Uta Frith, women, autism, and what Dr Stock, Helen Lewis etc think...

[Missproportionate]

Helen Lewis and Kathleen Stock have both commented on this article on X, both slightly ambiguously, as if they aren't sure what to think.

Wondered what anyone on here thinks about this? I am also ambiguous, but full disclosure: I have been diagnosed with autism at the age of 50, I haven't told very many people because I see a lot of identifying as 'neurospicy' online, and it seems to be connected to the whole 'I'm not normal, oh no I'm special' idea that I think has parallels with the queer community. I don't want to be on that bandwagon, I just want to make sense of myself.

I was diagnosed through a long process with several professionals, and a 3 hour interview with me, and a 3 hour interview with my mum about me as a child. I fitted in all the separate areas of criteria. I doubt people I work with or interact with superficially would guess ( but they may find me irritating or insensitive or interrupting - I find it hard to tell).

But it worries me a bit that women who are autistic might be seen as 'not real' and lumped in with the trans community in some way. But then how does that
then work? because as has been observed many times, girls who present with gender dysphoria are very often diagnosed/undiagnosed autistic. I think we should be leaning into attending to the autism in girls, and how an autistic girl might find being trans attractive as a way to 'solve' their feelings of not belonging. If we start to question the genuineness of their autism, we risk failing those girls even more. Don't we?

I don't know what to think.

Uta Frith interview in TLS

One of the researchers who developed TEACCH in the US, Gary Mesibov (which is where visual timetables came from), points out that the profession with the highest rates of autistic people in it is teaching. Or was - I read that years ago so he was probably referring to older data.

I think the 1 million estimated with autism in the UK was contrasted with the 680,000 reported by the working population to suggest that there were 320,000 autistic people out there in the working population who didn't report having autism, but the author of that comment had failed to notice that the figures they were talking about were the entire population versus the working population.

A bit more digging suggests that around 1.2% of adults in the UK have been diagnosed with autism by a professional (although the percentage who have this on their medical records is lower). If we took the working age population as about 44 million, then the 680,000 represents around 1.5% which does suggest that some people are reporting autism as a health condition without a formal diagnosis.

It seems within autism we have
Autistic people with a diagnosis on their medical records
Autistic people with a professional diagnosis which hasn't been recorded on their medical records
Autistic people who report that they have autism who have self-diagnosed
Autistic people who don't know they have autism

This is going to make any statistical analysis really muddy unless people are super-clear about their populations, particularly if then drawing conclusions about 'people with autism'.

@noblegiraffe - thank you. I can see you're obviously a very good teacher - well explained 😄

Re attachment and autism , I read this article on Substack last year.

The author, Megan Bell, has several ideas I don't agree with, but it seems to me there could be something in what she suggests. She notes that early autism researchers spoke of a lack of warmth in some of their patients' general family backgrounds, not just their mothers.

https://thecassandracomplex.substack.com/p/the-return-of-the-refrigerator-mother

I am very wary of it getting misused in a sexist way, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed.

She did another piece I'll also link which discusses the refrigerator theory :

https://thecassandracomplex.substack.com/p/what-causes-autism

I read this on Substack recently. I've had doubts about other stuff the author has written, but this post seems interesting.

https://wesleyyang.substack.com/p/universal-early-childhood-daycare?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

I think comparing groups can sometimes yield interesting insights, but only if you pick the correct boundaries for the groups. In this case where we are talking about a group being unemployed, even if within that there is a cohort that is just as likely as the average to be employed, because you are combining them with a group that is much less likely to be employed it will still look like the whole group is less likely to be employed. So it does little to look at the statistics for groups where we are already questioning the validity of the criteria we are defining them by.

And the point about other groups who may have less (or more) success in employment is that it falls within normal parameters for people to have personalities and talents that make them more or less successful. So what is outside the norm, something to be worried about? The average in many ways is not all that enlightening.

This struck me for example in the post talking about kids of professionals who were identified as perhaps autistic who managed very well with some extra support at school. So - is that outside the norm, now, to need extra support at school sometimes to do well? Isn't that actually fairly common?

I am not saying that there are no people with meaningful brain differernces that constitute a disorder or condition, obviously there are. Neurodiverse however is not a medical term, and does not have a coherent definition of boundary. Some brain differences might constitute an "abnormal" and problematic condition. But other brain differences will simply be part of human variation - in fact we all have different brains, and there are all kinds of groups with brains that process in various ways and sometimes better or worse than average in some area. It's not helpng to talk about neurodiversity as if that is what makes something a diagnosible condition that requires extra support. And by extra, I mean more than any person might require extra supprt.

