Published on 12, July, 2020
I was trawling through some data, and I wondered if anyone has any official percentage of HFA (high functioning autistics) over the general population of ASD people. The psychiatrist and the therapist at PsychiatryUK told me that high functioning people (able to work privately and live independently) are a minority, but declined to give me any numbers. We also agreed that the "math genius" archetype of ASD adult is way overrepresented in media, since it is quite rare in real life.
Does anyone have any hard data about that?
I don't have any data about it unfortunately, but I suspect there are a lot more of us out there than people realise. High-masking, low support needs autistic people are much more likely to 'fly under the radar' and not be officially diagnosed. If we WERE all diagnosed, I think we would make up a significant proportion of the autistic community.
That would have been true about 20 years ago. Now, a lot of children get diagnosed very early.
Yes, but I'm talking about undiagnosed adults, not children.