Published on 12, July, 2020
Diuscssion on a Facebook group:
According to someone, if you're high functioning, you're mild and the terms high functioning (which according a friend who is a GP, means you have speech and the low functioning person doesn't) and low functioning are offensive. She then said she uses mild Autism to describe those of us who are high functioning.
I do find the term "mild Autism" inaccurate and offensive. I may be high functioning, but am certainly not mild. Then there's the low functioning person who in some situations, may be able to cope better than the high functioning person and vice versa.
I have a feeling the same person who said this, also once said that Autism is just a personality difference. I beg to differ.
I was always lead to believe that if you're classed as mild, (any medical condition) you have very few problems / it doesn't require any medical intervention.
I agree. I hate the term 'mild'; everyone has their own challenges unique to them, and by using the term 'mild' it somehow trivialises the problems faced. Some people do have more support needs in certain areas, and I think the terms low functioning and high functioning are here to stay, but 'mild' does not really mean anything.
I hate it when people say mild Aspergers/autism. I agree there is no such thing. Environment has a huge effect and immediately it becomes adverse, watch that person quickly regress. I also hate the "high-functioning" terminology, because that also implies there are only mild traits and you can function pretty much normally. Just because you don't have an intellectual deficit doesn't mean all your other traits are mild or high-functioning. You can be extremely rigid, prone to melting down frequently, have horrendous sensory issues etc. etc. but be a virtual savant. This is why those with HFA/AS are seen as not really disabled and not in need of support.
I have argued elsewhere that there are dangers in thinking of this as a spectrum. It is certainly not a nice steady linear gradient.
Also I think some elements are common right across the spectrum and severity is possibly more due to the combinations of other factors. I certainly don't consider all the symptoms/manifestations to increase uniformyly as you go up the scale.
Of the basic elements, I suspect most people with Asperger's or autism have poor eye contact, don't pick up on non-verbal inferences in conversation, are slow at following conversations, and may be perceived, as a consequence, as lacking empathy. This also affects how they communicate with others.
Also most people have some sort of sensory "bottleneck" in terms of processing information in their environment and some level of sensitivity. With increasing sensitivity this is certainly contributory to more severe autism, inducing acute discomfort and pain, and consequent overload. But some people at the "mild" end get a lot of distress in this way.
Most people have organisational, focus and routine issues. That again ramps up with severity, but not uniformly.
It is a shame that this expression "mild" has caught on, because it can only be because those that use the term don't have a clue what they are talking about (which category sadly includes way too many health professionals who darned well ought to know better!).
I have (according to my consultant) mild asthma. I still use a brown inhaler twice a day and a blue one when I need it, but compared to people who end up hospitalised with it, yes it is mild.
Using that analogy there must surely be people whose ASD could be classified as mild. My son has AS. It does affect him certainly, but as long as we give him the space he needs and do not put extra pressure on him, he copes remarkably well. (This was not always the case I might add). So someone looking at him now would probably say his AS was mild (especially when compared with what he was like during his early teenage years).
That does not mean he doesn't have it, or that he is 'cured' but that he, and we, have learnt to deal with it much better.