Are You Autistic, Channel 4, 10pm, Uk.

[staydazzling]

starting a thread ,apologies if there already is one, looks to be an interesting watch...i think its mainly about how many adults could be living with ASD undiagnosed.

I’ve often wondered if I’m on the autistic spectrum. I followed that test and a lot of it made sense. I’m always saying the wrong thing and missing social clues and worrying about stuff. I’ve always been a bit awkward and I’m always the last to get the joke. I panic in stressful situations. I hate change and definitely hate being the centre of attention, I’m blushing just thinking about it. It could just be anxiety I suppose.

Mogleflop - I agree with a lot of the points you made, in both your long and short rant. But the latter post especially summed up what I hated most about the show. The way it seems to be saying "socially awkward, didn't fit in at school, don't like crowds?" Ah, I know, you must be autistic. I also hated the cutesy big reveal ending too, especially the "I'm part of the autism gang now." WIthout really being able to explain why that really grated on me, well filled me with rage would be a more accurate description.

I also hated the fact they said they were being sent to Baron-Cohen for "diagnosis." Surely they were being sent to him for an assessment, not a diagnosis. Saying that way makes it sound like they'd already made up their mind there would be a diagnosis. Though I'm not sure if that's me being too pedantic or not, I never can tell.

Speaking of rage it's very annoying to see people yet again not only using the reductive and offensive terms "LFA" and "HFA" but also committing the cardinal sin of saying "he is/I am/we might be ASD."
The people who do that, you might be autistic, I don't know, but you definitely aren't pedants are you?
It's so bizarre why people think it's ok to use "ASD" that way. If I had cerebral palsy I wouldn't write "I am CP now" would I?
So why do people think it's ok to do with ASD? Is it because you think the A stands for autistic so therefore it's ok to use in the same way? In that case, why not just say autistic? Or is saying ASD somehow better to you? I'm genuinely curious why people use it this way.

There is a woman on Twitter complaining that her son is severely autistic and the people in the TV programme are not disabled and should think themselves lucky. Now that really pissed me off as someone with autism and I also have a severely autistic dd who lives in a residential school so I definitely know what that profile looks like.

I agree with mogleflop. And detective goren's first paragraph. This is pretty much what I thought of it. Felt iffy about saying it as I don't have autism and so many people on this thread seem to! But I did think it was patronising (and then thought perhaps it was just me who thought that). I did think a lot of neurotypical people would have reacted the same way as in that programme (and there's more to autism than that) and that it made it sound like if you don't fit in at school, don't like social situations then you're autistic which isn't the case.

I believe Asperger's has only been removed from the American DSM-V diagnostic criteria. In the UK the ICD-10 diagnostic manual from the WHO which still contains Aspergers as a diagnosis is very commonly used

YEs, and I think if Simon Baron Cohen used the term Aspergers then its ok to use it.

It was a reductionist explanation and SB-C seemed arrogant and bored

I thought he looked calm and assured.

Teisan Having Asperger's/ASD, I guess I can't quite tell whether he looked bored or whether he looked calm It's by the by - the point was that the programme was reductionist (by nature).
Did he actually coin the term Asperger's? I thought it was Kanner. Or Asperger himself? Can't remember. I'm sure it's on the NAS pages,

littlepill - Asperger himself never used the phrase "Asperger Syndrome" Unfortunately he termed it "autistic psychopathy." I think Kanner used the term "infantile autism." There's a lot of debate around that actually, in mostly in regards to whether or not Kanner was really unaware of Asperger's work as he always claimed and whether or not he deliberately avoided using similar wording to Asperger. What with Kanner speaking German and knowing personally two of the doctors who were on Asperger's staff in Vienna I think it's highly unlikely he wasn't aware of his research.
If you haven't read it the book Neurotribes covers a lot of that stuff.
Anyway, sorry for the little lecture. I couldn't help it, ironically enough autism is one of my special interests. And I just realised I didn't actually answer the question. It was Lorna Wing who first used the term Asperger Syndrome, in 1981.
www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjp9fey0ZTaAhXEDcAKHTiCBSMQFghHMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asperger-syndrome.me.uk%2Fhistory.html&usg=AOvVaw0LxBsKt1DBfF1K15IWqlFx

It was a reductionist explanation and SB-C seemed arrogant and bored

The autistic person I watched with said 'Look at his face, he is Mr. Smug.'

YEs, and I think if Simon Baron Cohen used the term Aspergers then its ok to use it.
You are aware that SB-C has views about autism being "cured" as though it's a disease?
He doesn't appear to have a lot of fans in the autistic community that can let their views be known.

