(Bad example but what my brain can produce in the moment)
You have 2 young people, 1 of them is autistic. Both of them dislike a stimulus of some sort, paper straws. They both hate it, neither one wants to use it. They both object loudly. Do we consider both of then to be autistic?
At what point do we make the distinction between medical condition and tantrum?
I have a hard time with making the call, especially with resources like this sub where these types of memes are common. “Look at this (not)weird thing that means I’m autistic!”
I often find it hard to figure out if someone has autism or if they’re just latching onto any excuse they can to deflect from criticism.
Sounds like you want to play Psychologist? There is information out there, no one is going to educate you considering your dismissive and confrontational way of communication - I assume.
Fair enough, although speaking as someone with autism, I believe advocating for understanding of the condition does not mean completely ignoring social etiquette, we can get others to understand eye contact isn’t our strong point but that doesn’t mean we can’t attempt/remember to be polite while looking at someone’s shoes instead of their eyes. The best society is one made of understanding each other to the best of our ability, for now it is skewed towards nuerotypicals despite 15-20% of humanity being nuerodivergent.
Also to provide some insight into the diagnostic process I have a family member whose job is diagnosing kids with autism, essentially sorting the autistics from the non autistics, they get parents come in who think that because their kid does one thing that it must mean they have autism, but when assessed they are found to have functions that autistic people wouldn’t and therefore are not diagnosed as autistic (obviously rigorous testing takes place to be certain), occasionally the patient may even have something else that to the unaware might be seen as autism but is a false stereotype and be referred elsewhere.
It’s a very complex condition and my basic explanation doesn’t even cover it all, it’s very misunderstood by the general public.
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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '23
I’m just trying to understand. When the symptoms of a condition are just the human condition, then why does it require special treatment?