Your thoughts on the BBC Horizon Autism documentary, presented by Uta Frith, on Tuesday the 1st April

Thank you - I like Aspergian too but I have come across it before - an Aspie sounds like a wasp lol - I am awfully glad that someonelse can see what I saw in the programme - my daughter included - we have 5 diagnosed Aspergians in my family now and more to come I suspect! - all privately assessed as I waited over 2 years and still waiting on the NHS, so my kind sister paid for mine -

I am in the process of taking my daughter soon to go private too - so I know a lot about the different types of characters that can be part of the Syndrome - all of my family are different completely, but we do have in common the main characteristics of Aspergers and we have all had an extremely difficult life because of it all - I always have to believe that we go through these things for a reason - and thankfully I  now receive PIP which helps me so that I do not have to work nights so much - I am a nurse but also a Registered Childminder so hope that the Childminding will take off in the future but because of the PIP I can relax more as it was becomming more and more difficult to work as much as I needed to - I hope you get the help and support that you need 

Well I certainly was not impressed by the programme - I dont think it went into much detail about the diversity of the Autism Spectrum at all and the different types of people it can affect  and in what different ways - and it did not explain the compexities of it - To my mind it gave the viewers the old sterotypical insight of people on the Autistic spectrum as looking and behaving differently to the norm' - whatever that is

There are many people out there, like myself, who have worked all their lives and managed to have relationships and bought houses etc.  I am not saying it has been easy - very very difficult in fact and getting harder the older I get - I am 58, but no one would know to look at me that I am an Aspergian, with Dyslexia Dyscaluli, Dyspraxia and ADHD.  When I tell people that I have these problems they say the same.

I feel that overall Uta Frith is an excellent professional, i admire her contribution and like the program.

On the other hand i feel the concepts she is using are dated - for instance in the 'unblinding' the object test where the boy fixates and gets it wrong - she is assuming he lacks faculty to know.

However - such a result is equally likely linked to a gain of social acceptablity factor. Thus the child might have been aware of the switch, but felt he must flow with consensus due to the deliberate encouragement.

It would just seem that this kind of conclusion itself can be shaky when deciding the specific status in cognitive affairs linked to aspergers, although the simple clear tests themselves as models seemed fine.

No doubt some children do have such a challenge and probably the test works in cases. But it is surely not a catch all, so in the same circumstances we would not have made an automatic assumption about our child based on it.

I watched this on iplayer the other day, it was interesting, but I wasn't impressed. As others have pointed out it would have been better with a little more depth and more understanding of the differences between those on the spectrum too, not everyone has the same difficulties and the infomation was very basic. However maybe thats because people not on the spectrum might not be aware of the basics, although by now I think they should be. Personally I think there's more infomation on the NAS 'what is autism' and 'what is Aspergers' videos then was in that hour long programme. 

As for the triangle animation test, I got the basic idea of the first one, half way through the first one I could tell the big triangle was trying to push the little one out. But then when the explanation went into more depth and compaired it to a parent trying to coax a child out, I wouldn't have got that. On the second one I thought the small triangle wanted to get in and couldn't, the game 'knock and run' didn't occur to me. Oh well, who knows. 

I agree they should focus on more sensible examples than marbles.

They should also focus more on Autistic Adults.

 Autism is really finding it difficult to understand things and asking silly questons.

The trouble is that Autistic people do not grow out of it when they grow up.

They continue as they did as children having Social Skills problems and other problems.

An example to illustrate a blind child will grow up to become a blind adult so Autistic people continue to have problems when they grow up.

David

David

That is exactly what I thought before they explained it. Once it was explained, I could understand what they meant - a story of persuasion - but I would not have worked this out for myself.

In what way were you amazed caretwo?

I guess the judgement call thing has mainly to do with individuals right at the hinterlands, where it it is not so clear-cut. Diagnosticians have to know where ASC begins and where normal eccentricity ends. This line can sometimes be rather blurry because at present there are no clear biological markers for autism. When a brain scan is developed that can contribute to the diagnosis, greater objectivity could come into play, but diagnosis will still be an art as well as a science.

