Even if you agree with her that over-diagnosis exists (which is already on pretty shaky ground I think), this is the wrong way to argue it.
It tempts people into gatekeeping based on nothing but vibes rather than evidence-based differential diagnosis
ReligiousGhoul on
Have to agree, I remember being in a mandatory group webinar discussing Neurodiversity and someone, with entirely well-meaning intentions, mentioned they had a family member who was “high-functioning”.
There was almost a mad scramble by the hosts to be the first to denounce and be the superior ally. It was called out-dated, unhelpful and offensive.
We can’t pretend the Phd-holding Physics lecturer who has the same lunch everyday for the past 25 years has the same condition as the man who can’t speak, is violent and can’t function in society due to his autism.
Not everyone can “be on the spectrum” **and** be treated the same way, it’s unsustainable.
M_M_X_X_V on
Autism is definitely underdiagnosed, especially among women. But most people don’t know what it means by a “spectrum”. It isn’t that everyone is on it nor that some people are “more” or “less” autistic. But what it means is that different autistic people will show differing symptoms.
Some autists may be unable to recognise sarcasm and unable to get jokes but not get overstimulated and be quite adventurous eaters. Some may be the opposite, getting jokes and sarcasm but being very picky eaters and get overstimulated. Some may lack empathy but be very attuned to social cues, others may have lots of empathy but struggle with social cues. There is a long list of symtoms and very few tick all the boxes and that is what it means by a spectrum, different people on the autism spectrum have different symptoms and different ways in which it manifests.
BoopingBurrito on
From a practical perspective though its either a spectrum or a group of different conditions that all resemble each other just with different levels of severity.
You can’t reasonably just say that Bob and Tim have the same condition when Bob struggles a little bit with loud noises, bright lights, and works better with established routines and plans, whereas Tim is incapable of looking after himself, can’t speak, can’t work, struggles with physical coordination, can’t be toilet trained, can eat a grand total of 4 types of food, and goes into full incoherent melt down when anything isn’t done the exact way and at the exact time it was done every previous day, etc.
Either its a spectrum with Bob at one end and Tim at the other, or they have different conditions. I don’t honestly know which approach would be more useful to people with Autism or to the government in helping those people. But the least useful approach would be to claim that its a single specific condition.
Wooden-Check-5800 on
I get what she is saying. The spectrum is so wide that the extreme ends of it might have little in common. No one argues that someone who is able to live independently and hold a job has it worse than someone who needs a carer 24/7. However, I do think that the high functioning group do have struggles that can easily result in depression, addictions, difficulty holding jobs, inability to form meaningful relations etc. If someone who is always fatigued, has no friends and finds it difficult to leave their house other than for work, goes to GP, they will probably get prescribed antidepressants. How is this more insightful if someone is not depressed? If getting diagnosed with autism brings someone a little closer to increased quality of life through understanding their own strengths, limitations, what can be helped a little with medication(not cured) etc., how is it a negative to society?
Past_Art6288 on
I am the stereotypical late diagnosed autistic woman, able to advocate for myself enough to get a diagnosis in my 30s.
My daughter is non verbal and developmentally delayed due to her autism.
At no point will our life experiences be the same. The manifestation of my condition is so completely different to hers, it has no business being called the same thing.
captain_amazo on
Im sure the discussion surrounding recent suppositions by the woman who pioneered much of the current research into autism and dyslexia will be reasonable and objective.
Excuse me while I go and get my popcorn
[deleted] on
As a woman in her late 30s on a waiting list for ASD diagnosis, I totally understand there being a need to differentiate people like me from people who are non-verbal and living a completely different life needing 24/7 care. However, *christ* this was an infuriating read.
“Experts who know what they’re talking about keep going on about masking. Personally, I think people who mask are just tired out, but who even knows why??”
And then the bit about how parents want their children to have a diagnosis of Aspergers because loads of geniuses have that so it’s like this coveted thing, and wanting to call people like me just, “hypersensitive”?
>If we think about the reasonable adjustments that schools are expected to make, some of the most common requests are around sensory sensitivities – for example, letting a child wear ear defenders or turning down the lights in the room. These adjustments are easy to make, but they have very little scientific grounding.
>We don’t really know what causes the sensory issues, and I think people love the idea of being able to do something about it. Giving a child ear defenders feels intuitive; it feels plausible. But I’m sceptical.
