The overloading of the term autism has had a real damaging effect on some people. My cousin is profoundly autistic: he's nonverbal, and will never live independently. In the 90s most autism research was focused on helping people like him. He was involved in some pioneering studies at John's Hopkins University.
Today most of the money and advocacy is for high-performing or moderately-performing people with autism. Not just in relative terms, the amount of funding for people like my cousin has gone down. It makes sense; they are the larger group by volume and are able to advocate better than people like my cousin.
I wish it weren't a zero-sum game, and we recognized that autism is just a word for a broad series of conditions. It would be like if we called everyone with poor eyesight 'blind': yes, your vision is impaired. But the solutions you need are very different than the solutions Stevie Wonder needs.
I have a former friend who listened to too many podcasts and self-diagnosed himself as autistic right around when his relationship was falling apart. The guy couldn't handle his girlfriend asking him to step up on some things so he decided his "out" socially was to call himself autistic to garner sympathy. The dude isn't autistic, he is simply terrible at accepting any responsibility for himself and doesn't care how that affects others. That was my first exposure to how out of control autism labeling was about to become and it's gotten a lot worse since then.
ivell 6 minutes ago [-]
Unfortunately, many autistic people also get misunderstood to be irresponsible and lazy. They are also unable to understand other person's feelings and are thought to lack empathy, even though it is just that they are unable to recognize social cues.
So with just this information it is hard to say if your friend is indeed autistic or not. It would need a more professional diagnosis to say either way.
yieldcrv 23 minutes ago [-]
Tylenol catching strays over people like this
awesome_dude 15 minutes ago [-]
Can you share your qualifications that demonstrate how you are able to make any form of diagnosis on your "friend"
ikeashark 1 minutes ago [-]
I don't see the point in asking that question as his friend self-diagnosed himself as "autistic". Jsbi, I assume, is expressing doubt in the self-diagnosis rather than diagnosising his former friend.
bena 9 minutes ago [-]
The same qualifications his friend had when he made his self-diagnosis
awesome_dude 7 minutes ago [-]
So you agree then that the story was rubbish
thewebguyd 10 minutes ago [-]
I think one of the major mistakes in this was folding in what used to be Aspergers into the Autism Spectrum diagnosis.
I received an Aspergers diagnosis back when it was still separate. To me it still doesn't feel right for my condition to also be lumped in with people like your cousin. I understand that it can still be a "spectrum" but the spectrum is far too wide now.
Your cousin has very different struggles and needs compared to someone with a more high functioning autism, or even someone with (formerly known as Aspergers) like myself.
MangoToupe 38 minutes ago [-]
> Today most of the money and advocacy is for high-performing or moderately-performing people with autism.
Is this true? I think it's important to distinguish between social media (and other sorts of) discourse and where money is actually flowing.
in_cahoots 26 minutes ago [-]
Social media is not disconnected from society as a whole. Influencers are called that because they have actual influence. You only need to look at and truly understand the MAHA movement to know this. It's not a movement by RFK; it's a movement of people (often moms) who are dissatisfied with their current situation and trying to do something to change it. They may be flat out wrong, but they have influence nonetheless.
Did the diagnostic criteria in DSM 5 change as a result of social media, was it the other way around, or was it hidden variables affecting both? Regardless, the money and attention tend to follow what the common people are saying. See: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
anonym29 11 minutes ago [-]
Topically relevant: the DSM 5 eliminated the distinction between what was formerly called an Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis from an Autism diagnosis, in part because the name "Asperger" came from a Nazi scientist, and therefore, per then-current political winds, the only morally correct action to take was to erase the name. Of course, this motive needed some kind of non-political justification to not come across as what it was (an example of non-medical political partisanship aimed at erasing history that was disfavored by the political partisans pushing the agenda), which is where the idea of re-categorizing what were and still are clearly at least two distinct clusters of diagnostic patterns as one grand, unified "autism spectrum" that functionally resulted in little more than muddying of waters in the field, which now need to be cleared up again - as pointed out by TFA.
You're right that there are external variables, including non-medical variables, influencing the DSM-5's diagnostic shuffle, I just don't see them as particularly well "hidden".
cogman10 31 minutes ago [-]
Not really.
