Is it ASD that frequently?

[EverybodyWakeUp]

And if so, why is this the case? It seems that in modern society we're heading towards so many diagnosis of ASD, that we might have to change our thinking and perhaps being neurotypical is not necessarily the norm?

Are there other things that explain traits/symptoms more accurately, like the way our society is, our education system, life pressures, etc?

I hope I am not offending, truly not my intention. I really want to understand more. I am a true supporter of diversity but I feel puzzled that some forms of ASD, say what used to be Aspergers, can be classed as a disability.

If my post offends it truly is because I haven't explained myself properly and I apologise in advance. Any good articles/websites/books on this would be welcome.

Asperger's (as it was known) is still a disability. It is not 'autism lite'. People with Asperger's may present as 'high-functioning' purely because they don't have any intellectual impediment. But they can still suffer from huge sensory disruption that can make day to day life very difficult. Managing ordinary tasks like going to the supermarket can be exceptionally hard if your senses are out of whack. You can have problems with motor skills, balance, auditory modulation, visual disturbance etc etc.

No idea about overall statistics are but I work with children in care. Approximately 45% of them have an official diagnosis. Out of that 45% I'd say 10% were wrongly diagnosed (in my opinion).

Prolonged trauma can mimic ASD at times. I'd love to research this.

Are we really heading that way? I am autistic and most of my family are autistic, the way most genetic conditions go, but outside of family I know 2 autistic people, only 1 of them is diagnosed. And I know one person with ADHD. The vast, vast, vast majority of people I know are NT. Where are you meeting all these newly diagnosed people that you seriously think that they are going to be in the majority soon?

Or doth the lady protest too much and you ARE meaning to be offensive?

Well, I have ADHD and DP has ASD. Both have a huge genetic component and when we both look at our different families, we can trace quite obviously which parent and grandparent it came from!

None of those generations were diagnosed and they just had to get on with it despite their difficulties (my grandfather clearly self-medicated his with alcoholism and died young, his sister killed herself after years of genteel medication addiction (due to a tragic loss of her husband)).

I'm not offended u don't understand why I would be but then I don't have aspbergers so I don't know how it feels ..my son and his father and my best friends have aspbergers so its a very real thing in our lives . Am I correct in assume what you mean is that you don't think it's food of it being a label? It's a hard one because my son who has aspbergers says for him it was worse being diagnosed because now I'm always tiptoeing around him and asking are you having a problem with this because you have aspbergers etc and I love him dearly but I can see how being "this"
as reason why you do certain things draws away from.the person and becomes about them being a diagnosis a label etc. But on other hand non recognition of a "dissability" can also seem.ignorant. I hate the word "disability " anyway it implies one that is not disabled is in some way better .

Of course people can Google but perhaps prefer to hear first hand experiences and opinions, from a human, not necessarily scientific perspective.

Thinking about loud music and noises, bright lights, noise and stimulus in so many places, it makes sense that some people will be disturbed significantly by it. Then it occurred to me to think of someone with poor eyesight, who might need lighting to be good in a supermarket, to be able to see what they needed to buy. How do you square that circle and balance the needs of differing groups with differing needs? A simple answer, so far as the supermarket goes, might be to have designated times for groups, but then that could be described as discriminatory. I don’t know the answer, but I do think we need to be much better informed, by books, people, or whatever means people prefer.

Typo..meant not good as it comes across as a label

My child is autistic and I do find these kinds of posts offensive. It's like bingo. Bad parenting, over medicated kids etc.

If you can't be bothered to at least Google the question before asking, I can't be bothered to type a well thought out response. But here is a quick summary

1. A couple of generations ago, people with mental health problems were generally locked away in asylums or people's attics.

1. Asperger did his research in the 1930s and 1940s. So no one was diagnosed with Aspergers before then. He also did his research under the Nazi regime, so I'm sure you can imagine the ethics of his research and why many people don't want to be associated with that. Which is why they don't use the term anymore.

1. We know more about Autism now than a few generations ago (see point 2). Even in the 1980s it was thought that girls didn't get autism.

1. People are having babies later in life. Chances of having an autistic child increase with age.

1. Society and life in general is busier/faster/more anxiety inducing. There is less of a place for someone who doesn't enjoy social interaction in today's society than there was even 50 years ago.

