Portrayal of autistic people in films/TV

No, because there are people that describe themselves as being varying levels at different times, there are those who disagree with what level a professional might use and there are those who would belevel three constantly. The levels also don't convey to the public what presentation somebody may have as you'll only be familiar with what the levels mean if youve looked into it and most people wouldn't without having to.

I use "profound/ severe autism" to convey the level of my son's needs as most people understand what I'm trying to get across.

Well no system is perfect and there are nuances and some people have spikey profiles and people can fall between the levels
But broadly speaking and I know some posters will disagree it csn give an indication of the level of need.

I think this is more common in America but I have seen a lot of people refer to being diagnosed with level 1 autism, level 2 autism and level 3 autism do you think that is a helpful way to delineate? I think level 1 is what used to be Asperger's and level 3 is what is sometimes called profound autism?

I think so as it applies to our family too. We have one child with very complex needs (de novo) and one who has no needs, is sociable, academic etc (we didn't have the genome mapped for his brother).

The other group where they have inherited genetic changes from parents would explain why you have families where all the children have autism.

I think this is massive for the autism dx.

I don't mind if people say autism is their superpower and that they don't feel disabled by it as long as they are clear they are only talking about themselves
It's when people try and talk for the whole spectrum and insist it isn't a disability, that i feel.its very damaging.

@Perzival 100% agree with you about the ‘autism is a superpower’. It really isn’t.

Interesting my sons chromosome disorder is De novo.

My issue with Aspergers Syndrome is that people associate that with people like Sheldon, like Bones. My DS would have had an Aspergers diagnosis (if it still existed) because he didn’t have a language delay but he’s nothing like the stereotypical ‘mini professor’.

High Functioning Autism has similar problems as a name - all it actually means is you don’t have learning disability but people again then apply that stereotypically and expect to get someone like Sheldon. I guess that’s because in TV shows characters with autism are invariably the super intelligent type.

Autism is such a broad spectrum that I do feel it would useful to have additional identifiers to give people a better idea about the type of needs a person might have.

My son’s needs are complex and he has high support needs. I still wouldn’t describe him as having profound autism. But I admit I do get frustrated when I tell people he’s autistic and they assume he’s like my type of autistic when in reality I’ve been told he’s unlikely to ever live independently.

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2025/07/09/major-autism-study-uncovers-biologically-distinct-subtypes-paving-way-precision

I found this study interesting. They were able to link four different presentations subgroups to four different biological changes. Eg my son would be in the broadly effected/ de novo mutation group which is exactly right for him.

I would think this will play a part in future dx especially as it can be linked backed to biology.

The term profound autism i think will be used in the mean time as it is being used more and more and there is a push for more research in this area. With more professionals using it as the norm already. Although my son's old paediatrician uses severe.

In the future believe those who do have needs but who wouldn't be described as profound will have difficulty getting their needs met as dx changes again and as it is changing to include more and more people who identify with autism. In the same ways those with more profound needs benefit from having a ld label/dx (how i feel about it) rather than a stand alone autism dx, people will likely need some form of mh dx to get their needs met.

I think the group doing the most damage to the autism dx are those who see it as a super power or not a disability and lobby for it to be seen in that way. Eg different ability not a disability.

That’s actually a really offensive post. Where did I say that my struggles with autism were the same as the highest needs group? I actually said the opposite. What I did say was that the highest functioning group and the middle group are very similar, can overlap and people can fluctuate between the two, so no the highest functioning group shouldn’t be separate from the diagnosis. The ones with the most severe needs only make up around 15% of those with autism. It is offensive to suggest everyone gets an autism diagnosis now, that’s not true and completely minimizes the struggles those of us with diagnosed autism face. Unless you’ve lived it you have no idea. No, we don’t have the same needs as someone with severe autism but that doesn’t mean we don’t also struggle every day.

I find it offensive that if one of the characters in a movie or television series is very intelligent then they are usually portrayed as being on the spectrum.

I work with scientists and have worked as a researcher myself and can tell you that the percentage of people on the spectrum among the successful scientists is extremely low.

Why should the highest functioning group be the one that's called autistic, and the lowest function group is not. Autism, when I was much younger was applied to people who had really severe needs.It's only recently that everybody right down to self diagnose, gets the label.

Why are the high functions and level ones and self diagnosed so desperate to cling to this label

I do actually find it quite offensive that having written such an eloquent and well reasoned, post you think your struggles are in any way as bad as the video I posted.

I find it odd that people with high-functioning autism are so desperate to be recognised for it. Desperate to be seen as having it. The fact you can argue your case can't approves the point that you're not as badly affected.

Those who are severely affected their parents wish, their children never had it and they really can't overcome anything.

