Published on 12, July, 2020
This is my first post in this discussion.
It might soon be possible to discover if someone is Autistic by a brain scan.
There is information about the new brain scan on the web site and the articles were written last year in 2010. Anyone can look it up for themselves on the web.
The computer can tell small differences in the brain so tell if the person is on the Autistic Spectrum.
It would be much quicker than interviewing the person.
I do not know if a person would count as Autistic if they behaved as though they were but the brain scan did not show Autism.
People in that situation might be denied help if they did not count as Autistic.
In the 1980s I was told that the brain scans did not detect anything wrong with my brians. People who knew me were not impressed.
I have since done brain scans for research the idea being to find out by scanning many Autistic people if their brains are different from Non Autistic people.
That research might have helped them develop the new brain scan.
Do you think the new brain scan will be a good thing when it is developed?
What would you feel if the brain scan found that your were not Autistic?
David
Once this invention is in full use the definition of Autism might change.
At the moment it is defined by behaviour.
If we had the brain scan they might say that one is Autistic if it shows in the scan
and if it does not show in the scan they might say that Autistic like behaviour is not Autism.
According to the American rules one is only supposed to be labelled Autistic if the symptoms started before the age of three and one was born with Autism.
If one developed Autism as a result of an accident that would not count as Autistic.
Over twenty years ago I helped in a class of adults with people with learning difficulties.
There was a man from the Merchant Navy who could not speak and could not even find his way round the room. He caught an infection at sea which caused his condition.
I remember he squeezed my hand hard.
Worse than the others in the class who were born with Learning Difficulties.
Well according to those rules he would not count as Autistic altough he cannot communicate.