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Autism is not a learning difficulty

VLD

Why are autistic people still portrayed on websites as having learning difficulties etc? it is demeaning and is continuing the link between  learning difficulties and Autism. I am aware that some Autistic People have learning difficulties but, you know what, so do some non-autistic people. I am trying to help my bright and highly intelligent daughter who happens to be autistic but who will not have anything to do with organisations that think she has LDs. I even found one website that said that autistic people have communication incapacities. As I said I know some do but to perpetuate the myth that we are all Rain Man is grossly offensive. 

Parents

  • Autism has a number of different causes, the idea of an autism spectrum conveys that it has a wide range of outcomes in regard to how it affects individuals. In none of the diagnostic criteria guidelines is intellectual disability mentioned. Therefore, intellectual disability is not part of how autism is diagnosed. However, as recently as the 1990s the proportion of people diagnosed as autistic that also had intellectual disability was around 70%. Today it is around 30% and it will continue to fall as more people with less overt autism are diagnosed. Still, 30% is much higher than the rate for the general population, at 0.4-3%. So proportionally, much higher numbers of autistic people also have intellectual disability, though the relationship is not causal.

    As to difficulties in communication, this is a bedrock of autism diagnosis. The difficulties are varied but tend to be in the realms of non-verbal communication, though some autistics have problems with speaking, such as tone of voice, facial expression and body language. There is also a tendency to literalism, and problems with idiom, sarcasm, and banter. 

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  • Autism has a number of different causes, the idea of an autism spectrum conveys that it has a wide range of outcomes in regard to how it affects individuals. In none of the diagnostic criteria guidelines is intellectual disability mentioned. Therefore, intellectual disability is not part of how autism is diagnosed. However, as recently as the 1990s the proportion of people diagnosed as autistic that also had intellectual disability was around 70%. Today it is around 30% and it will continue to fall as more people with less overt autism are diagnosed. Still, 30% is much higher than the rate for the general population, at 0.4-3%. So proportionally, much higher numbers of autistic people also have intellectual disability, though the relationship is not causal.

    As to difficulties in communication, this is a bedrock of autism diagnosis. The difficulties are varied but tend to be in the realms of non-verbal communication, though some autistics have problems with speaking, such as tone of voice, facial expression and body language. There is also a tendency to literalism, and problems with idiom, sarcasm, and banter. 

Children
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