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Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

nature.com

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Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#3

> Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by social and behavioral impairments, along with restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. This seems like a very negative view of autism.

An honest question: is there a Positive or even neutral one-line summary of ASD?

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#4

> Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by social and behavioral impairments, along with restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. This seems like a very negative view of autism.

Seems neutral to me. If there wasn't any impairment it wouldn't be a subject for medical psychiatry.

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#5
post #3

> Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by social and behavioral impairments, along with restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. This seems like a very negative view of autism.

An honest question: is there a Positive or even neutral one-line summary of ASD?

There's a movement to reframe things like autism as neurodiversity rather than strictly a disorder. I suppose the emphasis in that case would instead be on things people can do well, not what they do wrong by everyone else's standard.

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#6
post #5
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An honest question: is there a Positive or even neutral one-line summary of ASD?

There's a movement to reframe things like autism as neurodiversity rather than strictly a disorder. I suppose the emphasis in that case would instead be on things people can do well, not what they do wrong by everyone else's standard.

Interesting. It's certainly a lighter way about talking about things but it does seem problematic from a pragmatic view. Likely it'd run into a wall when a person has more than one disorder (i.e. you can't composite things by listing them) or when the list of things that are affected is much shorter than the list that isn't (which should be the case for most folks).

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#7
Something that has struck out to me for many years now is the rather striking lack of reporting on the incredibly strong correlation between parental (both maternal/paternal) age at time of conception and ASM.

My nephew is autistic. He is my sister's youngest, and is 10 years younger than his sibling. This isn't a coincidence.

Parents who have their children in their mid 30s and later are orders of magnitude more likely to have an autistic child than people who conceive in their 20s/early 30s. It's a massive increase in probability.

I've found that the topic of delayed parenthood and the very real health impacts it results in are almost taboo amongst the media elites who have driven huge amounts of attention to autism due to so many of them having autistic kids. An additional topic related to this that goes undiscussed is the massive increase in twins (and consequentially premature births) caused by couples who had to use fertility drugs to conceive for the same reason.

I want to emphasize that I'm not criticizing anyone for making the decision to delay having kids until they are older. I just wish it was discussed more because I personally think that corporate structures should be changed to not punish women for having kids. It's a horrible injustice that our most successful citizens are forced to suffer medical side-effects because corporations were designed for men, and sweeping discussion of these side-effects under the rug results in flawed approaches like Sandberg describes in "Lean In", where the solution is to just embrace the existing structure to a ridiculous degree. It's horrifying to me that work culture has impacted human culture to a point where we are forced to step in and correct for biology.

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#8
post #5
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An honest question: is there a Positive or even neutral one-line summary of ASD?

There's a movement to reframe things like autism as neurodiversity rather than strictly a disorder. I suppose the emphasis in that case would instead be on things people can do well, not what they do wrong by everyone else's standard.

The neurodiversity movement/argument really gained strength as improvements in diagnostic instrument sensitivity produced diagnoses with less profound forms of autism.

While I respect the message of neurodiversity, it has often come at the expense of individuals with profound autism where one would be hard-pressed to not apply labels like disability, impairment, and such. Profound autism represents a substantial proportion of the autistic spectrum, but they are the least able to represent and advocate for themselves.

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#9
post #5
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An honest question: is there a Positive or even neutral one-line summary of ASD?

There's a movement to reframe things like autism as neurodiversity rather than strictly a disorder. I suppose the emphasis in that case would instead be on things people can do well, not what they do wrong by everyone else's standard.

It definitely feels like that redefinition would be a difficult thing to use for any practical purpose.

Death redefined as a situation where people continue to have the ability to occupy space and don't require any food or oxygen.

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#10
post #3

> Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by social and behavioral impairments, along with restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. This seems like a very negative view of autism.

An honest question: is there a Positive or even neutral one-line summary of ASD?

We could re-write

> Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by [...] restricted interests and repetitive behaviors.

as

> ASD is characterized by an ability to focus intently on an area of special interest, developing an unusually detailed level of knowledge of that topic.

There's always a tension with efforts to depathologise things, because some people do need support and the way they get support at the moment is via diagnosis.

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