It was better than I expected. Loved seeing loads of autistic women in one place.

Regarding Aspergers Syndrome, although Lorna Wing is often credited with being the first to use the term, it was (IIRC) used as a descriptive category in Germany nearly 20 years earlier by a Professor Bosch.

(by nature).
Did he actually coin the term Asperger's? I thought it was Kanner. Or Asperger himself? Can't remember. I'm sure it's on the NAS pages

Kanner termed Classic Kanners Autism. It’s the diagnosis my son has. It’s ASD at the most severe end of the scale.

At the same time he was doing his work Hans Asperger was working away with another group who were presenting as being Autistic but were in actual fact different in many ways to Kanners group. They were then said to have Asperger Syndrome.

Baron Cohen is one of the new generation.

I thought the programme was a very good introduction to ASD at the higher functioning end of the spectrum but I can see why others may have thought it was reductionalist even though it was never meant to be any thing more than giving people the confidence to say - so it really is a possiblity that I’m on the spectrum.

It’s why it was called ‘are you autistic’ and it’s why it made much of a lost generation who’d never been diagnosed.

Lorna Wing and Judith Gould diagnosed my son way back in the early 90’s.

It was a difficult time when there was hardly any information to be had and not just because the internet was in its infancy. I think my son was 5 before it was available where we live. But in a lot of ways we were very lucky because a lot of the names in the world of autism today were hanging around in autism forums and it was like having them in your living room for a chat.

TeisanLap - If you read the original descriptions of the children who were Asperger's patients then you'll see they aren't as far away from what is described as classic autism as people think.
It's a common assumption that all of the children Asperger saw were highly verbal little professor type patients, that is that none of them had language delay, that's actually not true. And Asperger's work pre-dates Kanner's by the way.

People seem to think "high functioning" means pretty much normal but just a bit quirky, that those autistic people can't severely affected by their autism. Yet some of Asperger's patients were described as completely lacking in basic self care skills.

Question, what do you mean Baron-Cohen is one of the new generation? New generation of what exactly?

HardAsSnails - I didn't know that someone had used the term Asperger's before Lorna Wing, I'd never heard about. Interesting fact though, thanks for sharing that.

Kanner's and Asperger's original case studies were actually much more alike than is usually thought (they're well worth reading). There's a lot of myths around Kanner's concept of autism, eg he believed that autism only affects people without learning/intellectual disability and that regression was not a feature of autism. What's now often called 'Kanner's/classic autism' is not what Kanner described in his early case studies!

Than you for your replies. It’s late where I am and time for bed.

Goodnight

I missed the programme, but really want to see it.

Does anyone know if it's being repeated at all?

I think you can watch it on channel 4 catch up. That’s what I’m planning to do.

It's on catch up for a month.

Watched this on catch up last night. Thought it was ok, bit repetitive in parts, would have liked to have had more than 2 people going through the process of diagnoses so we could see how autism presents in various ways. I enjoyed the focus on women with autism and the dispelling of the myth that autism is more common in boys. Didn't know what to make of the doctor at the end.

One small bit that annoyed me slightly was when the presenters said that some studies show that women with asd have 'Male brains'. That's just bollocks in my view. There's no such thing as Male and female brains.

I have suspected I have autism for a couple of years now but have never told anyone. Wondering how to tell dp, for some reason I can't seem to pluck up the courage. Maybe because I would hate people to think I was making it up. Would love to try for a diagnosis so I can know for sure either way.

Delete, have you done any of the online tests? Because that would be a way in..” saw programme, took test, not a diagnosis but..”

Yes I just re-did the aq test this morning actually and scored 37/50 which indicates significant autistic traits. I've had similar scores when I've done them before so there must be something, right?

I seem to have this silly fear that I will just get laughed at or brushed off, even though logically I know dp would never react like that, I do worry what family/friends might say if I ever took things further. Need to get over it really for my own sake. Just knowing one way or the other would be a massive weight off my shoulders I think.

I think that the higher your AQ score and the lower you EQ score the more likely you're on the spectrum.

My AQ score is 44 and my EQ score 14.

Will do the eq test when I have the chance.

My AQ score is 38 and EQ score is 12. I was diagnosed last year. In fact I could have written your post delete. Turns out DH always thought there was something "not quite right seemingly because of my lack of empathy and my very black and white way of looking at everything plus my need for quiet etc. I also felt stupid wanting a diagnosis and just wanted to know one way or the other.

I haven't told my family though. They absolutely wouldn't understand. I've only told very few friends (and everyone else is more just an acquaintance rather than a friend). It was a huge relief though.