Threatened with the police and shouted at

Sounds like you had a very bad time of it. I think that the information on autism in the public domain describes something else, and people are generally unaware of issues like sensory overload and meltdowns.

The public hear bits of the triad - the three aspects the AQ test tests for - and is accepted by many as the familiar face of autism.

Sensory issues aren't in the public domain. Nor is the difficulty many have coping with the flood of sensory inputs and the distress it causes. And meltdowns - well to the public that must just be bad behaviour - attention seeking, making a scene. And it will stay that way until professionals and others supposed to be helping (including NAS) provide better expolanation of life with autism - as distinct from mere diagnostics.

This happens despite public incidents - we are only a couple of years down the road from the Metropolitan Police mishandling an incident at a swimming baths. You'd think the bad publicity they got at the time, that story would stick in the public mind.

Barbara Jacobs published a book "Loving Mr Spock - Asperger's Syndrome and How to make your relationship work" in 2003, and because it subsequently came out on Penguin Books, it is one of the most publicly visible books on the subject. She lists "sixty indications of asperger's syndrome" - there is just ONE that refers to meltdowns "20 There can be 'meltdowns' - tantrums caused by frustration". The only reference to sensory issues is "58 A tendancy to feel overloaded by social, emotional or sensory experience" but none of the 60 explain sensory issues.

So with that low level of understanding in the public domain, what chance has anyone on the spectrum got?

Then at the other end of things there is Simon Baron-Cohen (who carries out autism research using subjects who have received a private diagnosis at Cambridge in spite of the difficulties private diagnoses present compared to NHS diagnoses)  whose "Autism and Asperger Syndrome" published in 2008 solely mentions "sensory hypersensitivity" p 56 in respect of "noting details others do not".

Even Tony Attwood's "The complete guide to Asperger's Syndrome" has one paragraph p272-3 on sensory overload that is mostly about avoidance, and hardly anything on the distress caused, and nothing on meltdowns.

It just seems like sensory issues, sensory overload and meltdowns have nothing to do with autism. They just aren't discussed as part of the condition.

Yet many children have acute distress episodes in shopping malls and supermarkets, and many adults experience great difficulty in such environments (me included).

The problem is the appalling lever of ignorance amongst professionals about "living with autism" - the money goes on theories, cures and diagnostics. They don't care how hard it is to live with it.

And then no-one reads these postings except ourselves. NAS would have us used as a quarry for research, but do professionals read the evidence of those living with it. I doubt it

Sounds like you had a very bad time of it. I think that the information on autism in the public domain describes something else, and people are generally unaware of issues like sensory overload and meltdowns.

The public hear bits of the triad - the three aspects the AQ test tests for - and is accepted by many as the familiar face of autism.

Sensory issues aren't in the public domain. Nor is the difficulty many have coping with the flood of sensory inputs and the distress it causes. And meltdowns - well to the public that must just be bad behaviour - attention seeking, making a scene. And it will stay that way until professionals and others supposed to be helping (including NAS) provide better expolanation of life with autism - as distinct from mere diagnostics.

This happens despite public incidents - we are only a couple of years down the road from the Metropolitan Police mishandling an incident at a swimming baths. You'd think the bad publicity they got at the time, that story would stick in the public mind.

Barbara Jacobs published a book "Loving Mr Spock - Asperger's Syndrome and How to make your relationship work" in 2003, and because it subsequently came out on Penguin Books, it is one of the most publicly visible books on the subject. She lists "sixty indications of asperger's syndrome" - there is just ONE that refers to meltdowns "20 There can be 'meltdowns' - tantrums caused by frustration". The only reference to sensory issues is "58 A tendancy to feel overloaded by social, emotional or sensory experience" but none of the 60 explain sensory issues.

So with that low level of understanding in the public domain, what chance has anyone on the spectrum got?

Then at the other end of things there is Simon Baron-Cohen (who carries out autism research using subjects who have received a private diagnosis at Cambridge in spite of the difficulties private diagnoses present compared to NHS diagnoses)  whose "Autism and Asperger Syndrome" published in 2008 solely mentions "sensory hypersensitivity" p 56 in respect of "noting details others do not".

Even Tony Attwood's "The complete guide to Asperger's Syndrome" has one paragraph p272-3 on sensory overload that is mostly about avoidance, and hardly anything on the distress caused, and nothing on meltdowns.

It just seems like sensory issues, sensory overload and meltdowns have nothing to do with autism. They just aren't discussed as part of the condition.

Yet many children have acute distress episodes in shopping malls and supermarkets, and many adults experience great difficulty in such environments (me included).

The problem is the appalling lever of ignorance amongst professionals about "living with autism" - the money goes on theories, cures and diagnostics. They don't care how hard it is to live with it.

And then no-one reads these postings except ourselves. NAS would have us used as a quarry for research, but do professionals read the evidence of those living with it. I doubt it