As you move away from the hinterlands diagnosis becomes more conclusive, and you will find greater agreement amongst clinicians.

I've seen many posts on here where children are not being diagnosed, despite strong evidence to suggest otherwise.  The horizon programme discussed this, starting that if the traits did not cause significant social issues then clinicians do make a judgment call on this.  

If  this is the case, the clinician should instead  say yes the child has autism, but is coping well so we don't feel any intervention is required.

Not giving a diagnosis because the child at that time is coping, doesn't mean that they will still be coping later on, chances are the traits will intensify as social interaction increases.

Also without a formal diagnosis because clinician has made a judgment call could jeopardise the chances of a sibling being identified.  We know that having a sibling on the spectrum makes clinicians take diagnosis a bit more seriously, so judgment call cases are dangerous as they hoodwink the clinician into assuming that there is no genetic links.

The whole judgement call thing worries me greatly, as we know how incredibly difficult it is to get anyone to 're evaluate cases anyway, this judgment call thing just adds another hurdle that in my opinion should not exist in the first place.  You either have asc or you don't.  As they said in the programme, you could go down the road and get a different judgement call, and  then you are left with two conflicting opinions.  What is the point of having assessments if  all it comes down to at the end of the day is what the clinician thinks is significant or not, based on the past and not the future.

Oh yes, how does someone with O-10 traits present.  I know what severe asc looks like but I am struggling to see the other end of Cohen's bell chart.  

I thought it was a little superficial to be honest. What did it tell us?

• 50 years ago people diagnosed with autism clearly were people with problems, witness the black and white footage of the boy at the start of the programme, later featured as an adult who clearly does have some problems with language and communication.
• Nowadays the diagnosis is a lot wider. It seems that those diagnosed with it are unable to pick up on simple inferences that are obvious to the rest of us (like the triangle cartoons) but also that they can be much more able to focus on details than the rest of us (like the Where's Wally challenge). They're not obviously people who have something wrong with them, just people who are a bit different. I thought the young black boy in particular seemed rather likeable, rather than having any social problems.
• Somebody in Scotland 250 years ago probably had autism.

We could have been told all that in fifteen minutes. There were much more interesting angles that could have been explored, in particular:

• How are we to view people with autism now that the diagnosis has widened so much? Clearly they have some abilities that the rest of us don't. In what fields can these abilities be put to use?
• Simon Baron Cohen drew a bell chart of the autism spectrum on an iPad. Autistic people were on the right of the chart and most people in the middle. What about the people on the left? No mention was made of them. Surely what these people are like would have been a very interesting question to explore, but neither academic made any reference to it at all.

So I was rather disappointed really.

I agree. There is a male bias in diagnosis, particularly when it comes to the narrow interests and repetitive behaviour side of autism. Girls are socialised in different ways to boys via the influence of family, school, peers, TV, wider culture. Children with higher functioning forms of ASC are usually not impervious to this, and so girls are more likely to develop intense interests in fiction, dolls, film stars, beauty and image, etc,. They can therefore fall through the net. There is also confirmation bias at play - girls are not expected to have autism so the the signs are overlooked and explained away as just 'girly' behaviour.

NAS8954 said:

Regarding why females are diagnosed less often than males, a recent Physchology Today article, Being Female: Protected From Autism But at Risk of Psychosis, is worth reading:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201403/being-female-protected-autism-risk-psychosis

And then there are studies and articles like this: http://sfari.org/sfari-community/community-blog/cross-talk/2014/are-girls-really-protected-from-autism?utm_source=Autism+research+news+from+SFARI.org&utm_campaign=93ef6f6c2b-SFARI_Newsletter_140401&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0a60ccb345-93ef6f6c2b-389048541

https://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/news/2012/diagnosis-eludes-many-girls-with-autism-study-says

https://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/news/2011/diagnostic-tests-for-autism-may-miss-many-girls

It is my believe that there is no difference between the genders when it comes to rates of autism.

I watched with interest shame it weas only one hour, she did not go into deep thought about why girls get dignosed less, it is my opition than girls with ASD are more devloped and mature faster than boys in gereral, they aslo are more able to hide there lack of social understand in gerenal you see girls in groups more than boys.