The main difference is that we don't immediately institutionalize kids with severe autism, which does save a lot of money.
For my kid with severe autism, about the only real impact of more people getting therapy is that sometimes it's harder to get an appointment (triage is more first come first serve and less needs based).
Realistically, that simply translates into a month to a half year waiting for an opening.
armchairhacker 23 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, "thinks or reacts to things differently than most people" is way too broad.
It also shouldn't be a binary classifier. Some people are definitely "autistic", and some are definitely not, but many of the personality traits that define autism are continuous: e.g. some people are barely distracted by loud noises (normal), others are distracted by loud but not quiet noises (normal), others are distracted by specific quiet noises like chewing (autism?), others are very distracted by any noise even with noise-cancelling headphones (autism?).
I think people should just say "I have sensory issues" (or clarify "noise really distracts me"), "I'm bad at reading emotions", "my mood is really affected by others". And accommodations maybe do need to be binary (or graded), but should ideally be informal, and definitely be for specific traits instead of "autism": e.g. don't give someone who thinks methodically but isn't bothered by loud environments their own room (unless you give everyone that), but don't assign them vague tasks or they'll perform poorly.
sctb 16 minutes ago [-]
You're right that sensory issues make up a small (optional) part of the diagnostic criteria for ASD under the DSM-5. And I agree that "autism" in popular discourse seems to be very flexible and inclusive, but the medical diagnostic criteria are much more specific. When someone does meet these criteria, there's something going on that isn't just a collection of unrelated peculiarities. This seems to be supported by the very high heritability of diagnosed ASD.
> To meet diagnostic criteria for ASD according to DSM-5, a child must have persistent deficits in each of three areas of social communication and interaction (see A.1. through A.3. below) plus at least two of four types of restricted, repetitive behaviors (see B.1. through B.4. below).
Example (A.1):
> Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions
The medical diagnostic criteria, despite using technical language, are still vague: "deficits in..." has a wide interpretation. Furthermore, "at least two of the four" permits two people diagnosed with autism to have different symptoms: one child may only have limited interests and insistence on sameness, while another may only have "stereotyped" motor movements and hypersensitivity (and the specific interests, "stereotyped" behaviors, and hypersensitive stimuli can vary).
gpt5 4 minutes ago [-]
I've copied the required features from your linked document. With that said, I'd say most people tend to have every trait there to some extent. So I'm not sure that the medical criteria is as specific as you implied. It seems like the main criteria they use is that the symptoms cause significant impairment in your life.
---
Essential (Required) Features:
Persistent deficits in initiating and sustaining social communication and reciprocal social interactions that are outside the expected range of typical functioning given the individual’s age and level of intellectual development.
Specific manifestations of these deficits vary according to chronological age, verbal and intellectual ability, and disorder severity.
Manifestations may include limitations in the following:
Understanding of, interest in, or inappropriate responses to the verbal or non-verbal social communications of others.
Integration of spoken language with typical complimentary non-verbal cues, such as eye contact, gestures, facial expressions and body language.
These non-verbal behaviours may also be reduced in frequency or intensity.
Understanding and use of language in social contexts and ability to initiate and sustain reciprocal social conversations.
Social awareness, leading to behaviour that is not appropriately modulated according to the social context.
Ability to imagine and respond to the feelings, emotional states, and attitudes of others.
Mutual sharing of interests.
Ability to make and sustain typical peer relationships.
Persistent restricted, repetitive, and inflexible patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities that are clearly atypical or excessive for the individual’s age and sociocultural context.
These may include:
Lack of adaptability to new experiences and circumstances, with associated distress, that can be evoked by trivial changes to a familiar environment or in response to unanticipated events.
Inflexible adherence to particular routines; for example, these may be geographic such as following familiar routes, or may require precise timing such as mealtimes or transport.
Excessive adherence to rules (e.g., when playing games).
Excessive and persistent ritualized patterns of behaviour (e.g., preoccupation with lining up or sorting objects in a particular way) that serve no apparent external purpose.
