I am now locking this thread.

I can never be bothered looking up the referred to item, particularly if it's a htttp/blah blah item....when you start a thread like this Orathaic, how about the putting a post with more information to help...such as giving a summary/ synopsis of the http/blah blah item that you've nominated and some comments of your own to get discussion started.

Dearest BB, I never know when you're being serious or not.....and since I won't look up the item as it's possibly offensive give up....

I opened this thread because I've seen talented people with what might be regarded as mild dyslexia struggling inside private enterprise....often the person has hidden their dyslexia and their talents and "adapt,/ hide " differences strategies, etc have got them into an organisation and they've performed well, then some administrative change occurs, the best example being a "poorly" designed form / s/w thingy that requires them to provide info / report activity that's introduced...and whilst 90 odd % of the staff cope, there's a few who really struggle and because what I might call the Jerzy Kosinski " painted bird " principle, you are dealing with people who have learnt from the behaviors of others to hide their " differences " and talents, and to use their talents in "acceptable" ways

The JK "painted bird" is a reference to a novel.... If you catch a "flock" bird and dye it's feathers & release it, it's possible to create the situation where the "painted bird" gets killed when it tries to rejoin it's own species, the flock.....we humans can behave in a similar way

@MM, lets assume people have different abilities, and you can label them.

Should a workplace take into account the needs of differently abled people or be allowed discriminate based on ability?

(basing this on your description of people with hidden disabilities in work)

My tl;dr for that link: dividing autists into high-function and others can harm the relationships between both groups. The high functioning being told they are 'more normal' and superior.

The 'normal' standards being something externally imposed which autists don't jecessarily care about (except when they do care, but it should a personal decision to care about fitting in, not an enforced medical standard)

Alright, so you would propose someone should either be labeled autistic or not autistic, with no middle ground? Or am I getting that wrong?

The fact is autism is a spectrum disorder for a reason, as functioning levels vary extremely extremely widely , from those who have little cognitive ability to those who can function in society without assistance with little difficulty. I work with 5 year olds with very little cognitive ability, basically have the capacity of 12-18 month olds, not differentiating will not help them. So while I sympathize with the sentiment of this blog post, I don't agree with it at all.

Steephie,

Yes it's making the case that labelling people with autism based on functioning level creates a superiority/inferiority complex and creates low expectations for those deemed "low functioning". In the author's view all should simply be labeled autistic. The author claims that he/she is low functioning although from the language used in this blog post, that's obviously not true. Maybe physically the person has problems, but cognitively he/she is very advanced.

I think it's a very bad idea because that's likely to cause unfair generalizations. Convincing people you're not a complete moron if you're slightly handicapped is hard enough if you're actually allowed to place the word 'slightly' before the word 'handicapped'.

Grouping someone with slight autism under the same label as 'low functioning' people probably leads to significantly less understanding of the person with slight autism. It may in fact make more sense from a practical point of view to label the person as completely 'normal' to begin with if the other option is autism, since he will be better able to cope with people who don't take his few 'shortcomings' into account than with the same people who take all kinds of 'shortcomings' that he doesn't even have into account.

I was going to make another more significant point but it slipped from my mind.

Your point was lost when you started using the term "complete moron" in a thread about the self-respect of people with autism.

@Putin, i believe the new diagnosis criteria (since DSM five) no longer consider High-Functioning Autism (HFA) as a seperate category (all rolled in together with aspergers and some personality diagnosis which i can't quite recall) - however along with this diagnosis there is a support requirement - to me that sounds more like educational support than specifically therapeutic. Even if medical bodies are the inly ones with funding to offer said support at present (i believe support comes in a few different categories, including emotional, intellectual, physical... But i'm not too familiar, i've never worked with anyone who was as developmentally delayed as you are describing... It is possible of course that without sufficient support developement will be impaired; so i'm not against offering necessary support and decent early diagnosis (i was diagnosied with 'aspergers', but not until 29, probably a bit late for any developmental milestones... So much sympathy there)

Yes they subsumed aspergers and PDD within ASD, as there was too much overlap. Part of it stemmed from the fact that support was only given for autism diagnosis but also there was really no clinical reason to separate out these diagnoses into separate categories. I don't really object to the changes made in DSM-5, I think they corrected a lot of problems.

Putting binaries on spectra be whack, yo.

But does that not allow for a system where nobody is labeled 'high functioning' anymore - and everyone (ideally) gets the support they actually need. (I know that getting support is one of the desirable reasons for the change, i'm not sure what the actually result on the ground was...)

It does allow for it, it just doesn't treat "high functioning autism" as some kind of separate syndrome/category altogether. It is within the spectrum, and support requirements vary based on the severity of the symptoms. I do think it has led to people with PDD and aspergers under the rules of DSM-4 getting more access to services, while also reducing the diagnoses overall because people were being overdiagnosed with PDD-Not otherwise specified.

@Putin: I thought I made it clear that I was referring to the ever-present ignorant and obnoxious people who don't care enough to think in terms other than "complete moron" and "normal". I'll try to be more careful in my wording next time though.

High-functioning autism and low-functioning autism definitely both exist. You probably shouldn't talk about it in the presence of a low-functioning autistic person, but they definitely differ sharply.

@leon, the existance of two groups that are very distinct does not necessarily make them sharply different. Though there may be sharp differences, it is also possible that they exist on a blirry spectrum which is full of colourful differences.

In fact, i would think that some damage can be done where person A meets high functioning Autist 1, and thinks "oh being autistic isn't so bad" and then meets low functioning Autist 2, and thinks "that's not what autism looks like!"

Or the other way around, allistic person B meet atusit 2 first, and thinks "oh how terrible autism is!" Then goes on to meet autist A and thinks "well he's clearly not autistic, so he must be faking/an asshole!"

I think damge occurs by poor categorisation and understanding in both cases.

The example you gave are precisely why the categorization is necessary. People need to understand that not all autism is equal.

I repeat: putting binaries on spectra be whack, yo.

Or, to put it differently: "Not all autism is equal" is not the same as "Autism divides cleanly into two groups by their degree of similarity to neurotypical people, which is of course uniform across all social/personal contexts."