Functioning Labels - Open Discussion

Hey Everyone,

I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on functioning labels I see a lot of videos and posts on various social media pages. That are of the view that are a bad thing that segregates people within the autistic community. To be honest I'm not sure how I feel about it, I'm not sure I care enough to pass judgment on the topic. I do understand the purpose of them because there are autistic that can live independently with minimal to no help from all the way up to people that need full time round the clock care and everyone in-between.

I would never judge or treat any autistic person differently if they were for example nonverbal vs someone like myself who would be considered high functioning. I guess I just don't necessarily understand why there seems to be a of distaste towards functioning labels.

  • hi welcome to this forum Slight smile

    Everyone says it shouldn't define you but i found it pretty had to ignore how different I am in theory. 

     Zen teaches me to not to blame others for your problems, not to be dualist in your thinking eg a them  and us approach.

    There are many autistics who believe they are an autistic in a Neurotypical world. This type of thinking leads to further damage. 

     

  • Hidden autism, as someone recently diagnosed late in life i quite liked this term. I became interested in the subject supporting a colleague leading a neurodiversity group within the company. As I structured the work and read the research the patterns matched so following some online, then a formal assessment. You get told 'you are on the spectrum'. So that comes with a whole new identity you did not have before. So I now understand why my visual observation skills are different (would happily walk between two other people talking, and do) and the strengths that allowed me to have a fairly successful career. But what next? How should this define me? 

  • I'm sorry to hear that you've had such bad experiences :( I can relate, it's so difficult to get adequate support and the NHS is rubbish for helping. It also takes a lot of spoons to fight for being seen, which we don't always have.

    I've also had to fight a lot for everything - for my diagnosis (it took me years), for my benefits also... ironically I wasn't taken seriously *because* I'm "high-functioning". At one point I was homeless, living in a hostel and getting food from the food bank. It took me 8 months of screaming and shouting to get my benefits sorted, which wiped me out.

  • I think capitalism is significantly involved. 

    It's to do with whether they can leave you t to scrape the bottom of your own barrel and if you can shout loud and long enough to get the help you need. 

    I'm "high functioning". Got a 1st class degree in teaching maths n all dat. Doesn't mean I can cope the same as others, or that I don't need support.

    I'm currently unemployed after having a major bout of (burn out /shut down) depression. 

    I can't shout for help.

    I can't bring myself to make demands.

    If it hadn't been for my partner doing all the shouting and demanding on my behalf, I'd have just kept getting worse and worse until I did actually manage to kill myself.

    There is no perfect system.

    Our NHS is being compartmentalised and sold off to tory approved capitalist money-grubbing profiteering bullies who've only ever known what it is to ride roughshod over everyone in order to get what they want.

    Someone else started a discussion called something like the NT world is a disaster. I agree. I think I should leave this thread now. I'm beginning to remind myself of the futility of existence. Sorry. 


  • Sorry - I get confused by the way you lay out your posts - I find it very hard to read with the disjointed and multiple quotes, lines, comments, bold and regular type all together.

    Apology so not required ~ I was enjoying the discussion with you and was only surprised and question mark over head for moment, if you would like to continue on with it as a discussion, I very much enjoy different perspectives on things, but only in the sense of each perspective being like as if one of the four rectangular or two of the square sides of a cuboid, in the integral sense of what is being discussed.  

    I have never though had much or any interest in the modernised ego-cult misnomers of debates ~ where someone or some group is arguing to be right and prove the other wrong, but rather where everybody increases and more integrates their sense of knowledge, understanding and comprehension, with problems having become solutions or discussions to be continued. 

    Regarding the "disjointed" thing of my posts ~ it involves in part converting written monologues into written dialogues, as practice for socially reciprocated exchanges verbally.

    For the main part though ~ the "disjointed" thing involves the 'fragmentations' of my mind that give multitudinous perspectives and points of view, due to stress induced seizures from the age of 3, and bullying induced Schizotypal Personal Disorder from the age of 11 going on 12 ~ so in a 'Me, Myself and I' sense (rather than the schizophrenic Rod, Jane and Freddy sense) it is actually like a busy cloned geek convention in my body here, so perhaps be glad you only get the summary highlights, and the abridged versions at that!

