Mumsnet Talk

I just wondered what people thought of this:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21029593

load of bollocks.
just means that they have learnt to manage their disability

Threesocks is my hero

Yes utterly agree, it's rubbish. You don't grow out of autism, you learn coping strategies which allow you perhaps to fit in a little more. Some people with autism are better at this than others and blend in easily, others are not so good and will always be slightly and obviously out of step.

Someone clearly has no fucking clue what they're talking about.

Utter Bollocks.

Really interesting but aload of shite my boy is 18 and easier to manage most of the time but he still has huge needs in comparism to NT kids don't believe everything you see on the news or read in the paper.

to threesocks

spot fucking on

Hmm, interesting. To be fair the article does state that it may be due to children learning to compensate for their difficulties.

When ds1 was 18 months old through to about 6 or 7 I was very concerned that he might be autistic but was too scared to go down the route of diagnosis With hindsight, looking at home video recordings and having had children since, I would say that he was very definitely different from other children and did exhibit lots of signs of ASD. As he's got older these signs have diminished massively and he copes very well with life generally. Don't know whether he grew out of it, or just learn to act more NT

You dont "grow out " of autism. My son showed differences early on and it was picked up everywhere not just at home. So if a child seems different to siblings then it might just be due to a different personality. If nobody else is commenting though then the child is not displaying those traits elsewhere. My son never fitted in.

Tiny case sample, dubious methodology. The real evil is that it lends support to those fools who think that there's no such thing as autism, it's just badly behaved and badly brought up children who should have it all beaten out of them. Makes me really angry.

i thought that nennypops, when i 1st read this 'story'

but to find a 'cure' there has to be acceptance that it exists

What they are seeing is the result of years of therapy, teaching children how to function. With varying degrees of success.

It doesn't mean they no longer have autism. It means that certain behaviours have been successfully modified.

My eldest used to smear his poo over his face. He doesn't do it any longer. We've managed to teach him that is not acceptable.

Doesn't mean he's any less autistic!

My youngest talks now, instead of just repeating "clifford the big red dog and tasty food now at mcdonalds" 18 thousand times a bloody day.

Still autistic.

My children (like all our children on the spectrum!) have to have many many many MANY hours of work to teach them things that NT children pick up without even trying. Now they have many of those skills it doesn't mean they are less autistic! The level of input required was MASSIVE. because of their autism. The maintenance required in order to ensure that they keep these skills is huge. You're constantly pulling them back to you.

But then you get someone coming along, looking at a child as a toddler and looking at them 10 years later and saying wow, they're doing really well, they're cured. No. They're not cured. They're coping.

<sigh>

As above - 2 Aspies - oldest now 14 and can, as he calls it pass 90% of the time but he still recognises the differences in his thought processes from a socially acceptable norm.

I thought this was very interesting as my experience resonates with the findings of the article - which does say the study relates to high-functioning autism

DS1 was diagnosed borderline autistic by the team at Great Ormond Street Hospital when he was 3. Lots of classic obsessions - thomas tank engine, would stare for hours at wheels and train tracks when we were out. He had a lot of (expensive) SLT, was on the Special Needs register at school but always went to mainstream schools where he did fine, bumping along along the middle...very good at Maths, but very bad at English Comprehension. Poor social skills, didn't make friends easily in primary school.

He is now almost 14 and you would have no idea he was ASD. Yes he spends hours looking at plane-related websites on Youtube and is obsessed by Formula One (but so are many teenage boys). He will never be the life & soul of the party but he has a few friends and seems to be included in social groups at school. He still really loves going on trains. he has a great sense of humour, makes eye contact with family, has good social skills despite being quite shy. But the obsessions are far less intrusive than they used to be and as a family we can manage them completely.

It is a much better situation than I ever dared imagine when we got the diagnosis 10 years ago. And I honestly do think it is mainly due to growing maturity.

Just speculating ... my experience of autism is nil, and of Aspberger's, meagre... I have met/do know some people with Aspberger's.
I wonder if the 'growing out of it' suggestion comes from the experience of most children, - when very young, their world is not quite ours; they may have imaginary friends, their inner life is very rich and important. Then as they get older, 'shades of the prison house close in upon the growing boy' as Wordsworth put it, and the real world comes crashing in and children's focus is forced to turn away from their rich inner world and on to the day-to-day.
Same process, surely, with children with a diagnosis of mild autism. But lots more parental and teacher input will still be needed than for your average child.

I believe it to be utter crap. It's so obviously genetic within my family, just that most of us (except DS) are not diagnosed. My cousin also has a diagnosis but she has classic autism with severe learning difficulties.

I have been referred for asd assessment. Most people don't realise I don't give eye contact. I look at other areas on the face. I managed to be reasonably successful in my PR career, hated the social side, but spent a lot of time watching and mimicking others.

People think I'm a bit quirky and shy,it wouldn't cross anyone's mind to consider I could be on the spectrum. I suspect there are thousands of women in my situation.

How can you grow out of Autism if its a life long illness???????????? To learn and manage it, yes sure and it requests a long, hard work. I think they should be very careful with those words like ''outgrowing'' and etc. as it could make huge damage for the families with Autistic children as they are already suffering to be heard and receive help from professionals.

you can't grow out of it.
you can learn coping strategies. but you do not grow out of it.
it is a life long disability end of

I am working very hard to give my funny, quirky little boy lots of coping strategies for a hostile world. If he does well he will blend in although might always be a square peg in a round hole.

My best friends hubby has Aspergers and is a scientist.....you wouldn't know he was on the spectrum because he has learned ways of coping with certain things...eg ear plugs in noisy situations etc. doesn't mean he has "grown out of" his autism.

It is genetic in my family. DH and I are certain there is undiagnosed Aspergers on both sides of our families.

But I also believe that the huge improvement in ds is mainly due to 'growing up.'

And I think we would probably be in the same place today even if we hadn't spent a small fortune on SLT in the early days - although I would do it again, because you can never be sure, and you always want the best for your children.

But that is just my experience of it.

I agree that any perceived improvement is the result of the coping strategies and therapies that these kids have and have done.
There could also be an element of simple maturation?

What thresocksmorgan said.

I did for a short while think DS had magically grown out of his autism. Then I realised he was almost always in an environment he could cope with. Since then several incidents have shown me he is still who he always was, and always will be. Even if he does learn to cope better with the wold as he gets older.

Surely the point about ASD is that there is a spectrum of behaviours and difficulties , hence the name. I don't understand why people are so quick to dismiss something which identifies a different progression in a small number of people.it may not apply to you or your family but that doesn't define everyones experience

Because autism is caused by differences within structures of the brain, unless the brain restructures itself massively then you're still autistic.

Presenting in a neurotypical manner can happen for some higher functioning individuals with a lot of therapies, but on a MRI their brains would still present differently. They'd still be autistic.

because these kind of "studies" do more harm than good.
to say that a group of people have "grown" out of something makes it almost seem like that those who haven't are just not trying hard enough.
whereas it is more likely that these "cases" were borderline anyway.
I live in the sn world. my dd has cp. which I hate saying but is brain damage.
it can not be repaired, but a lot of people who are not badly affected can go on to live near "normal" lives.
I see Autism as being similar. it is avery broad spectrum. so there will always bee some people who will be able to live "normally".
saying that they grew out of it, is a red herring, it is more likely that they were not affected badly in the first place.......or due to years of therapy they have managed to be "normal"

threesocks is right, we are living in a very judgmental society at the monent.

So if you've not "recovered" from autism its because you're not trying hard enough to help yourself.

Thats what "studies" like this mean to the ignorant and to politicians with an ideological point to make.