Published on 12, July, 2020
Can I please ask a question about autism in children, I was trained that autism is invisible, you cannot see it which is why it is hard to diagnose, but I have a friend who works as a support worker for disabled adults, and she is constantly telling my my child’s autism is not as severe as the people she works with, but I do know disabled adults and children who are deaf, and other major disabilities some get diagnosed with Asd, but I wonder is she just thinking this because she is blind to it and thinking those people she works with she associated their disabilities with Asd how people should look, I find it very difficult at times when I feel she is advising me, my lil boy doesn’t speak and uses pecs but she feels his needs r not great at all, I feel she is blind to his appearance and doesn’t understand what we go through
Autism's a spectrum by definition, and a complex one at that. It's not even a straight line of 'severity' you can fall somewhere on, it's a whole slew of spectrums all jammed together (sensory, executive functioning, communication, etc.) so an autistic person can be pretty much in-line with a neurotypical person in some ways and completely different in others. And the next autistic person might be completely the other way, or mildly divergent in everything. Sometimes a person (child or adult) is so good at hiding their autistic traits it can be truly invisible most of the time. In certain situations a person who usually expresses many obvious autistic traits may temporarily display none at all. Her experience might well be colouring her advice. As a support worker she is going to spend a lot of time with the people who find it incredibly hard to function in the everyday NT-centered environment. Doesn't make the people who are capable of masking through extreme effort or who don't experience the sensory effects in the same way (for example) any less autistic though. It is really difficult when you don't feel people understand, but I hope it's a bit of a comfort to know that at least in this forum you have a whole range of people who have been there, in one way or another. :)
Many of us despair at the perennial tropes:
"You can't be autistic, you don't <<insert stereotypical pigeon hole>>"
This is one of the many pages about children upon the official NAS site:
https://www.autism.org.uk/about/diagnosis/children.aspx
...There are a lot of options, and digressions, yet suitably you ask a lot of different questions in your Opening Post, and when it comes to "children", there is a lot of information, and on this NAS page there is a sort of start, anyway. (Maybe.)