Repetitive and stereotyped motor movements, such as whole body movements (e.g., rocking), atypical gait (e.g., walking on tiptoes), unusual hand or finger movements and posturing.
These behaviours are particularly common during early childhood.
Persistent preoccupation with one or more special interests, parts of objects, or specific types of stimuli (including media) or an unusually strong attachment to particular objects (excluding typical comforters).
Lifelong excessive and persistent hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity to sensory stimuli or unusual interest in a sensory stimulus, which may include actual or anticipated sounds, light, textures (especially clothing and food), odors and tastes, heat, cold, or pain.
The onset of the disorder occurs during the developmental period, typically in early childhood, but characteristic symptoms may not become fully manifest until later, when social demands exceed limited capacities.
The symptoms result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning.
Some individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder are able to function adequately in many contexts through exceptional effort, such that their deficits may not be apparent to others.
A diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder is still appropriate in such cases.
willsmith72 22 minutes ago [-]
What you're describing is the whole reason it's called autism *spectrum* disorder
armchairhacker 11 minutes ago [-]
True, but it's still very vague.
"I'm autistic" could mean "I'm non-verbal and can't function without constant care", "I'm very good at hacking, but need help with basic things", "I can function independently, but tend to over-think and over-explain and can't read people's emotions", "I can read people's emotions but am overwhelmed by them, I'm also unusually soothed by ASMR", "I'm unusually irritated by ASMR"...and there's no boundary that separates "real" autism from almost normal with certain traits slightly elevated.
cogman10 45 minutes ago [-]
> It is time to realise that ‘autism’ has become a ragbag of different conditions.
Look, I get it and somewhat agree. However, the reason for the diagnosis (and any diagnosis) is treatment.
Maybe there are two different conditions that require speech, occupational, and behavior therapy to different degrees, however, in terms of convincing insurance companies in the US to cover those having a single diagnosis makes everything easier.
It's not as if a separate diagnosis would change how a speech therapist interacts with a child.
I applaud efforts to figure out what is going on and to categorize. But I also think that practically the ragbag diagnosis makes treatment a lot easier to access for patients.
cstejerean 43 minutes ago [-]
Well of course, we basically expanded the ASD definition to cover a wide range in order to ensure that everyone gets access to support if needed, but in the process turned "autism" into a grab bag of different conditions which makes discussions about it difficult because everyone is talking about something else.
morkalork 36 minutes ago [-]
It's kinda like mental health issues go through their own hype-cycles. Autism now is where ADHD was in the late 90s / early 2000s. I say this as someone who went through the Ritalin treatment a long time ago, but that was after my parents were at their wits end tried drugging me with gravol. If that were today, it'd probably be some neurospicy autism diagnosis and treatment.
I mean a lot of people Autistic and non-autistic exhibit that behavior. There should be some genetic or biological component to autism, otherwise we're just labelling boutique awkward behavior as Autism
noelwelsh 1 minutes ago [-]
Agreed. I believe both autism and ADHD are labelled as syndromes, which is basically a circle drawn around a collection of symptoms, as the biological basis is not currently known. This research could be a step towards changing it.
hirvi74 9 minutes ago [-]
My views may not carry much influence, but I’ve argued this point for years—and not only about ADHD, but about many psychiatric conditions, including Autism.
For what it is worth, I have ADHD -- 'cousin' disorder to Autism. Like Autism, ADHD has an array of presentations. I hold the belief that diagnostic labels are simply abstractions for grouping clusters of vague and often arbitrary symptoms. In that sense, many labels are tautological. For example, ADHD/Autism is defined by a set of behaviors, yet people are said to have ADHD/Autism because they exhibit that exact same set of behaviors.
From my perspective, conditions like ADHD and Autism are unusual conditions in terms of their pathology. I suspect some autistic people might agree when I say this: ADHD (and certain forms of Autism) seem to be treated less for the benefit of the individual and more for the benefit of those around them. Compare this to depression -- a condition where the primary suffering is internal -- experienced by the person themselves. With ADHD and Autism, the person is not necessarily suffering directly, but their behaviors often cause difficulty for others, and in turn those others impose suffering on the individual. Treatment, then, improves behavior (somewhat), which first benefits those around the person, and only indirectly improves the individual's own quality of life.
