Explain to me why you offence is caused by saying things like 'mildly autistic' etc.

[Purpleturtle45]

If ASD is a spectrum why do people commonly disagree that you can be mildly autistic or severely autistic etc.

My daughter is diagnosed with ASD, however you wouldn't really know unless you knew her well. She goes to mainstream school and copes well with everyday life most of the time so to me I would say she is mildly autistic but I often see people getting ripped to shreds on here for using that term.

Genuinely wondering how 'spectrum' can literally be in the title of the condition but people disagree there can be different severities.

Because when someone says “you only have mild autism” that feels very dismissive - like my struggles aren’t a big deal because on the surface, I appear normal.

Yes, exactly. It minimises people and dismisses their (very real) struggles because they’re not “as bad” as someone who will never live independently.

Personally (and I know this is very controversial) I think we need to bring back the Asperger’s diagnosis (obviously with a different name).

Something being mild or severe is not the same as "having it or not" is it? The OPs daughter has been diagnosed with ASD. Therefore she has autism. She has less severe traits than some, hence the "mild" description. And surely to god it IS mild in comparison to my colleagues youbg son who attended a specialist school, is non verbal, incontinant, and has vrry high needs in many other aspects of his life.

Beautifully put.

It’s the other way around for my H. He thinks his autism is mild as he doesn’t understand the impact it had on me or the kids. He also doesn’t understand the impact it has on him. That inability to understand is part of his autism.

The thing is, the friend’s child has co-occurring conditions - as indicated by the wheelchair, so there are more variables at play in this example.

Statistics suggest that only 22% of autistic people are in work. This statistic includes people who were once the ASD pupils you teach. The prognosis for those who achieve academically (including those who go to Oxbridge) is still very poor when it comes to employment and other quality of life indicators. Workplaces tend to be very challenging environments for autistic people, regardless of their strengths and talents.

I think a lot of the discomfort with terms like “mild” or “severe” comes from the fact that they are usually based on outward presentation, not on what it costs the autistic person internally. Someone can appear to cope in mainstream school, communicate well, meet milestones, etc, whilst expending a huge amount of energy doing so. Many autistic people describe constant self monitoring, suppressing their natural responses, rehearsing interactions with others in all kinds of settings, managing sensory overload, and then needing significant recovery time afterwards. From the outside it can be seen as “mild autism” but for the autistic person it could be extremely exhausting and distressing.

As other PPs have said, the word “spectrum” is often misunderstood as a straight line from mild to severe. In reality it describes variation across multiple domains such as communication, sensory processing, executive functioning, emotional regulation, and social interactions. An autistic person may have low support needs in one area and very high support needs in another. Reducing that complexity to a single severity label risks obscuring real difficulties simply because they are not immediately visible or because they don't have an impact on others, just the autistic person themselves.

Many autistic adults who were described as “high functioning” in childhood later suffered horrific burnouts, anxiety, depression etc precisely because they were seen as coping. So when people react strongly to terms like “mildly autistic”, they are often not denying that support needs vary. They are responding to language that has repeatedly been used to decide who is taken seriously, who receives support, and whose difficulties are minimised, based largely on external appearance rather than lived experience.

My son’s ONLY diagnosis is autism. He will never live alone or be able to advocate for himself. I can’t tell you how upsetting some of these replies are.

You might struggle but if you can live independently and have kids, job etc no your aren’t as ‘severe’ as my child. professing to have the same degree of struggles if laughable.

It’s also not like being pregnant of having cancer. There is no test just a set of symptoms. No one is doing a blood test and concluding you have autism.

Surely people have the right to label themselves as they want and their dependent children.

If people think my dd describing herself as mildly autistic is minimising THEIR autism then that’s on them. She’s not. She’s talking about herself.

It's not saying your struggles aren't a big deal. It's saying your struggles, real as they are, might not be quite as bad as someone else's struggles. On the flip side, your struggles might be worse than some other's.

I am sending support. This thread is infuriating and some people really haven’t got a clue what you are dealing with.

YANBU I work at a SEN school which specialises in ASD the milder cases are at our big main site along with the ADHD's and neglected, lots of anxiety etc then we have another site for the MORE autistic kids. Mumsnet is full of know it all, but they DONT know it all. And yes you can get a bit ADHD and more extreme ADHD too.

I'm sorry. It must be galling. I wish families like yours could be listened to more.

Except...if you did that, then - by definition - both conditions would be incurable, permanent developmental conditions.

