Autism Vs eccentric personality

[BlooDeBloop]

Context: A health care worker suggested my 12yo DS may have asd. He is socially extremely awkward at school but copes in his way and brushes off taunts etc. There are some anxiety issues we deal with. He is certainly quirky. Many of the males on my side of the family can fairly be described as eccentric or oddball (...actually this is a good description of me too 😆).

Question: what is this autism spectrum that potentially includes my DS at one end and on the other includes non verbal or highly violent people needing full time, respite care into teens and beyond? Or even the more common presentation we see on TV, the rocking, meltdown prone, OCD type of person. I just don't see the connection. Depression presents on a scale but one end looks like the other end just more extreme. ASD is highly variable. Indeed, this is reflected by the commonly quoted 'if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism' i.e. no two cases are the same. If none are the same how can we be sure we're dealing with the same thing when we diagnose and talk about autism?

Can anyone explain?

This thread does make me sad due to so many peoples negative preconceived attitudes or prejudices surrounding an ASD diagnosis. Even if a child isn’t struggling in the present an ASD diagnosis allows a child understanding as to why they are ‘different’ and means that measures can be put in place to prevent a decline in mental health before it happens. If people had recognised me as neurodiverse as a teenager and had helped me manage my sensory issues and severe social anxiety, Id have been much more ‘successful’ in my teenage years. People seem so boastful that their quirky child isn’t autistic, as if quirky children with autism are somehow lesser. As a neurodiverse adult with an autistic child I find this quite hurtful.

This makes me so angry. My DD is struggling hugely sue to ASD and you dismiss it

no. I just said there was a rash of diagnoses and I don’t believe all of them are justified.

The primary purpose of diagnosis — any diagnosis, not just ASD — is classification into a category to aid with prognosis, suggest medical and other management that may help based on whether it helped others with the same condition, collect together people with similar conditions to facilitate research, collect data, etc.

It's saying "as far as we can tell from the information we can gather, this person is experiencing the same thing as these other people", which means that instead of having to start entirely fresh with no idea of what's happening with this person and what might be the best thing to do, you have access to lots of data gathered from other people who seem to have had the same thing.

It also means that new information that's gathered from this individual can be added back into the body of knowledge about this condition.

Ask someone with a child with a medical problem so rare that they're essentially unique what diagnosis is good for, and they'll tell you, because they're having to operate without it and it's hard. When there's a problem, information helps, and accurate diagnosis is a pathway to information.

If there's no problem, no need for a prognosis, no need for information about what medical or other management has worked for others with similar characteristics, and it doesn't seem like it would be useful if data from this person is collected and fed back to improve the system, then there's no need for diagnosis.

Diagnosis has also gained extra layers of function within society, especially in recent years and with certain conditions — it allows people to find others like them, feel part of a community, feel validated, etc. Sometimes people will want a diagnosis for those reasons. It's also used to attack others, or as an insult or a strategy against people. And it can be used for resource allocation. These secondary social functions make things more complicated, but if you focus on the clinical and research functions of medical diagnosis it will help you understand better than perseverating on ham sandwiches will.

YetAnotherSpartacus

Do you know how hard it is to get a diagnosis? The wait is huge and you need to fulfil criteria to even get on the list.

There is an increase because we have improved our knowledge re autism in girls and how it presents and many women and girls who have previously struggled hugely in silence are coming forward.

well where I work many seem to get to the head of the queue.

when talking to many of these young people I realise that no one has investigated the trauma that many have gone through in their lives.

I hope I'm not coming across as boastful. DS faces significant difficulties in navigating the world as a non-normcom (I think it was called earlier?). I hope we, his family, already hugely support DS to cross problems as they arise. I've always had homeschooling as an option for him. I have sought counselling to understand myself and my quirky ways - I would pay for the same in a heartbeat if I thought DS needed it. I've been to the school, I'll be back now he has a dyspraxia diagnosis. What I'm trying to say is he has a very supportive home (one I didn't have) and I very much hope DS will have a happy enough childhood to look back on. Does an asd diagnosis on top deliver for him??

If you read up on the social model of disability you might find a different way of looking at and understanding this.

Essentially, the social model separates impairment from disability. Impairment is something like a missing leg, whereas the disability results from how society is shaped — whether a person can access suitable prosthetics, whether the built environment is difficult to access using a prosthetic leg, whether people discriminate against you.

You can be entirely happy with a life which is arranged in a way such that your impairment is not disabling. That does not mean the impairment doesn't exist.

Oh OP that comment wasn’t targeted at you, it was more the people that had come on saying their dc had assessments and weren’t autistic. It’s my autism and lack of social communication coming out now!

My dd hasn’t had any trauma…..

YetAnotherSpartacus

Where do you work? There would need to be good reason for jumping to the queue and a good diagnostician should be able to differentiate between trauma and autism. You also need a lot of developmental history for a diagnosis.

My dd hasn’t had any trauma…..

did you catch the word ‘many’.

I do think genuinely some professions attract an outsize proportion of autistic people. It’s not hard to imagine why some of the social implications of autism might make Some professions much more desirable - and manageable.

BlooDeBloop

I’m really not sure your son would get a diagnosis.

Most kids have a happy supportive home life. Mine did. It’s not enough. Their diagnosis has informed treatments and therapy for both facilitating much needed adjustments. It has helped them to understand why they have struggled, things to look out for and coping strategies going forward.

Yes l did. But your implication was that trauma and ASD are linked.

I see the difference between the terms. I would say DS is impaired socially but as we are sympathetic to difference at home (always allowed him to be who he is) and offered support where needed I don't think he has ever felt disabled as such. I think a lot of class 1/Asperger's types do just make adjustments in their lives. Trouble arises where the round peg is forced into a square hole. I appreciate many sufferers with asd have significant impairments not so easily managed. Hence the original question of this divide between what I describe as 'eccentric' and others would describe as asd.

Anecdotal obviously... but I don’t know anyone with an autism diagnosis who’s experienced trauma.

I do know people with similar presentation but different diagnosis that have.

You seem to think autism assessment is done in some sort of isolation from parents and home life, it’s not.

Yes l did. But your implication was that trauma and ASD are linked

I didn’t say or imply anything like that.

Also you have autism for life and your need and struggles may well change at different points of life. Don’t assume a bit of home schooling would be enough to handle future struggles if your son was autistic.

Also at some point all of us with ASC have to cope with the wider world. We don’t all have the luxury of not working or skills to educate our children away from society. Yes I adapted life very much for my dc when they were younger which staved off struggles that really kicked in during teenage years when NT life overwhelmed them.The masking then became hugely damaging and both caused huge problems.

But you said ‘many’🤔

I think that @YetAnotherSpartacus is saying that what has been diagnosed as ASD is instead something related to trauma. In effect that her colleagues have the wrong diagnosis.

But you said ‘many’

Yes. 😀

How on earth would that happen?

I think that YetAnotherSpartacus is saying that what has been diagnosed as ASD is instead something related to trauma. In effect that her colleagues have the wrong diagnosis.

Not in all cases but I've certainly come across young people whose trauma has been overlooked but who have the diagnosis of autism. Ditto 'trans'.

How do you know it’s been overlooked?

I've asked them.