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Having an {autism}-like syndrome does not give you {autism} […] Having a big belly does not make you pregnant.
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If the DSM-IV criteria are taken too literally, anybody in the world could qualify for Asperger’s or PDD-NOS.
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To claim that something is over-diagnosed implies that there is one true, proper rate of diagnosis. And that ain’t so. […] For a complex, multi-faceted neurological condition such as autism, these issues are compounded much, much more.
Even for many physical conditions, doctors wrangle over how to define the boundaries of a diagnosis.
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[The loss of the autism diagnosis] probably reveals more about the weaknesses of a definition of autism based entirely in deficits rather than in core processing differences.
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[…] I feel like this list [written by autisticality] is too vague and open, perhaps to the point that it’s not useful. (Barnum–Forer effect)
I’m sure nearly everyone meets at least a few of these traits, and in these criteria, there is no threshold given (e.g. a number of criteria you would meet in order to be ‘maybe autistic’ or ‘autistic’) to divide between ‘autistic’ and ‘non-autistic’ people.
Differentiating between ‘autistic’ and ‘not autistic’ is difficult however you divide it, but without a line, and using these criteria, it seems like everyone would fit into being autistic.
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[T]here is an overlap between people who end up with a diagnosis on the autism spectrum and the general population
[Here are the results of] a questionnaire that measures autistic traits in the population: on the left of the graph you see the familiar bell-shaped curve, or normal distribution, in the general population […] so it’s not that you have autism or you don’t, but that almost everyone in the population has some autistic traits and find themselves distributed somewhere on a spectrum.
On the graph you see the solid line where people have a diagnosis […] but there is that middle bracket of overlap – there isn’t a clear cut point where you can say that somebody who has a diagnosis of autism is clearly different from somebody who doesn’t so [it] reinforces the idea of individual differences in the population.
[…] although people with a diagnosis of more autistic traits there’s a substantial overlap and that actually it’s not your score on a diagnostic test that determines that you need a diagnosis, it’s actually your environment.
[T]here are people who score at exactly the same point in that grey zone in the middle and that some will have a diagnosis and some won’t and what determines that is whether you find yourself in an environment in which you can thrive and fulfil your potential – we can call it an autism-friendly environment – or if you find yourself in an environment in which the challenges are too great, and you begin to suffer and end up going to a clinic and seeking a diagnosis.
So it’s not your psychological make-up but the fit between you as an individual and your environment that determines if you end up with a diagnosis opening up the possibility that we can adapt the environment to make it easier or more difficult for people who potentially have autism to fit in.
Some will suffer in certain environments whereas others will manage because of environmental adaptations or simply a good fit between them and their environment.
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“Everyone’s a bit autistic, that’s why it’s called a spectrum.”
This is not what ‘autistic spectrum’ is meant to mean.
In fact only autistic people are on the autistic spectrum. If you’re ‘on the spectrum’ then you are autistic (or ‘have autism’, whichever is your preference), it is a spectrum of the people who are autistic.
Not autistic? Not on the spectrum.
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[A]utism is a collection of related neurological conditions that are so hard to pick apart that psychologists have stopped trying.
All autistic people are affected in one way or another in most or all of these boxes – a rainbow of traits. If you only check one or two boxes, then they don’t call it autism – they call it something else. […]
But if you have all of the above and more, they call it autism.
[…] in order for a person to be considered autistic, they must have difficulty in multiple categories.
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[I]t becomes a scramble to create weighted lists and say, “anyone who scores under 50 points is faking,” rather than trying to figure out why so many people are hurting in such similar ways, and being hurt in such similar ways, and then stopping those things from happening.
Autism: Explorations 