The problem is that many autistic people's experience is that some days they can be level 1 (to take the insurance-based DSM definition, which is functionally identical to the old Asperger's definition), and then other days they can be level 2. The proportion of these days will often change with age; their level 2 days may be 1-5% of the time when young, increasing as far as 50% of the time in their 70s.

Similarly, there are people who move between levels 2 and 3. It's rarer for variation between levels 1 and 3, but not unheard of; there are plenty of reports of children diagnosed at level 3, non-speaking and unable to interact with the world, who suddenly start speaking in full sentences between 7 and 10 years old, and by the time they're in their late teens their support needs have reduced considerably to the point where they can deal with mainstream education and even hold a job when they're older.

This begs an important question: how, medically-speaking, would it be possible to have one incurable, permanent condition on one day, but an entirely different one the next?

This is a big part of why they are all considered part of the same condition, the other being that they have the same underlying cause. The position that they should be considered distinct conditions is a social one (usually demanded by people who are not autistic, and therefore have limited knowledge of the condition), not a science-based one.

So I'll get flamed for this, I describe my son as autistic "what used to be known as Aspergers syndrome".

I know why we don't refer to Asperger, but this is the quickest way to give strangers an indication of what my son is like and likely capable of. Otherwise I've had conversations where people uncomfortably tiptoe through questions trying to see if he attends school, and what type of school, is he verbal, capable of toileting himself, etc.

What is the underlying cause of autism? Would love to know.

Nobody knows what other people struggle with. Inner struggle is not the preserve of the neurodiverse.

To object to your condition being described as mild because it is so obviously not affecting you as badly as others with the condition reduces people to having to make long descriptions instead.

We do it with all sorts of other conditions without the fuss that's made when we do it for the ND.

I have no more problem with my ADHD being described as mild than I do with my arthritis being described as mild. My ADHD hasn't prevented me from working, my arthritis doesn't prevent me from walking.

And while you personally may be screaming inside about your difficulties, so are half the other people on the bus or in your office.

To have your outward symptoms described as mild is simply to accurately describe your outward presentation. It doesn't minimise your struggles any more than the entire neurotypical population routinely have their own struggles minimised by the ND community.

Im pretty sure its genetic.

In either case it's obviously none of your business. That individual is using a particular terminology for the situation they are in and it's not your role to tell them different. As you aren't directly involved in supporting either of those children you don't need to know their full profile. The correct terminology when said to a mum friend would sound overly formal and pedantic bit "I can't take my severely autistic DC there" means "The particular issues my DC with autism has will be significantly triggered by that location to the extent that it's not remotely sensible for us to go" and "DC has autism but it's relatively mild" means "I am not expecting you to need to do much with this information because the situations I exoect you to e in won't need you to know more detail than this" and that's it. It doesn't mean that you get to categorise other people's autism as "mild" or "severe"

I always say my son has severe autism. He's 11, non verbal, still in nappies and functions at the level of a 2 year old.
It makes it easier than saying he's autistic and hearing "oh they're usually really clever at some things aren't they..."

But but but... Trump says it's because the mums took paracetamol during pregnancy. You mean he ... lied?!!

This is a great graphic. However it does not mean that a person might have only mild characteristics and another person might have only severe characteristics. Therefore different people might be described as mild or severe

I’m sorry that it feels dismissive. But ultimately, you must also accept that there are autism sufferers with profound, complex needs that are greater than yours. That is a fact.

Acknowledging that fact does not in any way mean that your own needs aren’t very real. It doesn’t mean that you don’t struggle, or need support. It just means that there are others who need a lot more support.

Your perception of the term ‘mild autism’ is just that, a perception. Nobody is saying that you are any less of a person because your autism is not as severe as someone who can’t talk and is tube-fed. Nobody would argue that you don’t face struggles that a NT person won’t have to suffer.

I have a physical disability. I can’t work and I use a wheelchair. My condition is currently categorised as “mild/moderate”. It doesn’t feel mild or moderate to me, but I know that there are sufferers who are bedridden for years, and sufferers who have died. They are ‘severe’ sufferers and describing them as such doesn’t make my life any harder or easier. Nobody would claim that my condition is ‘mild’ in comparison with the general healthy population, but compared to other suffers of my condition it is. If I claimed that we are all suffering the same illness, it would be dismissing their much greater suffering.

My nephew uses mildly and Asperger’s interchangeably. I follow his lead and use his preferred titles, not some random person from the internet providing random directives.

A lot of people have talked about how saying 'mild autism' is minimising their needs. Can't you see that your post is minimising my friends' son's (much more significant) needs? See also @Heyhoherewego23 s post.