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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.
And calling any single person "diverse" is icky.
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Paternal (not maternal) age is highly correlated with ne novo mutations, a portion of which are associated with autism, depending on the location of the mutation. Perhaps this is less well known among news reporters, but among autism researchers, paternal age is often considered as an important factor, and is well accepted in that respect. Edit: I am a post-doc at the autism institute at which this research was condu…
And "Advanced Maternal Age" is extremely well known among mothers (in broad strokes if not technical details), who have generational experience with the issue. Of course gynecologists are also well aware. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/getting-pregnan... It's a little bit disconcerting to see men pontificating about things they discovered that women already know quite well.
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.
Many are diagnosed with “autism”, seemingly not for any lack of ability, but præferences the diagnostician does not necessarily agree with.
I also object to “neuro-” morpheme. The diagnosis of these conditions are psychiatric, not neurological, and in many cases where such a diagnosis was made, there is nothing neurologically unusual that could be found, but in some cases there is.
Autism is simply with the current understanding not a neurological, but a psychiatric disorder. — the understanding may grow such that it might become one one day, but that is not the current level of understanding, and such understanding would most likely lead to the realization that all which is currently grouped under “autism”, has many different underlying neurological causes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
"Neurodiversity" does sound like a thing to be encouraged, or at least not to be avoided/minimized. Do we really want more autism?
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Seems neutral to me. If there wasn't any impairment it wouldn't be a subject for medical psychiatry.
"behavioral impairment" is a social judgement, not a biological flaw. Homosexuality was long considered a psychiatric disorder, so be careful putting blind faith in psychiatric judgements.
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"Neurodiversity" does sound like a thing to be encouraged, or at least not to be avoided/minimized. Do we really want more autism?
Autism is an extremely broad term. At one extreme, those who will never speak and spend their lives enraged by being unable to communicate. At the other, a very substantial fraction of the worlds finest science & engineering minds. I wouldn't mind a few more of the latter.
> 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.
Saying only 'impairment' implies that all attributes associated with autism are negative compared to some mythical baseline, and creates a circular definition which stigmatises autistic people.
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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 mome…
> 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. However, this is not true. It doesn't apply to all people with ASD. I volunteered with adults with ASD about ten years ago. One person in the group really had a special interest fixation (a person), but he didn't know more than the average person would know after re…
I'm good friends with an autistic man, he's got a special interest for a certain branch of mathematics and swing dance. He's also great with regards to social interaction, he's seemed to keep close connections with every person he comes across when he's traveled.
There's a saying that "if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism", symptoms present differently in everyone and they're highly responsive to environment. As a trend I'd say special interests are probably a decent contender for a hallmark, probably along with language difficulty and eye contact avoidance.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 two should be treated differently. Many are diagnosed with “autism”, seemingly not for any lack of ability, but præferences the diagnostician does not necessarily agree with. I also object to “neuro-” morpheme. The diagnosis of these conditions are psychiatric, not neurological, and in many cases where such a diagnosis was made, there is nothing neurologically unusual that could be found, but in some cases there…
Oh, I'm pretty new to this myself, but my understanding was that autism was considered a neurological disorder, not a psychiatric one. [1]
"Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) refers to a group of complex neurodevelopment disorders..."
1. https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Educat...
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Seems neutral to me. If there wasn't any impairment it wouldn't be a subject for medical psychiatry.
It might be neutral if they listed specific attributes (or said the word 'attribute' rather than 'impairment'). Saying only 'impairment' implies that all attributes associated with autism are negative compared to some mythical baseline, and creates a circular definition which stigmatises autistic people.