The Autism Spectrum is Useless: Here's why...

[Fitzo]

I have no very little faith in shrinks who see you maybe once a week. Putting someone on a spectrum by a shrink is BS and a spectrum is just an easy way of looking at autism.

Putting labels on autistic people is stupid. It's for nt individuals that find putting people into groups easier to understand.

I had a sister that was diagnosed as severely autistic on the spectrum as a little kid but doesnt exhibit ANY signs of autism nowadays.

When you say your sister doesn't exhibit any signs of autism these days, is that in your opinion or hers?

Just about all of us who landed here did so because we felt different to others, and suffered the stress of trying to fit in without ever quite managing it. But never understanding why!
A very high proportion suffered co morbid conditions such as chronic anxiety, depression and other stress related mental health issues as a result. This in turn led to misdiagnosis, drug therapy, and unhelpful behavioral therapy. Or self medication in the form of drugs, alcohol or other attempts to dull the pain of feeling like an alien from another planet. And the heartbreak of a lifetime of failed relationships with friends, lovers, family and co workers.

To many of us the realization that we were on the spectrum, were just neurologically different and our failings were not our fault came as an immense relief! We weren't aliens after all! There were others who've had the same struggles and for the first time we felt understood. We belonged SOMEWHERE!

So now you want to disqualify some of us because, in your opinion, we aren't autistic ENOUGH?

Well sorry, I don't think further marginalising already vulnerable people is helpful in the slightest! And this from people who constantly complain about being marginalized by NT's!!!

Maybe in the future there will be another diagnosis for degrees of autism, but right now the DSM-V is the best (and only) option we've got! And since Aspergers is now lumped into that as well, I wouldn't be holding my breath waiting for it to be changed!

 

[ANTHONY LAF]

the dsm is on the way out as well as this spectrum

end of discussion im not even responding/looking at the other ppl who responded to this thread

 

[SimplyWandering]

@ the original post
I understand where you are coming from, but unfortunately that isnt how the world works.

Research and funding play a vital role in helping people.
In order for organizations to get funding for treatments people need to be categorized on a list. There have to be exacting specifications..

On the dsm V there are 3 categories and within some organization they only treat the highest at risk individuals

I live in Maryland which has a lot of services for this with ASD or mental illnesses , but places like Florida have far fewer services unfortunately.

The biggest issue i see is that behavioral health teaches to treat the symptoms and our state of mind, but for those with ASD, often Autism is who we are.

 

[risootser]

Because it is a spectrum it means everyone is in it. Like IQ spectrum same thing it is normalized capped by an infinity and therefore it covers anything in our universe. Be happy and call your Nanny McNormie from child daycare an autist then take a speck of dust in your hand and call it an autist finally point yourself and say: "We all are in this together!"

 

[Aspychata]

EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT, putting people on spectrum is useless

Taking people off the spectrum is useless too.

 

[Alexej]

I came across this article about the spectrum word. This makes sense to me

 

[risootser]

I came across this article about the spectrum word. This makes sense to me

Well, pure spectrum consists of pure discrete states with variable intensities. When we put the observable component into a vessel which has a matrix it's states start to blend together and interfere with each other because now it interacts with the matrix it creates inter/intra interference. We start to see continuum. [If someone has ever done electronics there exists capacitors and it kind of blends direct current electricity peaks together when used as a buffer.] When we put a human under the "microscope" we should also understand that it interacts with the environment and its behavioral states mixes with the environment hence it makes hard to trace its actions to a root.

OK, this is understandable. We can call humanity a spectrum. What is not OK is that psychology raises its hand and says: We see traces but we do not know why. Let's label it and be happy. BUT that is not how REAL science works. This does not explain causes. It is like someone is blind but we do not know why. We can not fix blindness before we can deal its roots. This autism spectrum thing is actually very close eugenics and racism. Admittedly physicist are clueless abut the dark matter but they have guts to say that they are clueless. Maybe autism should be called a formless blob instead of spectrum?

 

[Ylva]

Since it was probably an allistic who came up with the spectrum model, I don't think it's very likely to be useful, ever. I think a more useful model would be that autism is one thing (an irregular neuropattern, or something along those lines), and that we deal with the world (not the condition) in different ways depending on things like our personalities, things we have learned, other genetic traits, and so on.

Even neurotypicals have differences between each other such as how and how intensely they perceive smell, light, sound, stress, and so on.

 

[Matthias]

Spectrum just means they merged autism, Asperger's, and PDD-NOS into one condition.

 

[Rasputin]

The word "spectrum" is fairly reasonable and it is possible to imagine everyone as having their own unique position, but I do agree that it could be a lot better to further make the point that each and every autistic person is truly unique.

A fingerprint is as good as unique, so why not use this word to describe each person's unique autistic characteristics rather than just state where they roughly are on the autistic spectrum? In other words every autistic person could be described as having their own autistic fingerprint.