    The "quotation" thing involves being unable to recollect like I can verbally the actual statements written due to dysgraphia (with symbols morphing in my mind like with B becoming 8 and 6 becoming 9 etcetera, etcetera, etcetera), so being able to refer to each word, sentence or paragraph actually as written just above ~ is so very much easier than scrolling up and down again and again repeatedly between the post and reply boxes, with transformations aplenty.

    Regarding the "bold type" problem ~ sorted. I always used to by hand write quoted text in a different colour or bold for ease of reference, and on the internet using bold text to represent original authorship as being prominent and mine not so prominent ~ much like on this site's quotations with the bold left-side border-strip. 


  • Sorry - I get confused by the way you lay out your posts - I find it very hard to read with the disjointed and multiple quotes, lines, comments, bold and regular type all together.


  • "How very dare you ~ you exepleting this, that and the other; lording your higher functioning superiority over those of us with lower functioning autism for being inferior with our understanding of others, and that we should be prepared to get hurt ~ on a blood-covered support website for vulnerable Autistic people!!! Expleting get a grip you expleting so and so!!!"  

    I can't tell if you're being serious or not - if you are, then you're complaining about not being able to walk by a pride of Lions and how dare they eat you. 


    Yes I am being entirely serious ~ but your ideological map is not the sociological territory I am describing to you.

    I have just been describing other perspectives that have had relevance for other people, and the consequential realities that were involved for them.

    This has not been an argument about your perspective nor either a complaint, keeping in mind that the topic of this thread is "Functioning Labels - Open Discussion" and this is what I have been "discussing" with you in terms of what I have borne witness to.

    My sincere apologies for giving any impression that this discussion was anything other than objective observation and comparison involving past events. :-)


  • "How very dare you ~ you exepleting this, that and the other; lording your higher functioning superiority over those of us with lower functioning autism for being inferior with our understanding of others, and that we should be prepared to get hurt ~ on a blood-covered support website for vulnerable Autistic people!!! Expleting get a grip you expleting so and so!!!"  

    I can't tell if you're being serious or not - if you are, then you're complaining about not being able to walk by a pride of Lions and how dare they eat you.   Don't they know you're low functioning?     Someone should force Lions to know they are not allowed to attack you.      Oh,,and to not be Lions.

    How dare these high functioning people have the sense to avoid the situation.    It's so unfair.    

    There's a real world out there.   The very best parents can do is prepare their children to avoid danger - and these days, that's a little more effort that The Tufty Club.

    Humans are the top apex predator.   No amount of wishing people would be nice is going to change that.       Pretending people are 'evolved' doesn't make it so.

    And banning people pointing it out seems to be somewhat ostrich-like.


  • But it's the internet - and it's all written words so it's impossible to get across all the intended meanings and people take things the wrong way - often intentionally - there's always going to be professional victims, white knights, trolls and the rest of the typical flora and fauna hanging around a forum.

    Well for those that become the target for other people's verbal or also physical abuse ~ as the most consistent theme of their education, it is hardly surprising that normalised abuse involves persecutors, victims and saviours as social careers. 
    .
    It is important to add I feel that the social persecutor, victim and saviour roles are compulsive disorders involving unconscious, subconscious and preconscious drivers ~ as being Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms ~ that can take anything from a couple of months to a couple of decades to reign in, otherwise therapeutically it's supportive management.

    I feel sorry for the people who are less internet-savvy and feel it's all real and take it all seriously.

    It's a good reflection of society irl - if you choose to take part, prepare to get hurt. 


    Well, for the hypersensitive, i.e., still 'red' raw and psychologically and physiologically traumatised and volatile ~ that is the particular type of response that some people tend to react somewhat strongly to, with the following being a summative paraphrase of the sort:
    .
    "How very dare you ~ you exepleting this, that and the other; lording your higher functioning superiority over those of us with lower functioning autism for being inferior with our understanding of others, and that we should be prepared to get hurt ~ on a blood-covered support website for vulnerable Autistic people!!! Expleting get a grip you expleting so and so!!!"  
    .
    And then happens all the stuff with people getting tribal on the 'How-very-dare-they!' and the 'Just-get-real-dismissive!' sides of things, with people either observing, following, supporting or engaging with the angry or upset exchanges, and moderators having to lock threads, delete posts and entire threads with community members getting banned, ending their memberships, dying from the stress of it all, or committing suicide. 
    .
    Hence me stating, "Yikes!"
    .
    The main difficulties of course are literal all or nothing black or white thinking, post traumatic stress disorder generated interpretative bias, and difficulty or inability in conceptualising other people's psychological thought systems.
    .
    People often forget to appreciate this, and hence when it gets argumentative, everyone involved I feel should be able to post one of these:


    Which I think is entirely appropriate given the nature of being on the autistic spectrum ~ and having social interaction, imagination and communication difficulties, to whichever extent and whatever degree.

