had assesment - still not right

Unfortunately experience of life enables people to compensate and this doesn't seem to have registered with the medical profession. They look for diagnostics designed for children in adults who must in some ways have adapted.

Eye contact is a prime example. I look at people's mouths (why I don't know - I cannot lip read and it wouldn't serve any purpose as I can hear; mouths aren't comfortable visual targets but the eyes are still a problem).

One of the conflict areas for people on the spectrum is over paying attention, looking at people when you speak to them or are being spoken to. As a potential source of friction, many adults attempt to look roughly in the direction of the eyes without engaging, because doing so gains some element of approval rather than conflict. It stands to reason a lot of adults must be looking broadly at the face.

Unfortunately the medical profession seem obsessed with "gaze aversion" - the actual avoidance of eye contact, which is more likely to occur in children and is an obvious trait. Once you are looking broadly in the right direction it must be very hard to determine whether or not eye contact is being made - the "aversion" is in the nature of a very slight deflection. So because there is no "gaze aversion" that means the person has eye contact - apparently.

How this simple fact can be conveyed to health professionals is beyond me. But they persist in this naiive concept, which to me demonstrates inflexibility and ignorance.

Again understanding of metaphors as you suggest, must be affected by learned understanding as distinct from interpretation. The confusion possibly arises because people on the spectrum do not receive the inferential information conveyed by their peers - consequently they do not become aware of the difference between metaphor and fact as easily. But over time that must change.

But diagnosis is based on what works for children must work for adults! Does intelligence come into medical training? Or is it just follow what it says in the book?

This business of having friends is also perplexingly naiive. People on the spectrum have difficulty forming and sustaining close friendships and relationships because of social interaction difficulties, understanding non-verbal communication, and responding in the right way. I don't think it means they are incapable of forming friendships. Because people on the spectrum are likely to be less familiar with the bonds formed between neurotypicals so their interpretation of "friend" is likely tio be different.

However it seems health professionals cannot grasp the subtelties of this themselves. So all someone on the spectrum has to say is "yes they have friends" and the textbook led health professional reads itt simplistically.

We are usually the oners accused of black and white thinking. But it is the deficiency in perceptive thinking that prevents health professionals from diagnosing properly. Maybe we'd be better off with computer diagnosticians.

Unfortunately experience of life enables people to compensate and this doesn't seem to have registered with the medical profession. They look for diagnostics designed for children in adults who must in some ways have adapted.

Eye contact is a prime example. I look at people's mouths (why I don't know - I cannot lip read and it wouldn't serve any purpose as I can hear; mouths aren't comfortable visual targets but the eyes are still a problem).

One of the conflict areas for people on the spectrum is over paying attention, looking at people when you speak to them or are being spoken to. As a potential source of friction, many adults attempt to look roughly in the direction of the eyes without engaging, because doing so gains some element of approval rather than conflict. It stands to reason a lot of adults must be looking broadly at the face.

Unfortunately the medical profession seem obsessed with "gaze aversion" - the actual avoidance of eye contact, which is more likely to occur in children and is an obvious trait. Once you are looking broadly in the right direction it must be very hard to determine whether or not eye contact is being made - the "aversion" is in the nature of a very slight deflection. So because there is no "gaze aversion" that means the person has eye contact - apparently.

How this simple fact can be conveyed to health professionals is beyond me. But they persist in this naiive concept, which to me demonstrates inflexibility and ignorance.

Again understanding of metaphors as you suggest, must be affected by learned understanding as distinct from interpretation. The confusion possibly arises because people on the spectrum do not receive the inferential information conveyed by their peers - consequently they do not become aware of the difference between metaphor and fact as easily. But over time that must change.

But diagnosis is based on what works for children must work for adults! Does intelligence come into medical training? Or is it just follow what it says in the book?

This business of having friends is also perplexingly naiive. People on the spectrum have difficulty forming and sustaining close friendships and relationships because of social interaction difficulties, understanding non-verbal communication, and responding in the right way. I don't think it means they are incapable of forming friendships. Because people on the spectrum are likely to be less familiar with the bonds formed between neurotypicals so their interpretation of "friend" is likely tio be different.

However it seems health professionals cannot grasp the subtelties of this themselves. So all someone on the spectrum has to say is "yes they have friends" and the textbook led health professional reads itt simplistically.

We are usually the oners accused of black and white thinking. But it is the deficiency in perceptive thinking that prevents health professionals from diagnosing properly. Maybe we'd be better off with computer diagnosticians.