The opposite way to ask this, and it's worth asking, is where has this idea come from that "normal" kids don't struggle, or merit extra support for areas where they struggle, they are less deserving of resources and consideration. I wonder at times to what extent the push for diagnosis comes out of the idea that average kids (as well as gifted kids) are just expected to be satisfied with generic education, as if one size fits all.

There was a book a number of years ago now, I'm not sure if it's still being read much now but it was popular at the time, that suggested that large numbers of children in daycare from the toddler years was resulting in a lot of kids whose focus was much more on their peers than their immediate family. IIRC it focused mainly on very standard, North American daycare settings with a fairly large group of kids, and a few adults who often came and went in the jobs.

Impossible really to prove, but I've always thought that it is unlikely that being in a group like that from a fairly young age would NOT affect many children's relations with other people. In part because I remember daycare and childcare in general being massively stressful when I was little.

She notes that early autism researchers spoke of a lack of warmth in some of their patients' general family backgrounds, not just their mothers.

Which would suggest to me that their family backgrounds contained autism rather than the family caused autism by not being 'warm' (whatever that means).

Those blogs sound like they're written by someone with an agenda against daycare fitting their observations to meet their thesis rather than a neutral and informed view which would note that their observations are extremely North American-centred while not explaining the rise in mental health problems and autism in children in countries which actually give mothers maternity leave.

They don't mention covid, and they massively downplay the impact of social media as well.

Thank you, that sounds really interesting. Can you remember the title maybe?

I've been reading about Bruno Bettelheim's career recently and this ties in, as he researched the early Israeli kibbutzes and wrote very positively about them in Children of the Dream. He argued that the children had good peer relations, maybe better than others not raised kibbutz-style, and that the lack of a major primary caregiver didn't affect them badly. (Bettelheim himself has been revealed to be a singularly dodgy character & not who he claimed to be-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bettelheim)

Later research (and some at the time) found that there were certainly negative effects, often, and that one was greater conformity due to being raised with such reliance on the group. I'm fascinated by the early history of Israel, and the socialist ethos of the founders certainly had some positive effects, but the early kibbutz ways of raising children were not one of them.

This is very interesting, thank you.

The constant cortisol level that rises unnaturally over the course of the day ( rather than just at the usual time on waking) is what I was wondering about in particular as being an element that could change the child’s brain.

I should emphasise that I think this Substacker, Megan Bell, has written a lot if things which are kooky at best & don't stand up to scrutiny, and she's also commented approvingly on some misogynistic Substack posts. I don't think this post is gospel by any means.
I did think there could be some genuinely interesting points in the post I linked buried amid the questionable ones, though.

I agree that the way she barely mentions the potential genetic reasons for perceived parental 'lack of warmth' is the weakest element of the post, especially as in the second one I linked, she acknowledges it briefly as a 'reasonable point' and one that has been suggested since Asperger himself.

I personally don't think nursery care for very young children is good, though it's notable that she acknowledges there's no proven ill-effects for children older than 2 (indeed, she says her own child is in part time preschool).

I’d have to have a re flick through but I’m sure that “love matters” covered the day care thing. IIRC Being around caregivers who are highly responsive to a young child’s immediate needs is the most important thing.

I have taught children who have extremely traumatic and neglectful starts in life, witnessed or were subjected to violence. They were diagnosed with autism later. But also one who wasn’t.* But I don’t know how much of that is about getting the right setting for the child / meeting needs (so ‘autism’ is the best route) or early interrupted development leading to extreme difficulties with executive function, social interaction/ comprehension and emotional regulation. All of which are common autistic traits in school age children who often go to specialist settings.

*had very challenging emotional regulation difficulties which certainly affected her social skills and academic learning. BUT with a lot of specialist input made huge progress.

The book 'Young children learning' (Tizard and Hughes) documented and compared spoken interactions between girls in daycare and those same children in the home, sometimes with an aunt or gran rather than their mother.
It was in the 80s and I know daycare standards have changed massively but the interactions are very reminiscent of my experience in nursery (which I hated).

In this case where we are talking about a group being unemployed, even if within that there is a cohort that is just as likely as the average to be employed, because you are combining them with a group that is much less likely to be employed it will still look like the whole group is less likely to be employed. So it does little to look at the statistics for groups where we are already questioning the validity of the criteria we are defining them by.

Asperger’s was defined separately for a number of years and employment stats in this group were looked at then. They were much lower than the average. Books were written to help, eg the one I’ve linked below which says that 20% were in employment.

www.kennys.ie/health-personal-development/Asperger-Syndrome-And-Employment-Adults-Speak-Out-About-Asperger-Syndrome-Genevieve-Edmonds

I’ll try to check to see how much paid parental leave various countries give.

The best would be two years. Even then two year old toddlers would need to speak well enough to understand why they are at the nursery; and understand that they will be picked up.They would also need to be in a good nursery with an empathetic key worker not to feel stress.

