Does anyone else hate it when people say "everyone's on the spectrum"?

Well every body sometimes does not bother about other people's feellings either intentionally or on purpose.

It is just that Autistic people do the things mentioned more often on the NAS leaflets.

The difference between people with Asperger Syndrome at the highest functioning end of the spectrum and so called normal people is only a matter of degree than a real difference.   Autistic people and so called normal people the difference is obviously greater. Normal people equals NT.

David.

I have two relatives with MS and they are at very different stages of the illness. One is wheelchair bound and relies on carers for toiletting and dressing etc. The other can work part-time and care for themselves. Same illness, different degrees of disability. That is a bit how I see being on the Autism spectrum.

Believe me, people can be just as insensitive about MS. The 'I know someone with MS who just climbed Everest/bungee jumped in South Africa/ran the Marathon get just as tedious as the inane comments people make about Autism.I think people just don't know what to say or how to react.

I agree with 280JJ that teenagers are particularly insensitive, but also very insecure themselves. Even those who appear to be popular/have it all are often plagued by self-doubt. I heard someone talking recently about how when they were part of the 'in crowd' they spent all their time worrying about how to stay in the in-crowd.

My son used not to be bothered about socialising. Now he is, and has discovered just how fickle so-called NT teenagers can be. In fact he seems much more mature than his peers.

Please don't leave. I totally understood why you posted as you did and you did come across as a caring mother to me. I nearly left this forum a while back because of some fo the posts I read, but I have learnt now to be selective about what I read and respond to.

There are lots of parents of younger children with AS/Autism who wlecome hearing from parents of older children. (My son is 18 and has AS).

...... its the assumptions that people make (NT's especially) that bugs me - thinking they know when they don't........

Hi there,

Thank you all for keeping this reasonably organised. 280JJ, I'd encourage you not to leave on the basis of this one incident - but please think of the context when you start posting to an existing thread. Other users - please don't be too hard on newcomers. Let's keep things civil, and where possible, friendly.

Thanks!

Alex R - mod

The thread is about people making light of autism such as by saying "we are all on the spectrum".

I may have been hasty, but my reactions were more to do with the content. The poster may not have realised there's a minimum age limit and there just wouldn't be a child on here making that statement. But I did find it hard, in the context of what is often said by professionals and public alike, seeing prases like:

"As you get older, vacuous things become - well, more vacuous". Probably not for people on the autistic spectrum for reasons explained.

"you will get your day when you get a bit older" - again reflects the general misunderstanding about autism/aspergers being something you grow out of.

I agree that using Neuro-typical to refer to attitudes of people who don't seem to understand autism properly is a bit strong at times. There are other posts putting stronger.

I understand the poster intended to be helpful and not patronising and condescending, and I apologise for any hurt caused.

Most of my response addressed the issues here. While children sometimes flourish in early teens, and all things willing go on to get better, many don't, either through a crisis, or encountering new setbacks.

There is a lot of misunderstanding of autism, and for the sake of young people growing up, as well as adults trying to survive, we need to do everything possible to get the right information out front.

I would actually be quite touched if someone addressed me as "my lovely". It's not something you see written down a lot, and it sounds very affectionate. The important thing is the intention, and since the intention in this case clearly wasn't to offend I see no problem.

I agree with Azalea, please don't leave.  There is room for all points of view on a forum but the difficulty is that when one only reads the words rather than seeing someone saying those words, it's very easy to misunderstand or misinterpret a post.  That's the reason why many posters use emoticons to kind of "soften" what they are saying or make it clear that in real life it would be said with a laugh or a smile.

When I saw the words "my lovely" I assumed the writer came from Cornwall, not that she was being condescending. 

The  patronising bit, even if unintentional, was the opening sentence, 'you know what my lovely'. It looks like you are talking down on her in a diminutive fashion, as though she were a little girl. If you had opened your post in a more tactful way, then what you write would not have appeared condescending. It was the wording and tone, more than the argument, that annoyed me.

Please, 280JJ, don't leave just because of this one incident. I feel Scorpion and Longman pounced on you a little there, and there was no need. There's nothing condescending about your post at all in my opinion, it just comes across as a well-meant, compassionate post. And I speak as an Aspie girl only a couple of years older than the original poster to whom your post was (rather obviously, you two) directed.

It's not surprising you made a mistake, since you're new to the site, and you're not to be beaten up for that. Not everyone picks these things up immediately.

Yes I am very new on here and I didn't see the rest of the thread.  I thought it was the first of a new post and yes, I did read it as a teenager feeling down and isolated, particularly from groups with interests s/he didn't share or get.  While I've now looked again and seen this thread is about something completely different and therefore how out of place my post is, 

After the above, reading around, I discovered another post by yourself, on telling children about their diagnosis.

So to correct my assumptions you are a mother of a 14 yearold with autism, but I was also accurate to criticise your perspective, which comes over, aside from being extraordinarily condescending and patronising (even if I had been a youngster making a cry for help as you assumed), as blinkered neurotypical failure to understand what this is about.

You don't grow out of it. Its not a temporary hiccup in social relations. The social interaction, and many other problems stay with you for life. Given the right stimuli and support to build self confidence many people grow stronger and you can lead a productive life if you get good coping strategies and no damaging negative aspects.

However because it tends towards crises, someone flourishing can hit an insurmountable obstacle and regress dramatically. As has been said on other threads, suicide is a common occurrence, consequential mental health problems, alcoholism, drug abuse, problems with the law.