I may be struggling to articulate it perfectly, but I can’t shake the sense that there’s something unsettling about the pathology of these conditions. It has become almost imperative that I take amphetamines every single day. A practice that is far from pleasant, to say the least. Technically, no one forces me to medicate myself, yet the pressures of society make it feel obligatory. I alter myself not primarily for my own sake, but because society has deemed my natural state defective, disruptive, or unworthy. Treatment to me seems less about addressing my own suffering and more about making me tolerable to others.
dsr_ 47 minutes ago [-]
Did anyone, including the people proclaiming it, believe that "Tylenol causes autism"?
thehappypm 5 minutes ago [-]
Harvard sees a potential link, hell it’s the name of the paper: “Using acetaminophen during pregnancy may increase children’s autism and ADHD risk ”.
I think that it might be a real thing is because nobody really knows how acetaminophen even works. All the theories involve influencing the brain‘s chemistry. Who knows, maybe influencing a fetus’s brain chemistry can be bad.
Belief is one of the methods by which we demonstrate loyalty - and to the person affected, it's indistinguishable from any other belief.
droptablemain 26 minutes ago [-]
No one proclaimed that.
They announced that Tylenol could be linked to neurological development issues, including autism.
estearum 11 minutes ago [-]
"Don't take Tylenol, don't take it. If you just can't… I mean, it's just fight like hell not to take it. There may be a point where you have to and that you have to work out with yourself. So don't take Tylenol."
That's what they said, which is fucking stupid.
The existing guidance is to discuss use with your doctor and to take the minimum necessary. It is not "fight like hell", ostensibly through fever and significant pain, to avoid it.
There is no good evidence to substantiate this belief, and if there were, then it'd be part of the guidance and we wouldn't need somebody who learned acetaminophen == Tylenol at 79 years old saying things like "Don't take Tylenol" on national TV.
altcognito 15 minutes ago [-]
Why would they do that? Why would they suggest that maybe these two things are related?
Why didn't they say it earlier? Didn't they say they were going to release the cause of autism earlier?
zmgsabst 48 minutes ago [-]
I wouldn’t even be surprised to find that it’s a matrix: multiple causes correlate with multiple (but not necessarily all) expressions.
Like myocarditis or auto immune diseases.
1 hours ago [-]
oortoo 49 minutes ago [-]
Of course its not. Autism is not Mendelian. There is no autism gene. "Autism" doesn't even really exist, it's just a handy way for us to wave our hands and say, "That kid's not normal," without taking the time to understand who the person is and what their specific needs are.
This is the simulated reality we live in. We're all overworked by our capitalist masters and the only way we can even remotely get by is by relying on overloaded catch-all terms that let us dehumanize anyone who falls off their hamster wheel.
Same is true of ADHD. And depression. And anxiety. All just mental shortcuts, saving time and corporate margins by seeing each other more like cattle than real people so we can justify pumping people with amphetamines and mood stabilizers until they fall into line and start turning the wheels of the capitalist machine.
Instead of asking, "What's wrong with the way we built this world that is leading people to feel this way?" we just say, "Something's wrong with you."
cogman10 25 minutes ago [-]
> Autism is not Mendelian. There is no autism gene.
Autism is heritable which suggests there are autism genes involved. [1]
It's not a 100% thing, which could point to things other than genetics causing autism. It is, however, very strongly correlated to your parents.
Unless we find Utopia some day, the economic system does not matter. People will have to work whether they be nomads, fishermen or fisherwomen, live in Neoliberal economies, live in Socialist economies, Communist economies or a loaner in the jungle. People have to produce: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" as they say. It's expected people who have the ability to produce to produce. It's not Wall-E land where you get plugged in and can veg out to your heart's content. We have the same phenomenon in the non-political animal kingdom. You hold your weight or you're out. We have little more ruth as a species... but not that much more because it's hard to afford more --you see even if we evenly spread the wealth from billionaires evenly, it would not amount to much for each individual -just over a thousand dollars per person and it would be a one-time thing.
bhaak 1 hours ago [-]
Oh, a scientist. What do they know? I thought we don’t listen to these people anymore.
