Published on 12, July, 2020
All her life my daughter has fought the stigma that being Autistic was defined as, first a "learning disabilty" and now a "disability". It has destroyed her life, made her feel inferior and sapped her self confidence. Then to see the BBC describe autism as a "lifelong disability" made me furious. Then to find that the source of this bigotry is the definition on the NAS website makes me incandescent with rage. I too am Autistic. The NAS does not represent me or my daughter. The challenges which Autistic poeple face are not what we are but how we are misunderstood. For the NAS to insist on perpetuating these myths makes you part of the problem. I can only presume your definition of Autism was written and approved by a bunch of, perhaps well-meaning, poeple who suffer from Autism Deficiency Syndrome and who lack the flexibility of thought that Autism gives us and we, in turn, have given the world the technology which I am using to write this.
the learning difficulty one that they used to call it is very old fashioned and is likely the reason many people never got diagnosed.they see you have problems, then they called it learning difficulty, but when they tested you for learning difficulty they instead found you actually smarter than average so you dont have a learning difficulty, so they they scratch their heads and go away and left you and considered you too confusing to diagnose due to them wrongly calling everything a learning difficulty at the time.
and for one i dont believe in learning difficulties... there is no such thing... there is only teaching difficulties of bad teachers that do not know how to teach.
There are also lots of different types of intelligence and different people can be and are intelligent in different ways.
I would assume that if there's any merit in this, it would be due to the overlap in PTSD symptoms and autistic traits. But it's Jordan Peterson, so for all I know it's nothing to do with that and he's talking rubbish. Certainly wouldn't be the first time!
I don’t entirely agree it’s too late but it’s certainly more difficult. I imagine it’s a bit like learning languages. Young children pick up languages very quickly. You can still learn new languages as an adult but you have to make far more of an effort than you would have had to do when you were a child.
I think that Jordan Peterson is at best talking about autistic-seeming traits, psychology has no place in the roots of autism, though it des play a role in development like you say..:)
Thanks for your post - I might have a look at the book you mention. I’ve never found any of Temple Grandin’s books that useful or interesting before although I’ve only glanced at them. This one actually might be useful and interesting.