I don’t agree that they shouldn’t have removed the Asperger’s distinction. That’s separate my out the very ‘high functioning’ people as a separate diagnosis, but actually I think it’s the other way around. As a pp pointed out it’s a spectrum that isn’t linear, and can also fluctuate. I have ASD and if using the levels I would be probably classed as level 1 (my diagnosis didn’t specify levels), but you just have to look at my life throughout childhood and adulthood to realise that sometimes my needs are much higher then level 1 and I’ve had pretty severe consequences of trying to mask all the time. Levels 1 and 2 are most alike to each other and people can switch between them. It’s the servers end of level 3 that is different. I can I have no issue with the highest needs being classed as separate diagnosis like profound autism, of course I recognize that this particular group have higher needs and it’s not comparable to others with ASD, but that’s what it should be, a separate diagnosis for the highest needs group, not a separate diagnosis for the ‘highest functioning’ group.

Fair enough it's similar to ASD and ASC my son I'd only 15 but his diagnosis is Autism Spectrum Disorder it is what it is .

Yes my boyfriend has an Asperger's label. He wont deviate from that as it is what is in his notes. I think it got changed because of the links to Nazis. He does not care. It is what he was diagnosed with.

I completely agree .

Previously, the high functioning autism would have been called aspergers. I don't think they ever should have removed the distinction.

There is a growing separate community because the parents acknowledge it is night and day. One look at that video shows you what it's really like to have an older child with profound autism. Those arguing eloquently online about the severe life struggles they've had to endure. really just don't get it. It shouldn't be called autism, It should be called something else.

People argue that ,its the learning disabilities, but how do you separate the two?
I'm on a face book group for parents and cares of children with severe autism some would say its all part of profound autism
Articulate people with autism talk about the autistic community but I dont think they realise there is a growing separate community for those with profound autism

A very measured response.

The eloquent posters arguing their struggles are as bad as this is almost comical if it wasnt so offensive.

Yes I agree with you on the masking and my child doesn't have the capacity to mask but it must be very hard to mask all day it isn't a privilege

Yes, this is how I feel about my daughter. At our lowest, she has been unable to function, lying in bed unable to dress, leave the house, go to school. We know how desperate that feels, to be at the end of our rope with no idea what to do to help her and tearing ourselves apart, family relationships failing etc. But we emerged from it. She is functioning well again, has occasional blips but is generally much easier to be around. Her anxiety is well managed, and she has a much improved awareness of her own needs.

We've sat in workshops alongside parents of children who cannot speak, are still in nappies at 5 or older, are clearly extremely disabled by their profound autism, all day and every single day. It is clear that our daughter is absolutely nothing like them. To admit this doesn't negate the trauma we endured, or our own experience.

One thing I do take issue with though is people describing masking as a 'privilege'. For a 6yo to mask so heavily that she ended up lying naked in bed not eating, clawing at her hair and screaming it's annoying her, unable to leave the house, unable to dress etc - this is a privilege she could have done without. Masking leads young women in particular to severe mental health problems, and ultimately potential suicide. To describe this as a privilege is perverse and I object to it in the strongest terms.

@ntmdino

I really like the way you have described yourself here.
It's exactly right.

One day it's a level 1
The next few could be a 2 depending on energy spent at other times. Thank you.

You've completely missed the point of everything I've said. Here you go, in the simplest possible terms:

I have no problem with the fact that some people are unfortunate enough to have permanently high support needs (although they're a minority of autistic folk - studies tend to agree it's somewhere around 10-15%, as I recall). What I have a problem with is people - usually the parents of those people - telling me that I can't possibly be autistic and it's not the same condition, as though they're somehow more educated on the subject than the entire psychiatric profession, through their experience with one autistic person. If they had even a passing familiarity with the diagnostic criteria, they'd know how absurd their position is.

The lack of understanding is shown in stark relief when they say that they cannot possibly see how one condition can express itself so very differently, but - critically - they refuse to believe the actual experts on the subject when they say it does.

Even worse is when they deliberately mischaracterise my position as somehow being upset that other people have higher support needs than I do. I'm not the one treating it like a competition.

Then you get to the variability of the condition over time- in terms of the level system (which was, irritatingly, only created by the Americans so that autistic people could be categorised for the convenience of the medical insurance industry), on a good day I'm level 1. On a bad day, I'm somewhere between 2 and 3...unable to communicate, unable to regulate and on occasion I even pose a risk to myself and those around me if I'm in the wrong circumstances; if two people were to describe me on those different days, they wouldn't recognise the other as the same person.

I can count the number of bad days up to 20yrs old on one hand. In my 20s, there were maybe one or two per year. 30s, twice that. 40s, even more. As I get older, the bad days are becoming more frequent. They don't outnumber the good days, yet, but I can see a time coming when they do. This is the same experience as a lot of autistic people who get written off by people as "not autistic enough" and "should have a different diagnosis".

This will, undoubtedly, become extremely relevant should I ever end up in a care home - and so yes, the diagnosis of that same condition is hugely important to me because it will determine my quality of life and the care I get in that context. Nobody even really knows how to deal with it at the moment, because there's almost zero data on autistic presentation in the elderly.

Now, I appreciate that wasn't exactly a short summary (brevity is not one of my talents), but...do you understand now?

Getting back to TV - I actually really enjoy The Big Bang Theory, and Young Sheldon. I watch it regularly. I think Sheldon’s character develops over the 10 seasons, I find him relatable, I also think his friends must like him else they wouldn’t stay together.

Well said