Autism has clear physiological differences in the brain. It's not just a personality difference. People like to call themselves autistic when it's just social awkwardness, and some doctors might even improperly diagnose them, but these are separate from the condition.
https://www.healthcentral.com/condition/autism/autism-brain-...
This could help us prevent autism completely.
What makes such a diagnosis incorrect when various forms of social awkwardness satisfy criteria A and D of the diagnostic criteria [1], and all of the criteria for social pragmatic disorder[2]? In the DSM-V-TR era psychiatrists are instructed to not just judge somebody to not be autistic if they do not appear socially awkward, and to additionally ask if they find social interactions distressing, and observe them for longer in more naturalistic settings to find the deficit in social functioning[3] as part of a thus far continuously lowering diagnostic bar as to what is considered sufficient social awkwardness to be diagnosable.
>Autism has clear physiological differences in the brain.
Which physiological changes in the brain make you autistic, or put another way, which physiological changes in the brain must you lack to NOT be autistic? I've heard of any autism diagnosis's and self-diagnosis's and I've never heard of any of them being based on a brain scan and yet people go around calling others and themselves autistic. I've never heard of a diagnosis being lost or gained due to a brain scan.
I've heard this insistence that we can infer the territory, the neurological conditions of peoples brains, from the map, the behaviourist diagnosis, and there may be a correlation but it can't be said that any given person with an autism diagnosis has any given specific neurological change. The only thing we test for IS behaviour, and infer biology from it.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_(pragmatic)_communicati... [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/aspergirls/comments/th9hku/dsm5tr_n...
This puts medical boards in a sticky situation where they have to be inclusive since there's not enough research to say the latter group are definitely not autistic.
I'm in the camp that you shouldn't diagnose an issue without clear physiological or chemistry differences, but I'm not in control of the medical boards. I think we all agree that you shouldn't self-diagnose.
Most people who use terms like autistic, bi-polar, sociopath, narcist, etc. are using the terms incorrectly.
Also, I suspect you are correct that most ASD diagnoses do not use brain scans and rely on a trained professional's judgement and observations. That fact does not mean that autism does not exist or that some autistic people may have physical differences from neurotypical people.
Self diagnosis is often the first step towards a professional diagnosis.
You can choose to believe self diagnosis is low or zero value, but that's your own value judgement, which is separate from "can" and "cannot".
Relatedly, I was struck to see the recent breakthrough in curing congenital deafness condemned by members of the ‘deaf community’ on Twitter. So we unfortunately have good reason to expect the same kinds of folly here.
In the same vein, I wouldn't oppose a cure for autism, despite my own diagnosis. Why go through the pain and suffering that comes with autism in a world of non-autists? I've seen more than enough of the lives of people with non-high functioning autism to realise the absolute living hell a cure like this could prevent.
I'm wary of the "cures" people have tried, most of them based on fake psychology or pseudoscience, but I have no reason to expect the authors of this paper to be in it to show how their kid is "normal", like most people looking for "cures" seem to be. I expect this article to be quoted many times in the terrible Facebook groups that will also recommend things like bleach enemas to desperate parents, but I also expect good developments from the real scientists trying to understand and perhaps cure (the worst cases of) autism.
Ultimately, not everybody seeks to be "normal", and there is plenty of reason to fear the imposition of normalness when simply being functional would have done just fine.
None of us are truly normal.
Even though the last thing has got me in fights more than once. Fights that are sudden, surprising and unwarranted to me, but completely expected given how I reacted to what someone said.
For me it began to click due to somewhat similar discussions I've had about my sight (I'm moderately myopic in both eyes and significantly astigmatic in one), where I've explained that:
- yes I actually like wearing glasses, and am not interested in contact lenses at all
- yes I also like my uncorrected vision: I like the softness and the smoothing over of details, and the way that lights scatter, and the fact that I can focus on things that are right in front of my nose
- no it isn't anxiety that's stopping me from getting the likes of LASIK; I actually like having both corrected and uncorrected vision
And it is astonishing how much people who are caught up in their own complexes about vision deficiencies try to convince me that I'm stupid or even lying because I don't share their aversion. It was rather off-putting, to be honest.
So yeah, that was how I began to see how people whose condition (for lack of a better term) is much more strongly linked to their identity[0] would end up with their hackles permanently raised against the idea of a cure for a life experience that they find neutral and/or positive coupled with the prevailing sentiment that they must be so grateful and excited about its existence (and if they aren't then they must be stupid or crazy). Theoretically it's good that the capability exists because it gives the choice to those who do want it, but when a person is part of a group without much societal power to begin with, I don't think it's irrational to fear that it would eventually end up as an imposition rather than a choice (especially when we get obstetric treatment).
0. For example, sign languages are distinct linguistic phenomena and not simply a cipher for spoken language. And wherever there is distinct language, a distinct culture soon follows. This is why "Deaf community" and "Deaf culture" are real things in real life not just something that someone on Twitter made up, contrary to many abled people's assumptions.
- Anyone can wear glasses (or even contacts) for fashion, frames are sold without prescriptions. One can have glasses and perfect vision.
- People with 20/20 vision also have the option to wear glasses that make their vision worse for whatever reason, or see things closer to their nose.
The point of this comment wasn't to belittle your own choice to correct your vision or not, but to point out why someone might not understand your aversion to correcting it given those reasons.
And this supposedly makes so much sense to you that you cannot understand why someone would not do that?
Alright.
So, no you didn't read that correctly.
We also have the western eugenics movements, and while autism wasn't really conceived in their heyday, they had much more of a family-centric take on eugenics, although it was still at the time largely oriented around the good of the welfare state.
For the autistic activist, nothing makes more sense than to stymie such research, as autism's diagnostic prevalence expands each year, seemingly driven largely by a loosening definition of autism, so to delay the research which enables eugenics, people are going to see Autistics as having relatively high gemüt and productivity compared to the past, which should discourage eugenics. They plainly value the right/value of the existence of autistics/themselves, above the potential reduction of suffering allowed by such research. Eugenics after all never actually died and remain popular, it's just become politically incorrect to openly admit to supporting or doing it, and we're currently engaging in a quite successful eugenics campaign against downs syndrome[1], oh, and the ongoing eugenics against autistics [2]. Perhaps these autistic activists would have more confidence in such research if modern eugenics were not legal, accepted, and practiced against them? Or perhaps they should just get over their own egos and admit that this research is for the good of the Volk, which is certainly a take I've heard from autistics themselves.
That all being said - metabolic research is probably going to be less controversial than say genetic research, since it's unclear that you can use the former to facilitate selective abortions or screen sperm donors. So I think in this case, the self-declared neurodivergent leaders will let this slide, as if such research can't be used for eugenics but makes autistics more popular it should make eugenics less likely, not more likely.
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fully-human/202101/i... [2]. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3377811/Britain-s...