But yeh, it's all these naughty kids and their crap parents. 🙄

Well yes, exactly. OP says on the one hand they don't know much about ASD, but then makes a judgement about autistic people being wrongly labelled as disabled, because, to OP, they don't seem it. 🙄

@Scautish put it well:

...the problem is that autism without learning difficulties (Asperger’s, which is my diagnosis) is that people infer that because they (the non-autistic person) are not necessarily impacted by the autistic person (well, they probably think they are annoying/blunt/ aggressive or something) the assumption is made that the autistic person is not massively impacted either

This is so accurate. My DD is autistic, but clever, pretty and gifted in art. An outsider may think she seems eccentric but otherwise fine. She's not. She is disabled. She's miserable. And her MH is shot.

I think a diagnosis really helps people to understand themselves, accept themselves and helps other to be more accepting of their difference, rather than being bemused or offended by it. At least, that’s how it’s been for people I know.

the problem is that autism without learning difficulties

This is very much not an accurate description of Asperger’s. (I personally hate naming anything after Nazi sympathizers, but each to their own…)

My ASC DS has an IQ of 161 and beat his dad at Chess by age 6. He memorized the underground map at 3 and is familiar with the major bus routes in all major cities.

He can’t use a loo, smeared till he was 5, can’t write or tie his shoelaces. He’s about as low-functioning as you can get.

There is no convenient nomenclature (nazi-themed or otherwise) to describe that. He’s “just” autistic.

And yes OP it very much fucking well is a disability. I’m sure 10 minutes with DS when he is disregulated would help convince you. Bring PPE.

Not sure if your comment was for me but if it was..there is a lady whom I forget her name but she very well know written many books and she and her husband bothe and she gave a lecture and yes did indeed provide stats on the current and rising trend showing of autism ..also there is another professor sorry I never remember the names its just things I see now and again he also has stats real based stats on the numbers and future numbers are very high. Hope I haven't offended any1 my son has aspbergers he trued to commit suicide not so long ago because of it my sons father has aspbergers he suffered greatly and am currently dealing with a female friend of mine who is suicidal and has aspbegers.

Anyone can choose not to use the term or see themselves as disabled, but in the legal sense of the word autism is a disability. In order to be diagnosed one must have difficulties that “limit and impair everyday functioning”.

The Equality Act "defines a disabled person as a person with a disability. A person has a disability for the purposes of the Act if he or she has a physical or mental impairment and the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities” (S6(1)). Link

Therefore if someone meets the criteria for a diagnosis they also meet the Equality Act’s criteria for being classed as disabled.

Of course people can Google but perhaps prefer to hear first hand experiences and opinions, from a human, not necessarily scientific perspective.

Which is great if we hear from posters with experience, in conjunction with reading what experts say about this. Instead we end up with a lot of posters who from what they say, clearly have no idea what they’re talking about. My previous comment about diagnoses being handed out like sweets was a direct quote from someone on another thread which many quoted and agreed with. Mumsnet did delete it but there were other posts saying much the same but in a more covert way. Others saying they know kids who were diagnosed with ASD in 5 minutes. It’s just not true. There’s strict criteria and a thorough process. Threads where people just make stuff up are offensive and really damaging.

@Mupett I don't understand this whole 'label' thing and why a diagnosis is ok but a label isn't. I just assume that when people say they don't want their child or themselves 'labelled', what they really mean is that particular label is undesirable. We are happy to label ourselves, others and in fact everything around us on a daily basis! That is what language is, it is labelling things to make them understandable and describable to others, this is generally helpful and aids communication.

Theres a lot of questions there.

I think its fair to say autism is far more common than originally thought.

I dont think recognising this is a bad thing. I think it means we should invest more in early diagnosis and post diagnosis support. That we can ensure education systems reflect the incidence of asd, adhd too. We can adapt more workplaces and interview processes, have more post 19 day centres, more supported living and so on.

I also think it means we could have far less people being treated for the wrong mental health issue.

In the true sense of the meaning of the phrase your DS is classed as ‘high functioning’ because in the true sense all it means is has an IQ above 70 i.e. there isn’t a co-morbid learning disability (learning disability not difficulties) diagnosis. The problem is in society it is now used to mean something else about how well the person functions in life, and as your DS demonstrates this isn’t an accurate picture of someone’s needs. Which is the problem with the use of functioning labels, and why they can be harmful.

It's just how my sons felt it affected him he has asd and he said he felt like after he'd been diagnosed that he felt labelled..is just his personal experience but he was diagnosed very very late.

Exactly @Thatsnotmycar except that HFA is clearly not understood to mean someone who will probably never live independently. MN’ers use Aspie to convey that their DC has the “correct” type of autism, the middle class, clever, Sheldon type. Not the shit-smearing, violent, causing-havoc-in-public type. It’s utterly meaningless and ablist in itself.

Remember the 80’s when hemophiliacs got “the good AIDS” and homosexuals got “the bad AIDS” but both suffered equally and were not understood? It’s like that.

