Published on 12, July, 2020
Since I went 'public' about my ASD diagnosis I've had more than one person say to me 'We're all on the spectrum mate'. At the time I found the comment slightly offensive, as if they were saying, 'You're not the only one who's got issues, just get over it', but on reflection, perhaps they have a point. In this crazy world where the borders of 'normality' are infinitely blurred, could it be that we are all on one big spectrum, but only some of us in the 'zone' that is currently classed as a disorder? I can't help wondering if everyone did the tests and questionnaires that I did when being assessed what percentage of the population would be diagnosed. The very first test I did came as quite a shock because the questions seemed so very appropriate to how I was feeling, and it returned a result of high probability. I can't decide if that's just because I do actually have ASD or because some of those questions would apply to anyone doing the test. I'd be interested to hear people's opinion on this, especially if anyone out there has done the test and returned a negative result i.e. low probability.
I find the remark "we are all on the soectrum" offensive. I am not formally diagnosed yet. We are not all on the spectrum, because we are not all born with a neurodevelopment delay. The assessment looks at very specific " challenges" and "differences" from childhood.
My opinion is that this remark minimises the very real difficulties that we are presented with. It is not a choice. Please correct me if i have got this wrong, i am still learning.
I agree. I would just make one point regarding the use of the term 'neurodevelopmental delay'. It is very true that autistic children can be delayed in areas such as speech.
However I think it sort of implies that we will eventually catch up and be like our non autistic peers after some delay. That could feed into another myth is that autism is something that only affects children. As we all well know autism is lifelong.
This NAS website describes autism as a 'lifelong developmental disability'. Of course some autistic people don't like the use of the term disability either.