It wouldn't be perfect, but in order to conform to the current methods of recording information in a database, each person's autistic fingerprint would effectively be a record and could then be further split down into various measurements (numeric fields) that describe each of the main characteristics and abilities of the autistic person and effectively each numeric value would be a spectrum on it's own. If each value was an integer in the range of say 0 to 100, then even if there was just 5 measurements there would be a total of 10,000,000,000 (10 US Billion) possible combinations which is currently higher than the world's entire human population where autistic people are only a small fraction, although many combinations could never happen (E.g. someone having zero on everything) or it would make them an NT, meaning the number of likely unique combinations would probably be roughly halved (5 US Billion) or even perhaps quartered (2.5 US Billion), but there could be a lot more measurements, for instance with 10 measurements there would be a total of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (100 US Quintillion) possible combinations and even if this was quartered there would still be 25,000,000,000,000,000,000 (25 US Quintillion) possible combinations. With such a huge number of combinations it would be extremely unlikely that anyone would end up having exactly the same autistic fingerprint and it would therefore be truly unique for every autistic individual. In addition to numerical measurements there could also be text fields, one could for instance list co-morbid conditions that have been separately diagnosed because they're particularly prevalent in that particular person so they could be read at a glance, another could be about special interests and there could be even more, then at the end there could be a comments field for any further information not covered.

It's a damn shame something similar to the above will most probably never ever happen, especially if virtually every so called "expert" and government adviser on autism continues to be an NT who obviously can't possibly ever understand autism like we can. Even if something like this was implemented it would probably be done very badly.

Edit:
A fairly simplistic type of autistic fingerprint is displayed even when viewing the results of the Aspie Quiz and different parameters/values are displayed on a type of graph/chart, but this could be further built and improved upon (obviously even though the Aspie Quiz is a useful resource it's not an official diagnosis).

Here is a typical example result:

The graphic @pjcnet posted (reposted below) looks somewhat like my Myers Briggs INTJ personality component graph. Check it out!

 

[Alexej]

Well, pure spectrum consists of pure discrete states with variable intensities. When we put the observable component into a vessel which has a matrix it's states start to blend together and interfere with each other because now it interacts with the matrix it creates inter/intra interference. We start to see continuum. [If someone has ever done electronics there exists capacitors and it kind of blends direct current electricity peaks together when used as a buffer.] When we put a human under the "microscope" we should also understand that it interacts with the environment and its behavioral states mixes with the environment hence it makes hard to trace its actions to a root.

OK, this is understandable. We can call humanity a spectrum. What is not OK is that psychology raises its hand and says: We see traces but we do not know why. Let's label it and be happy. BUT that is not how REAL science works. This does not explain causes. It is like someone is blind but we do not know why. We can not fix blindness before we can deal its roots. This autism spectrum thing is actually very close eugenics and racism. Admittedly physicist are clueless abut the dark matter but they have guts to say that they are clueless. Maybe autism should be called a formless blob instead of spectrum?

you raise an interesting point here. I see that using people's experience to describe science is valid. However, what I see in your posting is that of using science to describe people. This latter approach is, IMHO, very mechanistic and there is something in my that rebels against this way of thinking. It is putting people into a box and saying that because this is the way science works this is how you work.

Perhaps I am reading too much into that you are saying.

 

[risootser]

you raise an interesting point here. I see that using people's experience to describe science is valid. However, what I see in your posting is that of using science to describe people. This latter approach is, IMHO, very mechanistic and there is something in my that rebels against this way of thinking. It is putting people into a box and saying that because this is the way science works this is how you work.

Perhaps I am reading too much into that you are saying.

Kind of it is and it is not. Fungi is not a plant but certainly many are inclined to say that it is. That is a box itself but I probably want right kind of box, given that I want to be in a box in the first place. I certainly do not like putting people into clear categorical boxes unless they need help and even then I'd only look at one trait because I wouldn't consider it to be humane to make you to dive into a mess of plausible misunderstandings by yourself and others. It results in very bad name calling and mistreatment and you start to loose individuality in eyes of others. You see there was a time when whites saw black people not human. Later we have come to a conclusion that it was hasty to be dissmissive. This attitude is still clearly present in more funny forms like labelling certain sort of fungus as plants or whales as fishes. Wrong correlations because they are not considering invisible possibilities and diving deep.

 

[PastelPetals]

It's useful in intention less useful in practice.
I think I am a good example of that.
I speak in the most normal sounding way when I need to. The second thing I truly loved was reading (before that it was an oddly specific AM radio show) so I picked up the words. I loved words.

I had every symptom of autism but no diagnosis until 14 after tons of therapies/ special ed/ social groups but no acceptance...I was just the bad kid. Even now people assume I am lying or "super high functioning" because I use big words. When I tell people I can't go to college or won't be "independent" the same way or at the same rate as my peers people try to persuade me that I am just being negative.

I was not given the help I needed because at four I could tell you what the spikes on a fork are called (tines) when two years earlier I was communicating more in sign language than spoken words. They pushed to the side based on assumptions when they met me (over the phone and looking at my history they always said autism)

Over the years I tried my best to mask and conform leading people to say I must not be trying hard enough because I had done "the right thing" a few times. It became hard to go outside just because I had to keep up and I couldn't

We need better discripters people still see the spectrum as a line when it is much more complex than that.

 

[risootser]

I think giving permanent label is not really understandable. If we accept brain plasticity as truth then every individual is changeable and some just barely go over the threshold hence they can certainly cure themselves. I think opposite can be also happen and a person should become autistic if they regress later in life given that they had non pathological similarities with pathological cases in childhood.

You can have sensory sensitivities and usually those should lend itself to permanent state of being incurable in these days of medicine. I mean who the heck thinks overloads are preferable.