The point about the thread we are on here is about people dismissing the difficulties of autism on the grounds everyone's on the spectrum, so people with a diagnosis are nothing special (and often implied when this is said, that we are immature, inadequate, not trying hard enough - OR I guess from your perspective WE FAILED TO GROW OUT OF IT!).

Please please, for your own child's sake, read up a bit more on the implications.

I was responding to Scorpion0x17's comments, 280JJ, not making a desperate appeal for help. Your profile is new, less than 9 hours as I write this, and I do not know if you are a person with autism, or a parent of a person with autism, or perhaps neither.

I'm 62, retired from education, with asperger's but also many years helping people with asperger's. Things get more vaccuus my lovely if your brain slows down making connections once you are in your twenties, which is why NTs tend to become more fixed in their ways, and their "edges knocked off". The FACT is that people with autism don't slow down on making connections, they have to work harder on social processes, and they continue to have great difficulties because they cannot adjust properly socially. Hence my first paragraph.

The point in my second and third paragraphs is that children and teens on the spectrum don't generally mix socially and therefore do not partake adequately in these developmental stages which has adverse effects for life.

We all hope these discussion threads help others. This is a discussion forum about people with autism and those who care for them.

Perhaps you could elaborate on your standpoint, given you have demonstrated a characteristically neurotypical perspective that shows no understanding of autism.

Could you be any more condescending, 280JJ?

You know what my lovely, as hard as it might seem to you to imagine, all these differences in you and your peers right now will diminish somewhat when you get older and when you have more life experience.  I get completely how must feel for you right now, but as you get older, vacuous things become - well more vacuous, and the intrinsic things about people (their humour, knowledge, general intelligence etc), their important and mature qualities come more into play. This is when you will come into your fore...

life is intrinsically more difficult for an ASD child/young adult but you will get your day when you get a bit older.  Those suoerficialities will become just that and when you're an adult, there will still be things you find harder but you will find a lot more people immediately available in practical terms who you will click with and find life easier with.

all my best to you xxx

Why do people on the autistic spectrum suffer so much in childhood and teens? Well I gather that's when most of these connections develop. As we gerow older we are supposed to acquire a satisfactory pattern for life. People on the autistic spectrum remain more active longer in making connections.

What else happens in childhood and teenage years - we have peer groups, with collective behaviours and rituals and commonalities, especially in teens. It is in these peer groups that much of the learning for new connections take place.

Where are children and teenagers when these collective connections are being made?

Stonechat said:

Doesn't that degree of disability/inability/disadvantage manifest itself in each of us at different levels?

Exactly.

And is it therefore really so far fetched that the varience in disability, inability, and disadvantage extends beyond the "Autistic Spectrum" to lesser and lesser degrees well into, and in fact completely across, the full gamut of neuro-diversity that encompases both the Autistic and NT brains?

Or, in other words, is it not a little far fetched that it does not?

Stonechat said:

As I understand it our brains are made differently - with many more connections than an NT brain.

So there is a fundamental difference there, which does make our brains operate in a different way to an NT brain.

Two points about this:

1. It is not the simply the case that our brains have "many more connections than an NT brain". There is evidence that some people on the spectrum have hyper-connectivity in some areas of the brain. There is also evidence that some people on the spectrum have hypo-connectivity in some areas of the brain. It is not as simple as "all people on the autistic spectrum have hyper-connectivity and all NTs don't" - I've not seen any information on it, but I suspect that many NTs have both hyper- and hypo-connectivity as well.

2. Saying that hyper- and/or hypo-connectivity is a "fundamental difference" is just plain wrong. All humans start life with a massively hyper-connected brain, and a combination of experience and genetics pairs these connections away as we develop to differing degress in each and every individual. The resultant degree of connectivity between the different areas of the adult brain, thereby varies greatly between individuals both Autsitic and not.

This is like saying that straight-2 engine is fundamentally different to a V-8 - it is not, one has 2 cylinders aligned in the same direction, the other has 8 cylinders arranged in two banks of 4 that are aligned in a V formation. They are both internal combustion engines, and both use the same fundemental physical and chemical processes to work. The only difference is the positioning and number of the engine's cylinders. Such a difference is difference of degree not of type or nature.

Yes, our brains are wired differently to NTs, but that is not the same as saying our brains are fundamentally different to an NTs brains. We don't have any extra circuits, and neither do NTs. We do have differing degrees of connectivity between those circuits, but we each, within the Autistic spectrum, have differing degress of connectivity between those circuits also!

In other words, we are as alike and different to each other, as we are to everyone else (i.e. NTs) and the same can be said about them!

Don't make the mistake of assuming that your perception of your difference to others in any way reflects the true nature of that difference, because, quite frankly, it almost certainly does not.

(And, yes, that last sentence applies equally to me - because I do also feel fundamentally different, but a study of the facts has shown me that I am not)

Doesn't that degree of disability/inability/disadvantage manifest itself in each of us at different levels?

My own experience is that I am not disabled and do not feel disabled. In fact I am very able and feel I have advantages over neurotypical people in many ways. 

I am however, disadvantaged in certain ways - in sensory and communication matters and in having dyspraxia. But none of these have prevented me from gaining a Degree and working. Despite the difficulties I have had whilst doing these things, there is no way I would want to be transformed into being neuro-typical. 

I appreciate that some people with AS are not able to do as much as I have, because of their difficulties - my own sibling for one. It is a different experience for all of us. Perhaps this is why the professionals have such a problem in spotting that we have an AS and in treating us.

I agree.  We are neurologically different from neurotypicals. We experience a profound disconnection from their world, due to our 'self state' (the literal translation of  'aut-ism'). Our brains are different, and this is the basis behind our disability.