This is bordering on comedy. She could just listen to autistic people, but instead she’s tying herself into a pretzel to avoid just coming to terms with reality. I stuggle walking in the wind because the noise of it can trigger a meltdown due to sensory overload. Ear defenders stop that. It’s quite straightforward. Autistic people have varying thresholds, but what scientific explanation does she need? Those explanations already exist in many books written on the subject. She either doesn’t want to read them, or she has an issue accepting the truth.
>As far as I know, there hasn’t been any research into finding out whether these sensory adjustments actually improve lives. I’ve no idea whether it’s good for the child or not. It may feel good to them, but not actually be good.
What fucking harm does wearing ear defenders do to a child? Make them look all weird and disabled?
Uta Frith is a joke of a person.
eta – Also absolutely reeks ABA-style shit.
Ok-Witness4724 on
The term “overdiagnosis” suggests that there is a quota/limit to how many diagnoses can be given out. This would be dismissed instant to for any physical ailment (but I bet a lot of “inconvenient” neurodivergent conditions and mental health conditions are next in line for this treatment). It’s interesting how this line of thinking seems to stem from how much of an inconvenience Autism is to schools and teachers, not the lack of support and resources for autistic people.
There’s a lot of dismissive thinking in this article. Apparently masking isn’t exhausting and the presence of a sense of humour indicates that you don’t have autism (sorry team, we’re not allowed to laugh anymore)! It’s worrying how someone who has been apparently so influential in autism research still spouts incorrect options like this.
I can see this going the way of removing any and all supports for “high functioning” or “low support” autistics, or the reintroduction of a separate classification. The aim of this article seems to be “How do we justify removing support and accommodations from children who we don’t think deserves them?” They’re using the guise of “we want to give support to those who need it” to hide their agenda of wanting to gate keep or control their ideal of autism, so we’re (again) pigeonholed into who’s the most inconvenient to neurotypicals who are literally in careers to support us.
It’s only a matter of time before this shit bleeds into the workplace 🙄
TheL0wKing on
This is the same sort of argument that causes those with physical injuries or illnesses, especially Women, to be dismissed because they do not look like they are in pain or display enough obvious symptoms. An actual scientific diagnosis is based on whether someone has a condition, not on how much it impacts them. How to approach treatment obviously depends on the severity and symptoms, but that doesn’t mean refusing to diagnose someone because they are able to mask the symptoms more effectively than someone else.
For an article that wants to claim we need to be more “scientific” about things it sure as hell spends a lot of time making unscientific claims and vague allusions.
indifferent-times on
just a quick thanks for posting this, its an interesting article from a leading expert in the field, but its another subject that is not open to discussion on reddit or any social media really.
merryman1 on
The comments on masking and the difference between male and female diagnosis is quite frustrating.
Yes everyone is *technically* masking all the time. But yes it is also understood the process that goes on in this is quite a bit more intensive for people on the spectrum and why issues like burn-out and fatigue have their own little autistic nuances.
My theory and what I feel is generally well supported by published data and chats with my female friends on the spectrum regarding the social communication side. I’ll go a bit stream of consciousness here so sorry if it gets hard to follow –
People are social animals. We are raised from birth in a social context, we are *constantly* being trained to some level that we receive signals and react or respond appropriately. A big part of autism is a breakdown in the instinctive autonomic levels of this process. You might see or sense the signal but its not clear *what it is* or what you are expected to then do. The big difference between male and female child rearing is the amount of attention put into this training. Think of the gendered nature of child-rearing and what it means to “be a boy” versus to “be a girl”. Every guy I know to some level has had space in their life where they dress how they want, they kind of do what they want, if they want to engross themselves in some level of special interest of fixation, that’s kind of just normal and expected. In contrast absolutely not all but quite a lot of girls I’ve known have told me about the level of attention given to their appearance, the clothes they wear, what’s appropriate for what setting, how to stand, how to walk, how to sit, how to chat in a variety of settings, there is a lot more to “being proper” or whatever as a girl that as a young boy was just absolutely nowhere near on my radar. Now obviously us autistics we are still intelligent humans capable of thought. We want to fit in, we want to be normal like everyone else. We will, to varying degrees, hatchet and hash our way through learning to some level some degree of appropriate signal detection and response. However I think its this gap in child-rearing that makes a lot of female children on the spectrum basically float on through under the radar as they learn from a much much earlier age how important all this stuff is and the lengths they need to go to in order to fit in. Obviously this is itself a spectrum and goes across both genders, its not either/or, just some thoughts I have had for a while on what’s going on.