  • The world is just one huge hospital; hence the need to triage.

  • Oh ok, I didn't realise that! I thought it had something to do with having a job.

  • I work with children who have Special Educational Needs, the terms high and low functioning are generally used with regards to communication. That is not whether they are verbal or not, but an ability to communicate needs. It also refers to cognition, whether a child has the ability to learn, and the length of time it takes to learn a new skill. There are also other factors involved.

    I'm only providing a professional perspective, nothing more, and no offence is meant by this.

    As to ability to look after oneself, I have met many NTs who do not have any form of learning disability, that I'm surprised even remember how to breathe. Where the phrase " not having two brain cells to rub together" is rather apt.

  • Strictly speaking we aught to talk about autistic people vs autistic people with intellectual disability, however since the later is generally held to outnumber the former no one ever bothers to add the 'with intellectual disability' bit on the end in the same way that you rarely hear anyone refer to someone as having low functioning autism. It is unfortunate that we need to tack something on the end of autism to differentiate us from those who have both autism and I.D. but we do. Otherwise we'll never be able to educate the kind of people who go around saying 'but you don't look autistic.'

    Our life courses and needs are radically different from those with low functioning autism. Consider Maslows triangle of needs. It's obvious to those around them that they need help with physical needs, food, housing, healthcare etc. By extension it becomes obvious that they need help with their social needs and while its often addressed in an infantilised way it is generally addressed.

    By comparison high functioning autistic people can, assuming they have money, feed themselves, pay rent, remember to lock the door, understand how to visit their gp if they are sick etc. High functioning people can work independently with little assistance. It's actually working in a group or getting through the interview process for the job in the first place that's really tricky. High functioning autistic people have profound needs that are, very different from low functioning autistic people, and unlike them, completely non obvious. With out a label it's difficult to educate people about that.

    Upon reflection maybe the term 'hidden autism' would be better.

  • It's got nothing to do with capitalism - it's purely about being able to look after yourself or not.

  • I know what you mean by this plastic, our son is considered 'high functioning' he is in mainstream school and yes compared to a lot of other people on the spectrum like you he is both 'high functioning' and 'low functioning' with certain aspects of his life, but with the problems that he does have there is no real support and you are just left to your own devices!

  • I don't particularly like the label "high-functioning", because it basically means "good enough at masking/able to hold down a job to be a valuable asset under capitalism". Also, it's all relative. I for example appear high-functioning because I am well-spoken, but I can't hold down a job. I prefer the terms "high support" and "low support".

  • But it's the internet - and it's all written words so it's impossible to get across all the intended meanings and people take things the wrong way - often intentionally - there's always going to be professional victims, white knights, trolls and the rest of the typical flora and fauna hanging around a forum.

    I feel sorry for the people who are less internet-savvy and feel it's all real and take it all seriously.

    It's a good reflection of society irl - if you choose to take part, prepare to get hurt.  Disappointed


  • I've never, ever heard people called high or low functioning as an insult.

    Some wrote major negating comments about the low-functioning not applying themselves and the like ~ which is highly insulting for those who have broken down trying and gotten somewhat traumatised in the process too, whilst others wrote that high-functioning elitists are this, that and the other involving expletives and defamations and all that a aplenty also. :-(


  • I've never, ever heard people called high or low functioning as an insult.


  • who gets to call who high, medium or low functioning

    It's pretty obvious in most cases - one only has to attend autism social groups to see the dynamics and who will need more support compared to others.


    Of course yes when it comes to social groups involving in-person 'person-to-person' interactions, whereas on the internet it can be a very different state of affairs ~ such as for instance the most capable writers and advisors being very much indeed socially and physically disabled, and when people who are socially caustic get really jealous and frustrated about the other person's popularity and support from others on the website ~ quite malicious insults about high and low functioning can ensue with loads of people getting caught up in argumentative firestorms of fury through however many threads.

    Yikes! :-(


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