Social Services misinterpretation

Your independent expert should be able to provide whatever background information they need - it is not up to you. Tell them to ask the expert who wrote the report...

Thanks Hullabaloo!

You raise many points that have been racing thru my mind. I'm trying to find a balance between antagonising them and trying to help them understand something about ASD that they clearly don't currently. 

I do find it sad and concerning that professionals are not more ASD savy though. 

Thanks for your thoughts!

It just seems like they accused you of something, ended up with evidence to the contrary, but instead of backing down, they're continuing to believe what negative things they believe about you, because they just want to be right about it. Everything they're doing just seems unprofessional and unethical, and discriminatory as well, because you've shown your formal ASD diagnosis to them, and they still refuse their services to you, even though their services are public services, to provide help for those who are at a disadvantage, and having ASD is disadvantage because it's classified as a disability.

And the next thing they ask for as evidence for how your diagnosis is affecting them feeling controlled? What? How is your personal diagnosis about yourself, going to show anything about them feeling controlled? If anything, they're pulling all the strings here, trying to make you show evidence of this and that, instead of just helping you with what you went to them for. 

Their behavior just seems so unprofessional to me. If there's someone higher up you could speak to, or a place that you can file a complaint for breach of ethics, I think you should do that, rather than trying to prove your innocence, because they've already made up their mind about you, even when you showed them the formal diagnosis, they didn't care. So I'd advise that you stop interacting with them, and speak with one of the higher ups or file a complaint and explain what happened to you. 

This is, unfortunately, the second set of Social Workers. Each briefs the prior on their interpretation of the situation. 

I've commissioned a separate, independent report. This states that the SWs have misinterpreted my behaviour. It's this report that SS has requested 'the research this conclusion is based upon.'

It's possible these social workers have decided for themselves what the situation is. In which case, maybe you can look into being assigned to new ones. Demanding research papers to prove your behaviours aren't ill intended sounds like a very adverserial relationship and not one that has your best interests in mind.

Thanks Bunny!

It's quite a relief to know that there is scientific backing to the perceived wisdom.

And great that it is so recent... clearly a burgeoning field!

I think I have a lot of reading to do.

Hi Mark, and welcome to the community.

I'm sorry that you're having such struggles with your social workers.

In addition to Mark (formerly Spikey)'s excellent find, you might like to refer them to this research paper, the conclusions of which include:

"We examined whether autistic individuals would be perceived as more deceptive and less credible than their neurotypical peers due to their demonstration of unexpected or atypical behaviors that are commonly judged as indicative of deception: specifically, gaze aversion, repetitive body movements, literal interpretation of figurative language, poor reciprocity, and flat affect.

Autistic individuals were indeed judged as more deceptive and lower on perceived competence and character compared to neurotypical individuals. To the best of our knowledge, this study is among the first to provide empirical evidence for the existence of such a relationship."  

From: Autistic Adults May Be Erroneously Perceived as Deceptive and Lacking Credibility - 17 March 2021

You might also like to invite them to read up on Milton's "double empathy problem", a widely recognised psychological and sociological theory that helps to explain why communication and understanding between neurodivergent and neurotypical people can so often go awry:

Wikipedia - Double Empathy Problem

Smashin'!

Thanks for that... I'll give it a try and see if they 'accept' it as research!

HiMuhWuh

“What Did I Do Wrong?” : An Accessible Guide to Preventing Traumatic Misunderstandings Between You and Your Autistic Loved One" by Jaime Heidel contains many examples of autistic behaviour that can be interpreted as manipulative by allistics.

In fact, searching for the word "manipulative" in the book returns 42 results!!

She lays out LOTS of autistic behaviour and how they can be misinterpreted.

Here is just one - it is about our "direct communication" trait

Well done on getting the diagnosis in order to advocate for yourself!!