both inside my own head and with other family members. 

Still, at least we can say we're onto it now.  Perhaps strangely (and confounding the stats) I think we're much safer now that we know we're autistic because it's become easier to see what's going on and, once patterns are identified, we can make better efforts to interrupt them.  

I do feel bad about the past though.  And yes, it can play out in some horrible ways.  These mistakes can come as very harsh lessons.  I'm glad you're still here to tell the tale though and, as you say, your children are unlikely to forget or give anxiety the casting vote should something similar arise again.