Published on 12, July, 2020
I keep seeing posts here, that say that it is hard to "come out" because there are people who think that aspergers is not real.
Someone has just posted that people think aspergers "did not exist in my day". Someone else said that it was thought to be almost trendy to claim you have it, so formal diagnosis is vital. Misconceptions abound.
I am no good at sharp responses to this kind of dismissive remark. We do not think on our feet. Perhaps we should pool our ideas of what to say, when those around us are dismissive.
Sadly, the only thing I can think of sounds a little rude.
We used to be labeled geeks and wierdos. Now we are recognised as being on the autism specrum.
Can any one else do better please?
Six postings back, recombinantsocks took issue with me about my assertions about the Triad of Impairments three postings previous to his.
Aspiedent also pointed out the sensory issues that are given separately from the triad.
The original posting is about people who are dismissive about autistic spectrum disorders. They don't take it seriously because they don't understand it. If they do try to understand it, they mostly find the triad of impairments which doesn't include a lot of the behaviours they see. Most of the training available is centred on the triad.
Recombinantsocks argument was, as I understood it, that the triad defined his disability.
But does it? I'm not saying that the triad is wrong in what it contains. My issue is with what it doesn't contain. The reasons it doesn't cover many aspects of living with autism is that the exclusions could be confused with other conditions - and as the triad is a diagnostic tool, it necessarily excludes these.
Take for example sensory sensitivity. This is a big subject divided into hypo and hyper and affecting all the senses, with lots of exotic names. But stop and think for a moment - unusually sensitive hearing, including hearing things others cannot hear, such as voices, could be confused with schizophrenia. So for that reason it is not in the triad.
But read the postings on here and one of the biggest issues discussed is sensory sensitivity. How much is then conveyed in training packages?
Anxiety and depression are core features of autism, and may be directly related to autism. But they also occur in other mental health conditions. Hence they aren't part of the triad. Yet they make up a large component of discussions on this forum.
Meltdowns and seemingly over the top reactions to everyday events are something that puzzle other people. It is not explained in the triad, because it could occur on account of other mental health conditions. But it is a recurring topic on this forum.
Bullying is widely typical of the autism experience, but bullying isn't definitive enough for the triad.
I could go on and on.... but I just reiterate, the triad is a diagnostic tool, not a blueprint for living with autism.
NAS relies too much on the triad, and often misses important understandings of autism. Take for example body language, explained at the start of their "What is Asperger Syndrome" section, but oddly not at the start of their "what is autism" section. This explains that difficulty reading body language affects out communication skills.
What it doesn't mention, which is just as vital, is our ability to generate the correct body language to support what we are saying,. It isn't just that we cannot read facial expressions properly, we cannot produce the right facial expressions that other people expect to see in order to follow the underlying intention of what we say verbally.
And that failure to generate the correct facial expression is what other people notice. If they look it up on the web, they wont find it explained, certainly not on the NAS website.
So from what they can find out, nothing explains lack of meaningful facial expression, meltdowns, anxiety, over-sensitivity, being easily taken advantage of......
Hence people are dismissive about ASD because most of what they see isn't explained as part of autism!
'nuf said......?