How do people not "believe" in Autism?

[MissPollyHadADolly19]

Just that really, bit of a rant more than anything.
It's not the tooth fairy or Santa, it's a recognised disorder!!

Relative struggling with her DC who's on the spectrum and partner believes it's just shit parenting (obviously not from him cos he's perfect, only the mother gets blames of course )

How do people really not believe in Autism? Or any mental illness for that matter.

We paid for a private diagnosis using exactly the same centre that the NHS use. The council immediately accepted their diagnosis because it was carried out in exactly the required manner with qualified psychiatrists etc. We paid for it because we'd already gone through all the hoops with the nursery and cahms, the council agreed to 35 hours a week additional staff which is unheard of so they definitely accept the nursery senco reports, they still told us it would be a couple of years before a formal diagnosis and we were terrified that two years of him having no extra support in school might set him back permanently. Parent don't pay because they want a piece of paper to justify their naughty child's behaviour. I actually think it would be quite hard to get a fake diagnosis given how much paperwork, reports, meetings and observations need to happen.

Or maybe mothers of children with autism respond to threads such as this because of their experience @Shimmeringwaffle? !most of my friends have children with special needs ,I met them because of my child s disabilities not in spite of them .

Growing up in the 70's there was an older kid in our street who we thought of as mentally disabled and he went to a school for kids with special needs. He's 60 now and my partner and I sometimes socialise with him and his support worker in our local bar. I know now he is autistic. I get my phone out and he gets me to google trams, lifts and planes and we talk about his many rides on all of those things while we have a pint each and he has a cheese and ham sandwich on white bread, no butter. He doesn't remember me from childhood but he asked recently are we now his friends and hugged us when we said we were. Really lovely, funny times spent with him.

Sad to see the usual mumsnet baddies coming out to attack someone giving an opinion. Shame.

Reported Shimmeringwaffle

Describing a child’s lifelong condition as a “badge” is appalling, Shimmeringwaffle.

I actually think that ShimmeringWaffle should have her posts stay exactly where they are, just to show everyone how disgusting they are.

we sat in rows and nobody had meltdowns or dared to misbehave. So where were these children?

Oh good grief! Do you think all autistic kids throw chairs and act out in class? Quiet rows of kids would be heaven for my ASD boy. Order, relative quiet and routine are exactly what help him to function. He's an extreme rule-follower. The meltdowns happen when order is disrupted, when things happen that he's not expecting. And they almost exclusively happen at home when he knows it's safe.

Guess what? he's still autistic. And he'd still have been jsut as autistic 30 years ago if he'd been a kid back then.

Shimmeringwaffle, you're entitled to your own opinion. You're not entitled to your own facts.

@PinguForPresident I agree. How schools used to be run made it easier for many autistic children.

we sat in rows and nobody had meltdowns or dared to misbehave. So where were these children?

Shunted away into schools for the so-called educationally sub-normal.

Sad to see the usual mumsnet baddies coming out to attack someone giving an opinion. Shame.

Mumsnet baddies 😂😂😂

Some children were. But many were in mainstream schools.

@ShimmeringWaffle You should be ashamed. After your comment I gave some thought to what causes some people to be vile, to slag off disabled DC and parents, it takes a fucked up kind of person I guess.

Why do I do this to myself? I have no idea why I click on these bloody threads, knowing the ignorance I’ll find.

Believe me, the last thing I wanted is for my twins to be diagnosed with autism. I wanted there to be another, resolvable explanation for what was happening to them.

My children are not badly behaved. I don’t need an “excuse” for their behaviour. They’re not aggressive, loud, nasty. They’re withdrawn, non-verbal, uninterested in people.

My twins seemed to be developing normally, I have videos of them as babies mimicking, making eye contact, smiling when smiled at, copying sounds, playing with shape sorters... and then it just stopped. Do those doubting the existence of ASD actually understand what it’s like for your child to regress? To stop interacting and start spinning, flapping, hitting themself in the head, have no interest in people including you, stop playing with toys, stop making attempts to talk? It’s fucking devastating.

I am not a perfect parent but I try bloody hard, all the time. I have to battle for every tiny interaction, all day every day.

I had a heartbreaking experience today - I went to get DT1 from nursery and I was trying to encourage him to wave goodbye to the other children. They just looked at him blankly. The staff member said “aren’t you going to say goodbye to Jacob?” - one said no, the rest said nothing.

These children are 3 years old and they know my sons are fundamentally different to them. I’m amazed some adults think that this is somehow possible to fake.

We have constant appointments, SALT, portage, homestart volunteer, TAFs, nurses, HVs, multiple specialists - if you think I’d put myself and my children through all this for an extra £100 a week in disability benefits or for a blue badge, you’re delusional.

