Are we really the minority we're told we are?

Any condition or disorder that is purely characterised by clinicians, however well qualified, looking at the outward traits and behaviours of people is going to be rather poorly defined. There is no biomedical test for autism or any other neurodivergence. This means that the division between who is or is not neurodivergent is inherently woolly.

However, I think that, despite the general move towards seeing a continuum between neurotypes, that the majority neurotype (neurotypical) will continue to be recognised as being such. For autism, the requirement of the condition having recognisably deleterious effects on the everyday life of the individual being necessary for clinical diagnosis, will continue to keep us somewhat distinct from the general population.

I wrote a long reply to you all yeserday evening and something happened and I lost everything but the last 2 letters I'd typed, so frustrating.

There are always problems with statistics, it depends so much on who's interpreting them and what the sample sizes are that they're working with. Reading Gina Rippon's book the Gendered Brain, showed me just how small sample sizes were and the huge assumptions made on the back of them. 

Who else should and could have input on diagnosis, apart from clinicians? They do seem rather limited by the diagnostic criteria and of course for some money and prestiege will be a huge motivator, drug companies really want to get in on the act and medicate us whilst making huge profits.

I wonder if some of the kick back we're seeing is from a very primal cause, humans in general seem to be very hostile to other hominids, in our deep past we seem to have out competed our hominid cousins, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, and problably a few others too. Are we a hidden other? Are we seen by NT's as competition?

How much do we actually know about what makes an NT brain typical? Is it like mental well being, something that nobody until fairly recently actually bothered researching because we all "knew" what is was, only it turns out we didn't really. Do we have a case like that in maternity services, where doctors only see the cases that go wrong and need massive intervention? Are out neurologists seeing enough brains, or are their sample sizes to small and they don't see enough "normal" brains.

One of the things we're repeatedly told is that we're a social species, but so many autists in particular want time away from people and choose how they interact. When I used to do silent retreats, a lot of people really freaked out, but others, wanted to come too, the idea of being able to finish one of your own thoughts from one end to the other without interuption, was seen as something valuable and beyond reach of many. I wonder if we all feel the need to be less social to have more space in our heads with less interuption, especially now smart devices take up so much attention. Not all of those people we ND by any stretch of the imagination.

How much could NT society learn from us ND's?

TheCatWoman said:

Are we seen by NT's as competition?

I think that to be competition we would need to be seem as rivals in some way.

To me it is more like we are viewed as defective - either we are weak (cannot cope with many aspects of everyday life easiy), inept (poor social skills often causing us to mess up) or just weird (stimming, odd ways of talking, info dumping, odd special interests etc).

Society seems to want to push out the defectives as we are uncomfortable to look at / deal with and who knows if it is infectious (seeing it from an uninformed laymans perspective).

Add the fact that recent press coverage is showing us collectively to be a net taker from society in terms of benefits and are becoming more associated with criminals, and finally that society has started to migrate to echo chambers of opinions courtesy of social media, it is little wonder we are becoming ever more excluded.

TheCatWoman said:

How much could NT society learn from us ND's?

Alas I don't think they are interested in learning from us as we are seen as defective. It would take enlightenment to see beyond our differences as this seems to be a trait dying off in the present social climate where we have such big issues as facism and wars becoming ever more present in everyday life.

I apologise if this comes across as negative but these are what I see influencing the situation you discuss.

It is negative, but valid, I think NT's do see us as defective and when they look at us WE LOOK JUST LIKE THEM! Hense the fear and distrust and in some cases a need to destroy just like we, homo spaiens destroyed or out competed other hominids and why as a species we find it so hard to accept that we're not the only sentient or intelligent species on the planet.

I agree that the few studies that have been done do show a different brain architecture, and you're right they are far to expensive and I suspect invasive to do on a large scale.

Ah yes, the dividing line between hard and soft sciences, is there a slightly spongey bit in the middle where we can all agree on and work outwards from? 

It is negative, but valid, I think NT's do see us as defective and when they look at us WE LOOK JUST LIKE THEM! Hense the fear and distrust and in some cases a need to destroy just like we, homo spaiens destroyed or out competed other hominids and why as a species we find it so hard to accept that we're not the only sentient or intelligent species on the planet.

I agree that the few studies that have been done do show a different brain architecture, and you're right they are far to expensive and I suspect invasive to do on a large scale.

Ah yes, the dividing line between hard and soft sciences, is there a slightly spongey bit in the middle where we can all agree on and work outwards from?