I think putting all autistic people under the same named diagnosis is very confusing. Someone who can hold a job, socialise, is married but suffers mild social axieties shouldn't be diagnosed with the same "type" of ASD as someone who is non verbal, will require self care assitance for life, is unable to communicate etc. I understand autism is a spectrum. However, the spectrum needs to be broken down into "types" or sections. Just something.

And if so, why is this the case? It seems that in modern society we're heading towards so many diagnosis of ASD, that we might have to change our thinking and perhaps being neurotypical is not necessarily the norm?

Nope, it was just considered something else back then. I’m several decades old and when I went to school there was no such thing as ASD as we know it today. Even Aspergers and ADHD just didn’t exist as diagnoses. Didn’t mean people didn’t have this though.

Looking back to my primary school years it was pretty obvious it did all exist. We had heaps of ‘naughty’ children that today would either by ADHD, ASD or both. They were constantly caned but it obviously had no effect on their behaviour as they couldn’t help it. We also had the ‘weird’ kids who were labelled as such by teachers and students who were bullied/picked on terribly.

For those who were more pronounced, our school would ship them off to “Xxx School for the Retarded” (I’m in no way being offensive- that was the actual name of the school in our community for those who were different, obviously there was a name replacing the x’s). That school had physically disabled children in wheelchairs, children with issues such as cerebral palsy, children with Down Syndrome and kids with no label who the ‘regular’ schools deemed to have stepped past ‘weird’. Thankfully this no longer exists and all would be in the regular school system with supports these days, but just explaining why it’s not really a case of more people with ASD these days at all.

Yes.

My teenage autistic daughter rejects the notion that she is disabled.

But she meets the definition of the Equality Act, if autism didn't 'have a significant impact on a persons ability to carry out day to day activities' then the diagnostic criteria wouldn't be met.

The reality is that the neurotypical world is very challenging for her. So much so that she avoids many things that most people enjoy.

Precisely the same for my teenage DD. She rejects the idea that she is 'disabled'. But sadly she is.

@Deguster

when I referred to “without learning difficulties” I meant intellectual in the sense that it is above 70. I think we agree that this does absolutely not mean that someone just breezes through life with their autism just being a bit of a quirk. I can understand, given the issues you have highlighted, that it must be infuriating for people to assume your son has no disability just because he has a high IQ.

I used Asperger’s as that is my diagnosis. I agree re Nazi connotations but in absence of better descriptor (HFA is no lt appropriate at all). Perhaps autism without intellectual disability is bet he r? I don’t know (and I’m not try to propose anything either)

but I do not like the idea of some sort of “middle class approved autism”. I think we really risk side-tracking the fight for a better understanding of the entire autistic spectrum. My autism is crippling. I’m terrified my children are going to feel as I have felt throughout my life. It is very far from the right kind of autism.

but whilst there is no “right kind” of autism, there is definitely the “wrong kind of neurotypical attitude” that is sadly prevalent and widespread. Humans do not seem to be very accepting of any kind of difference and that leads to ostracisation and bullying. So I wish that neurotypicals would see the responsibility they have to learn, understand and change their attitudes as that will make a huge difference to autistic people.

I am autistic (so called high functioning), was diagnosed late in life and I work with clients who have autism (usually with a comorbid diagnosis). Every day I realise more things I want to know about the condition, and about what actually makes a person NT as well as ND. I am excellent as masking - I understand the NT world as much as it is possible (for me), and I understand (and feel so much more comfortable) working in ND.

I am happier since getting my diagnosis - I think I had already (unknowingly) went through an Autistic burnout in my 20s that I never fully recovered from - the truth was my life was unbearably stressful and I kept thinking "other people can do this, why can't I?". I was intelligent and excellent at solving problems - except the one where I was spending half my life recovering from it all!

If you knew me, you would probably think that I was an attention seeker and look to "identify" as autistic, because I certainly seem NT. The truth is my anxiety is overwhelming, even with the measures I put in place to manage it, I have sensory and diet issues, I cannot concentrate on anything for long - I struggle with boundaries and second guess myself constantly and I find the world as a whole very difficult, I cannot maintain many relationships and don't want to - but this can get lonely. I have recurring depression (which doesn't respond to medication).

Traditional therapies for stress don't work for me (I have tried them all). I don't get any financial help or practical support (and I don't want it either). There is no benefit to my diagnosis and I take nothing from the country because of it. I actually am incredibly independent. But it is hard to live in this world when you are ND. I see that in myself and with the people I work with. I do think the true numbers of people who are ND are much higher than current figures indicate.