In what reality would we be living if we listened to knowledgeable people?
Der_Einzige 1 hours ago [-]
Technocracies have a pretty bad record unironically. Places which let lawyers run society do better than places which let engineers run it.
Edit, since I can't make a post right now since HN thinks I've posted too much, here's some examples of technoracies:
"The former government of the Soviet Union has been referred to as a technocracy.[20] Soviet leaders like Leonid Brezhnev often had a technical background. In 1986, 89% of Politburo members were engineers.[20] "
"Many previous leaders of the Chinese Communist Party had backgrounds in engineering and practical sciences. According to surveys of municipal governments of cities with a population of 1 million or more in China, it has been found that over 80% of government personnel had a technical education"
"Since the 1990s, Italy has had several such governments (in Italian, governo tecnico) in times of economic or political crisis,[27][28] including the formation in which economist Mario Monti presided over a cabinet of unelected professionals."
"The term 'technocratic' has been applied to governments where a cabinet of elected professional politicians is led by an unelected prime minister, such as in the cases of the 2011-2012 Greek government led by economist Lucas Papademos and the Czech Republic's 2009–2010 caretaker government presided over by the state's chief statistician, Jan Fischer.[3][31] In December 2013, in the framework of the national dialogue facilitated by the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, political parties in Tunisia agreed to install a technocratic government led by Mehdi Jomaa."
"The Syrian Salvation Government, the predecessor to the Syrian transitional government,[33] was characterized by observers as an authoritarian technocracy"
Weird to throw China in there as an example of a failed technocracy. They’re currently performing so well that it’s considered a massive problem.
They’re not perfect, but frankly they humiliate the US in a lot of areas because the US system is too sclerotic to adapt and improve.
breppp 1 hours ago [-]
In my experience organizations ruled by lawyers are ruled by inertia. You can delegate any question to a lawyer who will advise you to not do anything
JumpCrisscross 45 minutes ago [-]
If they’re being delegated decision making they are, by definition, not running things.
breppp 29 minutes ago [-]
As in, "running things" by being the last decider, the class with the most power in the system, etc
Just as the king of england is the head of state yet not the source of power
JumpCrisscross 18 minutes ago [-]
> Just as the king of england is the head of state yet not the source of power
The king of England doesn’t run Britain in any sense.
American oligarchs exercise more political power than he does.
breppp 12 minutes ago [-]
The king of england ran england while his (the institution) power eroded until he started working for the british parliament/government
the point being, official institutions are not always the strongest in the state, a state can be practically ruled by lawyers while having a functioning government
JumpCrisscross 4 minutes ago [-]
> king of england ran england while his (the institution) power eroded until he started working for the british parliament/government
So by “running things” you mean person whose ancestors ran things. Q. E. D.
Your top comment does not describe “organizations ruled by lawyers.”
owenpalmer 53 minutes ago [-]
> Places which let lawyers run society do better than places which let engineers run it.
Can you provide any examples?
justinrubek 1 hours ago [-]
Can you provide examples of such a place? From my perspective, I find it difficult to believe that this has ever been attempted at a scale that is sufficient to come to that conclusion. I'd love to hear otherwise.
9rx 44 minutes ago [-]
A "true" technocracy has never been, but China is exhibited the only "almost" example during the late 20th century. That was the period when they transformed from a sustenance-farming backwater to a powerhouse on the world stage.
Of course, it is always easy for a backwater to play catchup after someone else has already figured out how to advance. It is difficult to attribute that success to technocracy, and it is likely that any system could have allowed the same forward momentum, but the correlated track record is quite good regardless.
The USA flirted with the idea of technocracy around the time of the Great Depression. That is, perhaps, where the "bad record" idea has come from, but that's a pretty big leap.
jajuuka 52 minutes ago [-]
I feel like they are coming with the same energy as "socialism never works and always fails....because we make it fail."
Rendered at 17:35:46 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Today most of the money and advocacy is for high-performing or moderately-performing people with autism. Not just in relative terms, the amount of funding for people like my cousin has gone down. It makes sense; they are the larger group by volume and are able to advocate better than people like my cousin.
