To find this view re autism frustrating

Some.aspergers are also g&t.
But for some aspergers their asd gets.in the way of.learni g. Not i terested in the work. Very hard to.work with others and get on with teachers.

I do think.masking is problematic. But generally.refers to covering it up in some settings. . A bit lit.kids behave differently at school vs home.vs.people at work.
But also so!e asd people.perhaps.more girls can hang out in the periphery kf.groups but not included. Just dont.talk.
My girl .is very rigid. So could just be seen as studdorn and difficult so not just introverted.
But her one friend is also very likely aspergers too. Is more flexible. Is academically gifted. But does talk quietly, can get on with others. So mainly limjted to social issues.
However there is also an overdiagnosis. Locally way.too many are diagnosed. Thry communicate fine and are socially fine (sometimes large friend groups and are.leaders). For those it seems more appropriate that they are dyslexic. And in fact they do often have very mild reading issues.

Some of kids difference in communication is likely due to
Rise in only children
Use of devices
Covid so at home possibly alone for months
Likewise issues with friendships can be from being stubborn, pernisive parents. Schools who arent focussing on social behaviour in reception.

Ironically some asd people dont get on with others as they cant/choose not to masl behaviour like others do. Smoe prefer to be alone rather than conform to tpwhat the group want to do.

I hope you're right if we end up with a reform government I'm not so sure. They seem to always go for autism and anxiety disorders.

It’s not a gift or a super power. Sure some autistic people are gifted at somethings and that’s great.

My daughter is autistic with global developmental delay and although not severe as some people it’s still hard. When she first got diagnosed we had the oh don’t worry autistic people are super smart as if I should be happy about it.

I am exhausted from lack of sleep, she is now starting to make real leaps with speech at age 4 which has helped with the meltdowns, but they still happen regularly. Potty training is a nightmare and we are not making any progress. We can’t have “normal” days out or holidays as it’s too much for her. She has no danger awareness. She doesn’t eat many foods. Sensory issues etc etc etc

We have no idea what she will be like in the future or if she’ll ever be able to live independently. If I could take autism away from her, I would.

I know what you mean my son goes to a special school for children with severe and profound learning disabillities
But he amazes me sometimes
And whats with the spinning
He can spin extemely fast in one spot and never fall over or get dizzy!

I think some people may look like they are quirly fashion people for SM but may struggle with stuff behind the scenes, but may as well want to project positivity. I genuinely think that as long as people dont impose the 'superpower' onto others and feel like that themselves, then power to them. Im not gonna knock a crown off anyone's head. Autism does not have to be negative for everyone and there should be room for all narratives around it.
My issue is only when someone tells me my child has a supoerpower and it's not the case neither for him not for us.

Or BPD

Exactly this!

It has always been given on need as opposed diagnosis whatever the right wing scaremongers like to say.

They are not separate in your daughter though - they are all symptoms of a single condition. The fact that clinicians have a tendency to put autism, learning disability, motor skills delay etc into separate silos doesn’t change the fact that in one person they are all part of a single condition and every part of that condition interacts with every other part of that condition.

Or we're told it's anxiety or depression

Of course you do, I wasn’t disputing that. I just meant that I had to be honest with myself in that I wouldn’t want that life and so need to really carefully consider whether it would be right for me to have children.

Autistic and I'm tired of self-diagnosed types with quirky fashion sense trying to tell me I have a superpower. I really dislike the whole 'superpower' narrative. It isn't a superpower, even if autism comes alongside particular talents (which it by no means universally does) it is not a superpower, it blights your whole life.

It goes off need not disgnosis
There is absolutley no way the government despite all the sacremongering is going to remove the disabllity benefits from profoundly disabled children / adults it would be outrageous

I would love to know what it is about numberblocks. DS and so many young people with autism I have worked with over the years have been obsessed with it and learnt so much from it!

DS is another flag buff too. One of his current coping strategies is painting various flags of the world!

And the problem I have at the moment is how girls who mask or late diagnosed black people and women without learning disabilities are being told they don’t really have autism or significant difficulties and needs. That they’re just jumping on the bandwagon and are simply a little bit different.

The biggest problem autistic people are going to face in the very near future is the government and benefits and if autism isn't categorised alot of severely autistic people are going to be screwed over.

@Cheese55as autism itself does not indicate a developmental delay I believe they are separate. I’ve heard my system refer to her as ‘profoundly autistic’. She has physical delays as well as mental. You can have developmental delays and not autism, have autism with no developmental delays or both. They are separate clinical concepts but often overlap. She is very friendly and affectionate and cute as anything when little. It was sad seeing other parents actually cross the street when they saw her coming.

My DS is like this. They didn’t realise he was so great at maths until he gained an interest in numberblocks. Then they quickly realised shit he’s 4 and knows his 2, 5 and 10 x table. He surprises us constantly. Turns out he also knows pretty much every flag, we had no idea till we saw a Pakistan flag once when out and about and he shouted PAKISTAN. We tried with other flag pics and he knew them all, even obscure ones. Competence should always be assumed. There’s an academic in the US who was non verbal till 12 or so I believe, now has a PhD.

I think the nearest we got was when there was an Asperger's diagnosis. Intellectually able people on the whole were happy to be 'Aspies' and found their tribe amongst others like them.

I appreciate that the history of the Aspergers name needed addressing, but they threw the baby out with the bathwater when they just said 'let's just call everyone autistic', instead of choosing another name for the diagnosis for those who are verbal and not generally intellectually affected.

Exactly. I remember working in reception with a lovely non verbal child very much like you described. One day he started writing numbers completely out of the blue. Then we noticed patterns and realised he was actually writing multiples of 5, or 10. Then he started writing additions and subtractions for himself and getting them all right. He had a wonderful brain for maths he just couldn’t tell us what he knew beyond what he could write.

Yep and it’s frustrating for parents because teaching staff assume they can’t do things you know they definitely can. I had to plead with reception staff for reading books for example because he could read fluently. They looked at me like I had two heads and was totally delusional. By January in year 1 he was on the top reading band. He actually needs to move into reading comp but they’re unsure how because it’s unlikely he’ll fill out the quizzes to progress so again he’s stalled on the top band.

He has amazing capabilities beyond his speech delay but getting staff to understand this is an uphill battle to say the least. They didn’t give him homework sheets until I kept on at them either.

Also there's an assumption that non-verbal autistic children are not intelligent.

However hard we try as teachers and parents, it's extremely difficult to get into the mind of our charges/children. But I'm absolutely convinced that at least one of my pupils was very intelligent. I don't believe he had a learning difficulty. He just want able to communicate it show learning in any way that we know it. And his extreme behaviour (often self-injurious) demonstrated his frustration at not being able to communicate. But he showed his intelligence in other ways

I remember at a parents evening, his mum saying that she half expected that if he ever spoke, it would be to tell us the meaning of life. And I know exactly what she meant. But if she took him along to an autism support group, she and he would not be welcomed.

And because DS isn’t learning disabled we have lots of people downplay his autism. They assume because (with full 1-1 support throughout) he managed mainstream school then his needs aren’t significant where as he is actually profoundly impacted in all areas.

there isn’t a one size fits all and we need to stop making people and their families feel like they are in some sort of race to the bottom.

I've seen levels used on a UK Reddit sub. But a lot of people say "I'm sometimes a level 2 and other days a level 1" and of course those who are level 1, 2 or 3 aren't going to be the same as other people with the same level diagnosis

You would have to you would have no choice
Its not a life most of us would choose
But we love our children.

Exactly and where do you even begin trying to seperate the two?