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Late Diagnosis

NAS87080

Hi, My son (age 17 +10 months) has just this last week received an autism diagnosis.  He refuses to discuss it with us. He only agreed to go through with the diagnostic process to prove us wrong and shut us up about it once and for all.  We received a 17 page report full of links to helpful websites, but really no practical help at all. I feel very much that it's a case of "here is the diagnosis,  have a nice life". Where do we go from here? He's on the threshold of adulthood and no way of coping with adult life. He's already struggling in 6th form due to his poor executive function.  

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  • in reply to NAS87080

    Your son obviously looks upon his diagnosis as an unwelcome, externally applied label. Before he can find 'workarounds', and they do exist, in order for him to function at his best in the rather autism-hostile society we live in, he really has to find the desire to acknowledge his autistic nature. All that is heard in general are the negatives concerning autism, but there are positives. Many autistics are creative people in both arts and sciences (science is both analytical and creative, mere analysis does not come up with General Relativity, nor Evolution by Natural selection). It might be worth pointing out to him that many of the greatest people of the past showed distinct autistic traits, people such as: Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, Mozart, Charles Darwin, Picasso and Albert Einstein.

    I have found that my autism-generated ability to hyper-focus on a subject and eye for detail have been of great benefit to me in my work in scientific research.