I wish it weren't a zero-sum game, and we recognized that autism is just a word for a broad series of conditions. It would be like if we called everyone with poor eyesight 'blind': yes, your vision is impaired. But the solutions you need are very different than the solutions Stevie Wonder needs.
See also: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/health/autism-spectrum-ne...
I have a former friend who listened to too many podcasts and self-diagnosed himself as autistic right around when his relationship was falling apart. The guy couldn't handle his girlfriend asking him to step up on some things so he decided his "out" socially was to call himself autistic to garner sympathy. The dude isn't autistic, he is simply terrible at accepting any responsibility for himself and doesn't care how that affects others. That was my first exposure to how out of control autism labeling was about to become and it's gotten a lot worse since then.
So with just this information it is hard to say if your friend is indeed autistic or not. It would need a more professional diagnosis to say either way.
I received an Aspergers diagnosis back when it was still separate. To me it still doesn't feel right for my condition to also be lumped in with people like your cousin. I understand that it can still be a "spectrum" but the spectrum is far too wide now.
Your cousin has very different struggles and needs compared to someone with a more high functioning autism, or even someone with (formerly known as Aspergers) like myself.
Is this true? I think it's important to distinguish between social media (and other sorts of) discourse and where money is actually flowing.
Did the diagnostic criteria in DSM 5 change as a result of social media, was it the other way around, or was it hidden variables affecting both? Regardless, the money and attention tend to follow what the common people are saying. See: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
You're right that there are external variables, including non-medical variables, influencing the DSM-5's diagnostic shuffle, I just don't see them as particularly well "hidden".
The main difference is that we don't immediately institutionalize kids with severe autism, which does save a lot of money.
For my kid with severe autism, about the only real impact of more people getting therapy is that sometimes it's harder to get an appointment (triage is more first come first serve and less needs based).
Realistically, that simply translates into a month to a half year waiting for an opening.
It also shouldn't be a binary classifier. Some people are definitely "autistic", and some are definitely not, but many of the personality traits that define autism are continuous: e.g. some people are barely distracted by loud noises (normal), others are distracted by loud but not quiet noises (normal), others are distracted by specific quiet noises like chewing (autism?), others are very distracted by any noise even with noise-cancelling headphones (autism?).
I think people should just say "I have sensory issues" (or clarify "noise really distracts me"), "I'm bad at reading emotions", "my mood is really affected by others". And accommodations maybe do need to be binary (or graded), but should ideally be informal, and definitely be for specific traits instead of "autism": e.g. don't give someone who thinks methodically but isn't bothered by loud environments their own room (unless you give everyone that), but don't assign them vague tasks or they'll perform poorly.
DSM summary: https://www.cdc.gov/autism/hcp/diagnosis/index.html
DSM and ICD summary: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/diagnos...
ICD-11 direct: https://icd.who.int/browse/2024-01/mms/en#437815624
> To meet diagnostic criteria for ASD according to DSM-5, a child must have persistent deficits in each of three areas of social communication and interaction (see A.1. through A.3. below) plus at least two of four types of restricted, repetitive behaviors (see B.1. through B.4. below).
Example (A.1):
> Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions
The medical diagnostic criteria, despite using technical language, are still vague: "deficits in..." has a wide interpretation. Furthermore, "at least two of the four" permits two people diagnosed with autism to have different symptoms: one child may only have limited interests and insistence on sameness, while another may only have "stereotyped" motor movements and hypersensitivity (and the specific interests, "stereotyped" behaviors, and hypersensitive stimuli can vary).
---
Essential (Required) Features:
Persistent deficits in initiating and sustaining social communication and reciprocal social interactions that are outside the expected range of typical functioning given the individual’s age and level of intellectual development.
Specific manifestations of these deficits vary according to chronological age, verbal and intellectual ability, and disorder severity.
Manifestations may include limitations in the following:
Understanding of, interest in, or inappropriate responses to the verbal or non-verbal social communications of others.
Integration of spoken language with typical complimentary non-verbal cues, such as eye contact, gestures, facial expressions and body language.