Schools back in the 60s/70s/80s were a lot more structured than they are now with less stimulation, less focus on group work and social skills, and less focus on the type of curriculum enrichment that means changes to the timetable (e.g., rehearsals for whole school shows at Christmas, open days for mothers day or grandparents day, local artists coming in to do whole school projects, Hoop Stars, etc.). However even now with the current school environment many children with autism are very adept at masking while in school and at bottling themselves up, they then explode when they get home as all of the frustrations of the day are vented all in one go.

I went to school in the 80s and, looking back while knowing what I now know, I can think of several children who were considered by staff and peers alike to be weird, naughty, fidgety, thick, etc and were actively avoided in the yard. One boy in my class at primary school spent most of every day working at a desk outside the headteachers office because he wouldn't/couldn't produce work in the classroom and would leap about the place instead. He would then get told off, in front of all of us, because he did the work when he was sitting alone in the corridor therefore there was no reason why he couldn't do it in the classroom. He used to scream every morning at drop off and then again at pick up. I would be seeking an ASD/ADHD assessment if that was now and I was his mother.

Of course autism isn't a new thing it's been around for ever!
Maybe it seems like its on the rise but it's because we are finally including those on the lower end of the spectrum into society.
My son has severe autism and severe learning difficulties just like many generations of people before him,the only difference now is we don't hide our children away in institutions.
Years ago my son would have been diagnosed as a violent scitsophrenic or something equally as bad but now we understand more we know that's not the case .

teachers in particular need educating! that is shameful

Those mumsnet baddies are generally parents who have been through rice as if getting their child of diagnosed and have experience not just talking out of their backsides for the sake of it shimmering

Proces

Teddy interesting post and very true.
My ds is diagnosed with asd. It's obvious he has asd with regards social communication etc.
Recently we've discovered he has a gene variant (BSCL2) because he's developed muscular issues (which took a while for me to get them to pay attention too because everything was 'autism')
The variant was discovered as they tested for something called HSP.

Right gene but unknown caring of it (as in not come across it before) and so now they are saying it's likely neuro genetic condition and asd has come along as it causes the right behaviours (iyswim?)

I've never heard anyone say they don't believe in it altogether! I've heard people comment a little skeptically on the amount of autism that is diagnosed now, or very rudely as the posted did above. I don't personally think that they are right to conclude that it's fictional - it might be becoming more prevalent, or we might just be getting better at detecting it.

I know kids who have been diagnosed with autism whose behaviours are very mild and probably wouldn't have been picked up a few decades ago. I also know older adults who have not been diagnosed whom I honestly suspect have had it their whole lives. I am absolutely certain my FIL has Aspergers, for example - he has some very pronounced symptoms; my friend's child who has actually been diagnosed has much less 'obvious' signs and symptoms. Surely we should be happy that people are now getting the help/support they need?

Unfortunately like every sector of parenting some parents of children with Autism are shit. It isn't a popular view. But they exist. And some parents refuse to engage with their dc appropriately and put in the hard work. Resulting in some awful behaviours......... I'm not on about the poor, worn down sods who try. I'm on about the lazy fuckers who sit on their arse bleating 'well he's Autistic' as their poor kid runs amok. Attacking others and getting themselves into a state. They're never taught how to cope with their condition....... Many end up being dealt with in the criminal, justice system. It's bloody sad to see. And after years of bringing up my own dc I can pretty accurately pick out the ones who will struggle. And it's the ones whose parents don't care or don't know how to.

I think because of people like that so many unfairly link Autism to bad behaviour and just don't want to see it in their own child.

I hear adhd being put down to bad parenting alot of the time. Not so much autism but I believe it's a very real thing. I think a long time ago those with it were considered "simple" or "retarded" and were bundled off to asylums.
A friend of a friends son has downs syndrome and she's been told she's faking it for disability benefits. The mind boggles.

@JapaneseBirdPainting we've had a teacher who didn't believe in dyspraxia this year too... unfortunately for the disbelieving teacher - the Head has a relative with the condition and blooming well DOES believe in it - no sitting on the complaint for us!

Mind you I do have a charming sibling who insists it's one of those things that you grow out of in a couple of years - but he's an absolute knob.

I think things get diagnosed more whereas in the past you tended to either sink (and disappear out of mainstream) or swim - I glaringly obviously have dyspraxia myself - but going through education back in the 80s and early 90s - I just had shit handwriting, was diabolical at PE and permanently spilt my lunch down me... I just got bollocked by teachers a lot and managed to work around my difficulties but bloody hated school.