Can low funtioning autistic drive

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As the question goes

I think it depends on what the person's challenges are. What parts are "low functioning" and what parts function well. I know of plenty of "low functioning" people who do remarkable things that even I could never possibly be able to do. So it seems to me that a "low functioning" person could perhaps drive. I don't see why that would be an impossibility. Take someone like Carly Fleishman for example. She was considered "low functioning" for a very long time but it would not surprise me one bit if she drives.

Most can't, but autism is very diverse, I'm sure some can and have driven.

They can't. Low functioning autism is severly debilitating.

asalem;

I was looking at some of your posts and it seems you consider yourself low functioning--but your IQ is high, so maybe your functions are just different.

Driving? Not sure. I used to drive light delivery professionally. We had a Ford sedan and a little Chevrolet 5-cylinder truck. Yes, five cylinders. Bad idea--the thing stalled so often I got good at shifting into neutral and starting it again while it was still rolling down the road at 55 mph with a dead engine.

Driving can be very difficult and depending where you are, it might or might not be a good idea. Let's just say that it "brings out the NT in people."

When it comes to low functioning autism I tend to think strictly of classic severe autism. No one with that kind of autism goes undiagnosed. They might be misdiagnosed as severly mentally ret*d or severely brain damaged, but it's not the kind of thing that goes undiagnosed as something very severely wrong with the person.

However a person can function poorly in general. Even NTs can have problems with functioning poorly.

It is a lot easier to drive where there are few people, and much harder to drive in a crowded city like Philadelphia or New York City.

Functioning labels aren't the way to tell if a person can drive or not. Can this person safely operate a vehicle? Follow verbal instructions from the person giving the test? Understand the rules of the road? Then Yes - or No.

Unfortunately functioning labels are not clinical diagnostic terms so they have no actual clearly defined definitions. What Ezra described is what most people think of when the term low functioning is used. And for people like me, the word high functioning is nor entirely accurate either because all of my functionality levels vary so dramatically so often. We are actually talking about this in another thread as well right now.

So if you think of low functioning in the way Ezra is describing than no, you cannot drive. But if your functioning levels are low in some areas but not others, or if they are across the board low but inconsistently, I am a good example of both of those, then you can drive when your functioning levels allow you to.

Probably, almost all people diagnosed with Level 3 autism cannot drive.

Probably, most people with Level 2 autism cannot drive. But some can.

I can drive...
























































































































people crazy.