I don't believe anyone when they say they are autistic.

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I agree its a tricky.
In the us they lump other neurological conditions like dyspepsia as autism and ADHD can also be misdiagnosed because ADHD is hard to diagnose before age 6. Some schools will also label kids autistic to get the kid services.
They are also better at diagnosing younger because there are better tools. Even if autistic children are one in 55that is less than 3% of the population. I believe its more like 2% The rates of autism aren't as high as people think its just how they choose to look at the math.

Also autism is family of neurological differences its not just one thing. Its a related family of learning differences.
A child can have mild autism and an intellectual disability or they have severe autism.
Some with severe autism have normal to high IQS and have lower IQs.

Doctors have better diagnostic tools. My child who was nearly 3 when autism was first suspected would have probably been diagnosed at 18 months now.

That is a thought-provoking opinion for me. I've been in the habit of thinking of early diagnoses as the most trustworthy diagnoses because an important part of the definition of autism is that it is a lifelong neurological difference, and therefore should be detectable at an early age, and because it seems like adult diagnoses often happen with little or no childhood history available. But you're right, very early diagnosis should be undertaken carefully because the toddler hasn't been alive long enough for anyone to be quite sure of their behavioral patterns and such, or whether or not they'll change.

I think we might be seeing evidence for this with the young diagnosed children who supposedly "overcome" autism with the help of the Sunrise program or dietary changes — perhaps they were simply never autistic.


Well, symptoms can improve with age, and people who were diagnosed while young are more likely to have received services that have helped them cope and fit in.



I agree with you 100%. There is a guy who makes youtube videos about his autistic son, username autismnewsdotcom, who has said in several of his videos something to the effect that autism has "stolen" his son's mind, yet he also says that his son was diagnosed as "severely mentally ret*d." He has an autistic daughter who is more capable, yet he still doesn't seem to have considered that it is intellectual disability rather than autism that causes the bulk of his son's problems. The videos do not show much specifically autistic behavior, but they do show quite a bit of typical ID behavior. The son is responsive, expressive, affectionate, and verbal despite a hearing impairment, yet some of the videos are tagged with "severe" autism. I'm like, where's the severity? Toileting and cognitive skills.

I was watching another youtube video last night in which a young womon claims that ADD is her worst autistic symptom. What???? She is trying to pass herself off as "very high functioning." The video is meant to help convince "skeptics" and explain autism, but she hardly talks about any autistic traits at all.

See that's one of the problems. There's no such thing as "severe Autism", or whenever you hear someone say this or "high functioning", they simply have no idea what they're talking about. People need to get over the concept that AS is separate from the person, and it's something that makes the person broken. Also the bizarre notion of the spectrum being a linear slider, ranging from severe to high functioning.

It's also incredibly offensive. Imagine if I went around calling women "severe female". Women also faced similar prejudice and discrimination, as many people thought women were too stupid to vote and shouldn't be paid as much as men.

Autism is a popular diagnosis amongst professionals and parents, because it provides better services than other diagnoses, such as intellectual disability. A child with ID but no autism may be diagnosed with autism if a clinician stretches the traits and makes them fit the autism criteria to get services. I have heard of blind children being diagnosed with autism to get certain services.

Wow, what the hell??? I would expect a blind child to need totally different sorts of services.

I'm not sure which services were targeted.

On the issue of age of diagnosis, I think that children can be diagnosed by age two, as long as they show autistic traits without showing neurotypical traits like joint attention, social pretend play, etc. If they have a mixture of autistic and neurotypical traits, then diagnosis may be inaccurate at an early age, as the children may be a bit delayed in some areas, but catch up and develop normally later.

Just when I thought this post was practically dead, you guys show up to show your support and share your insights. Thank you so much, guys.

I agree with you that all autistic people have common traits. The way I see it is that we belong to the same species and, even though people from different cultures and with different backgrounds may express their autism differently, I can tell that we have something in common. I think it's the way our brain is wired.
Having said that, I was just diagnosed last year after a lifetime of struggle with trying to understand how to survive in this world and feeling like an alien most of the time. I think that part of the reason for my delayed diagnosis was being female and spending my childhood and adolescence outside of the US. Maybe in this country children are over-diagnosed with a variety of mental problems and learning disabilities. Especially attention deficit disorders and hyperactivity seem to me to be quite ridiculous ones because they are quite common in the population.
However, in my personal experience with autism there are more people on the autism spectrum who are undiagnosed than the opposite. Of course we would need statistical evidence and several studies to know one way or the other.

Thank you for this post. I'm currently seeing a therapist after recognizing many Asperger's-like qualities in myself. He agrees that I definitely have traits, but said it would be difficult to get a diagnosis since it has been difficult to see a bigger range of traits so far. Since my family has no interest in responding to my questions about early childhood behavior, he can really only go off my word at this time. I've been nitpicked my whole life by my family and have learned to mask certain behaviors to avoid standing out in ways that will get me picked on, if possible, but I'm still generally considered odd, quirky, intellectual, quiet, etc. Fortunately, most people I know are okay with this. But, people don't know how you feel inside or what a struggle it is to get through small interactions which don't seem to pose issues for them. I've built up a lot of anxiety over the years due to straining myself to mask traits too often.

For similar reasons, I appreciated your posts, halleluhwah.