These non-verbal behaviours may also be reduced in frequency or intensity.
Understanding and use of language in social contexts and ability to initiate and sustain reciprocal social conversations.
Social awareness, leading to behaviour that is not appropriately modulated according to the social context.
Ability to imagine and respond to the feelings, emotional states, and attitudes of others.
Mutual sharing of interests.
Ability to make and sustain typical peer relationships.
Persistent restricted, repetitive, and inflexible patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities that are clearly atypical or excessive for the individual’s age and sociocultural context.
These may include:
Lack of adaptability to new experiences and circumstances, with associated distress, that can be evoked by trivial changes to a familiar environment or in response to unanticipated events.
Inflexible adherence to particular routines; for example, these may be geographic such as following familiar routes, or may require precise timing such as mealtimes or transport.
Excessive adherence to rules (e.g., when playing games).
Excessive and persistent ritualized patterns of behaviour (e.g., preoccupation with lining up or sorting objects in a particular way) that serve no apparent external purpose.
Repetitive and stereotyped motor movements, such as whole body movements (e.g., rocking), atypical gait (e.g., walking on tiptoes), unusual hand or finger movements and posturing.
These behaviours are particularly common during early childhood.
Persistent preoccupation with one or more special interests, parts of objects, or specific types of stimuli (including media) or an unusually strong attachment to particular objects (excluding typical comforters).
Lifelong excessive and persistent hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity to sensory stimuli or unusual interest in a sensory stimulus, which may include actual or anticipated sounds, light, textures (especially clothing and food), odors and tastes, heat, cold, or pain.
The onset of the disorder occurs during the developmental period, typically in early childhood, but characteristic symptoms may not become fully manifest until later, when social demands exceed limited capacities.
The symptoms result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning.
Some individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder are able to function adequately in many contexts through exceptional effort, such that their deficits may not be apparent to others.
A diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder is still appropriate in such cases.
"I'm autistic" could mean "I'm non-verbal and can't function without constant care", "I'm very good at hacking, but need help with basic things", "I can function independently, but tend to over-think and over-explain and can't read people's emotions", "I can read people's emotions but am overwhelmed by them, I'm also unusually soothed by ASMR", "I'm unusually irritated by ASMR"...and there's no boundary that separates "real" autism from almost normal with certain traits slightly elevated.
Look, I get it and somewhat agree. However, the reason for the diagnosis (and any diagnosis) is treatment.
Maybe there are two different conditions that require speech, occupational, and behavior therapy to different degrees, however, in terms of convincing insurance companies in the US to cover those having a single diagnosis makes everything easier.
It's not as if a separate diagnosis would change how a speech therapist interacts with a child.
I applaud efforts to figure out what is going on and to categorize. But I also think that practically the ragbag diagnosis makes treatment a lot easier to access for patients.
For what it is worth, I have ADHD -- 'cousin' disorder to Autism. Like Autism, ADHD has an array of presentations. I hold the belief that diagnostic labels are simply abstractions for grouping clusters of vague and often arbitrary symptoms. In that sense, many labels are tautological. For example, ADHD/Autism is defined by a set of behaviors, yet people are said to have ADHD/Autism because they exhibit that exact same set of behaviors.
From my perspective, conditions like ADHD and Autism are unusual conditions in terms of their pathology. I suspect some autistic people might agree when I say this: ADHD (and certain forms of Autism) seem to be treated less for the benefit of the individual and more for the benefit of those around them. Compare this to depression -- a condition where the primary suffering is internal -- experienced by the person themselves. With ADHD and Autism, the person is not necessarily suffering directly, but their behaviors often cause difficulty for others, and in turn those others impose suffering on the individual. Treatment, then, improves behavior (somewhat), which first benefits those around the person, and only indirectly improves the individual's own quality of life.
I may be struggling to articulate it perfectly, but I can’t shake the sense that there’s something unsettling about the pathology of these conditions. It has become almost imperative that I take amphetamines every single day. A practice that is far from pleasant, to say the least. Technically, no one forces me to medicate myself, yet the pressures of society make it feel obligatory. I alter myself not primarily for my own sake, but because society has deemed my natural state defective, disruptive, or unworthy. Treatment to me seems less about addressing my own suffering and more about making me tolerable to others.
