Published on 12, July, 2020
I watched a Horizon programme about Autism.
What I liked about the programme was it made clear that most people do the things that Autistic people do. It is just that Autistic people do those things more than so called NT people. I do not know what NT means.
There are plenty of people with Social problems who are not Autistic.
There are Mentally Ill people.
If one is blind or deaf it must be more difficult to have Social Skills.
It also said that one gets diagnosed if the clinic you goes to agrees that you are Autistic. It is a question of chance. I got my diagnoses as when I was nineteen a Consultant Psychiatrist visited us and said that I was Mildly Autistic. That was in 1976 and that was the equivalent to Asperger Syndrome.
David
The other thing that annoyed me was the simplistic use of the Where's Wally? test to show autistic attention to detail. While attention to detail is a very common ASC trait, it takes many different forms, so it could include focusing in an obsessive way on a narrow interest, noticing minute environmental changes, or fixating on apparently trivial matters, resulting in anxiety.
I struggled immensely with the Where's Wally? challenge as a child, but I also struggled with object relations and spatial awareness to such an extent that the Ed Psych was called in to assess me. But I also had most of the other autistic traits including failing Sally Ann type tests, and struggling to understand fiction in general.
I would imagine that many children with Dyspraxia (a common co-morbidity) would also struggle with Where's Wally?, particularly if they have poor visual-spatial awareness .
ASC comes in many forms. In fact, USA researchers have identified a non-verbal learning disability as a subtype of Asperger's. People with NVLD have severe visual-spatial deficits, problems understanding non-verbal forms of communication, but excel at verbal language. They also have dyscalculia. I meet the full critera for this condition.