OP I think this thread should be put into Classic because it is informative and also exploratory without it being like an AIBU thread. I wonder if anyone else thinks this?

Yes I also thought this.

I’ve been thinking about the different groups mentioned up thread - early diagnosis versus teenage diagnosis (especially in girls). And reflecting on the employment statistics.

From my own experience as the mum of a teen-diagnosed dd, the issues were clearly apparent from primary school eg having to be physically handed over crying to the teacher on the door to get her in to school, nurture group to help her go into school more calmly, selective mutism (seen as shyness). But with a supportive school and family, and because her default in a busy class of 30 was silent weeping, it never met the threshold to be seen as a problem.

Secondary (small, selective) also adapted to met her needs, but as she got older what looked like developmentally normal shyness and awkwardness became more different compared to her peers. But again, with the right support at home and school, and a few adjustments, she can manage. Without them she wouldn’t be at school, or any of her other activities.

I’ve been wondering if the rise in teenage diagnosis is because we’ve lost the human scale institutions (especially schools and workplaces, hobbies seem to do this better) where those adjustments can easily be made without a formal diagnosis.

How lovely of you!!
I’m finding it really informative myself too. It’s brought out so many nuances and discussions :-)

Yeah I think there is a lot of agenda behind all those posts and ideas.

feminism has been through a lot of different views on the whole childcare thing through the ages. Not all healthy looking back. I remember looking at my mums notes from their ‘women's studies’ course circa 1985. Lots of stuff that would seem outdated now. It got confusing because of unforeseen consequences- for instance femism was broadly welcoming of processed food and ready meals when they came on stream as they were freeing up women’s lives. Clearly a bad idea in hindsight. Home cooking and healthy eating got a taint of the housewife about it for quite a while. Similar with women in the workplace - to ‘have it all’ you have to be with the men - running fast and hot right in the window of time when children are tiny. So childcare was aspirational. It’s got so many flags that it’s a prime battleground for the politics of ‘.gender’. My fiercely feminist DM is very cutting about certain relatives who’ve got small children and have them in wraparound childcare. I have much more of a ‘rock and a hard place’ view!

See also:

pregnant women and control of their body.

”Don't take paracetamol - you must sacrifice yourself to the pain because other you child will have autism”. Trump et al 2025

I’m also interested in the relation between trauma and autism. Or at least the overlap of how it presents. So is someone’s ARFID to do with their autism or the fact that there were arguments at the dinner table loads and they now associate food with stress? It’s very hard to look at family dynamics and how these could contribute to a child’s or adult’s challenges.

And I’m also interested in the studies on neurotypical people and how many actually find social interactions easy or secondary school corridors easy. Since the rise in diagnosis of women in their 30s or 40s, I know lots of people who are autistic or ADHD. Quite often, they’ll make statements about neurotypical people, like ‘I’m not like neurotypical people because I don’t like small talk’ as though neurotypical people love small talk. Or, ‘I’m autistic so I just say what I think, not like neurotypical people who don’t say what they mean.’ Or ‘I’ve always felt like I didn’t fit in’ as though neurotypical people always feel like they fit in. Or ‘I’m autistic so I have a strong sense of justice’ as though neurotypical people don’t.

I don’t know what I think of that actually, it’s just something I’ve noticed now that more and more women are being diagnosed with or identifying as autistic.

I see it suggested quite often that changes in the school environment may be the reason behind the rise in teenage diagnoses.

I'm just not convinced by this though. When I was growing up in the 80s/90s I had primary school teachers who shouted and the threat of corporal punishment was still around. I had a brief period of school refusal aged 7 and I still remember the headmaster screaming in my face because I was crying for my mum and wanted to go home. As I remember it, my parents dragged me in every day until I gave up struggling. There were no reasonable adjustments.

I was at a very academic, pressured, selective secondary. There was one girl who with hindsight probably had ADHD and one or two with anorexia, but I don't remember anyone school refusing, having selective mutism etc.

To be clear - I'm absolutely not suggesting that we need to go back to these methods of schooling. But schools were pretty harsh, difficult places 30/40 years ago and yet, by and large, kids did cope with it, although I'm sure many found it very difficult. There certainly weren't the same numbers of kids with EBSA that there are now. I just don't see that schools really any more difficult for ND kids than they used to be.

This is taken as read that there is something damaging about a pre-verbal child being with anyone but a parent - but this is a cultural assumption, not a proven fact. Looking at history and across the globe, a child spending all their time with their mother is no more universal than nursery - 'group care' might well be closer to how our ancestors raised toddlers than modern, intensive mothering. Throughout most of history a woman who told you that her primary occupation was paying attention to a two year old would have been considered, at best, eccentric.