I think that it might be a real thing is because nobody really knows how acetaminophen even works. All the theories involve influencing the brain‘s chemistry. Who knows, maybe influencing a fetus’s brain chemistry can be bad.
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/using-acetaminophen-during-pre...
Belief is one of the methods by which we demonstrate loyalty - and to the person affected, it's indistinguishable from any other belief.
They announced that Tylenol could be linked to neurological development issues, including autism.
That's what they said, which is fucking stupid.
The existing guidance is to discuss use with your doctor and to take the minimum necessary. It is not "fight like hell", ostensibly through fever and significant pain, to avoid it.
There is no good evidence to substantiate this belief, and if there were, then it'd be part of the guidance and we wouldn't need somebody who learned acetaminophen == Tylenol at 79 years old saying things like "Don't take Tylenol" on national TV.
Why didn't they say it earlier? Didn't they say they were going to release the cause of autism earlier?
Like myocarditis or auto immune diseases.
This is the simulated reality we live in. We're all overworked by our capitalist masters and the only way we can even remotely get by is by relying on overloaded catch-all terms that let us dehumanize anyone who falls off their hamster wheel.
Same is true of ADHD. And depression. And anxiety. All just mental shortcuts, saving time and corporate margins by seeing each other more like cattle than real people so we can justify pumping people with amphetamines and mood stabilizers until they fall into line and start turning the wheels of the capitalist machine.
Instead of asking, "What's wrong with the way we built this world that is leading people to feel this way?" we just say, "Something's wrong with you."
Autism is heritable which suggests there are autism genes involved. [1]
It's not a 100% thing, which could point to things other than genetics causing autism. It is, however, very strongly correlated to your parents.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5818813/
In what reality would we be living if we listened to knowledgeable people?
Edit, since I can't make a post right now since HN thinks I've posted too much, here's some examples of technoracies:
"The former government of the Soviet Union has been referred to as a technocracy.[20] Soviet leaders like Leonid Brezhnev often had a technical background. In 1986, 89% of Politburo members were engineers.[20] "
"Many previous leaders of the Chinese Communist Party had backgrounds in engineering and practical sciences. According to surveys of municipal governments of cities with a population of 1 million or more in China, it has been found that over 80% of government personnel had a technical education"
"Since the 1990s, Italy has had several such governments (in Italian, governo tecnico) in times of economic or political crisis,[27][28] including the formation in which economist Mario Monti presided over a cabinet of unelected professionals."
"The term 'technocratic' has been applied to governments where a cabinet of elected professional politicians is led by an unelected prime minister, such as in the cases of the 2011-2012 Greek government led by economist Lucas Papademos and the Czech Republic's 2009–2010 caretaker government presided over by the state's chief statistician, Jan Fischer.[3][31] In December 2013, in the framework of the national dialogue facilitated by the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, political parties in Tunisia agreed to install a technocratic government led by Mehdi Jomaa."
"The Syrian Salvation Government, the predecessor to the Syrian transitional government,[33] was characterized by observers as an authoritarian technocracy"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy
They’re not perfect, but frankly they humiliate the US in a lot of areas because the US system is too sclerotic to adapt and improve.
Just as the king of england is the head of state yet not the source of power
The king of England doesn’t run Britain in any sense.
American oligarchs exercise more political power than he does.
the point being, official institutions are not always the strongest in the state, a state can be practically ruled by lawyers while having a functioning government
So by “running things” you mean person whose ancestors ran things. Q. E. D.
Your top comment does not describe “organizations ruled by lawyers.”
Can you provide any examples?
Of course, it is always easy for a backwater to play catchup after someone else has already figured out how to advance. It is difficult to attribute that success to technocracy, and it is likely that any system could have allowed the same forward momentum, but the correlated track record is quite good regardless.
The USA flirted with the idea of technocracy around the time of the Great Depression. That is, perhaps, where the "bad record" idea has come from, but that's a pretty big leap.