Iz-zY1994 on
I read this interview. A lot of it boils down to “I don’t believe all the things autistic people say about their own experience” whatever you believe on autism, I think we have to acknowledge how unscientific this is.
Willing_Curve921 on
The tragedy of this thread is that Uta Frith’s work (among with others at the Institute of Psychiatry) was instrumental in humanising people with ASD, destigmatising the condition, highlighting specific capabilities and moving beyond the idea that ASD is just a side effect of bad parenting and has a biological underpinning.
Literally devoted her life to moving the field forward.
As someone who was around when people with ASD were written off as “thick” or “no hopers”, and mainstream services had a “lock em up and forget about them” attitude, reading posts from people with ASD sticking the knife into her here is like seeing women slagging off Emily Pankhurst.
BusyBeeBridgette on
It shouldn’t be a spectrum. It should be separate individual neurological conditions. A person who can’t talk properly, jumps up and down all hours of the day, and screams and slaps people due to their condition shouldn’t be in the same league as some one who avoids eye contact and finished university at 14 years of age.
GroundbreakingBid972 on
There is a lot of research underlining sensory integration difficulties – so I don’t understand why she is is saying there is no scientific basis to sensory accomodations. She also seems confused by the concept of comorbid conditions. It is possible to have an intellectual disability and no other conditions, and it is possible to have an intellectual disability and autism. Likewise you can autism with or without an intellectual disability.
hungry_bra1n on
I know she’s one of the world’s most respected autism experts but reading this article made me question how well she understands autism. Has she been pressured into taking this position because the government can’t afford to increase support?
Either way, more research is probably the answer. Adult autism/adhd diagnoses seem to be helping a lot of people.
Extension_Point5466 on
Autism is just an umbrella term for developmental delay that occurs in certain mental domains but not in others. The term autism doesn’t contain any information about the cause of the condition, it is a descriptor. Its a cluster of developmental delays that tends to occur together. We don’t exactly know why.
The issue with the ‘spectrum’ model is that it raises the question of where to draw the line between pathology and normal physiology, and whether that line can ever be truly objective
TheOnlyGaming3 on
got to love the non-autistic people talking like experts in this comment section
hadawayandshite on
There was some research just last year which suggested two groupings based on genetics— the genes of the ‘earlier group’ are different to the genes of ‘later group’ and the challenges they face follow two different patterns…so maybe two separate disorders like Frith is saying here
It isn’t that an individual is somewhere on a spectrum between 0-10, it’s that the symptoms of autism form a spectrum that makes people who have it present in vastly different ways. On person with ASD might have get overwhelmed by loud sounds, while another doesn’t mind sounds, but can’t stand certain smells, while another can’t communicate verbally etc. Autism presents as a spectrum of challenges and behaviours.
MysteryNews4 on
This article suggests that “being able to read between the lines in a conversation, and to get irony and humour” should be a “contraindication” of autism. For a so-called expert on autism, how can Uta Frith be this uneducated on how some of us can, in fact, have a sense of humour? I’m AFAB & diagnosed autistic since 9 y/o and I have… *thoughts* on this whole article, but surely this quote alone should be enough to make you question the validity of everything else this article says.
castaway6764536 on
I suspect what will happen is the term autism will be given to the very young who are diagnosed early and profoundly affected. Mainly affecting boys. The phenomenon mainly seen in girls will be renamed something like hypersensitive personality disorder to be treated with resilience trailing, things like that. It’s just winding the clock back really and expanding on diagnosis like emotionally unstable personality or defining a new personality disorder mainly for the girls.
They’re also going to target the ADHD, anxiety and depression youngsters and teens with resilience training id imagine.
It all seems old fashioned, they want to get back to bread and butter diagnosing of old.
Astriania on
This is a thoughtful read and I encourage you all to read through it and take it in, don’t just react to the headline.
I’ve never really liked the term “spectrum”. It implies that we’re all just different colours and there’s no real reason to treat the colours differently, if only society could be more accepting. But that’s not the case, some people who label themselves autistic are mildly bad at personal interaction and can live with it, and some are non verbal and scream at lights and need medical or therapeutic help. It does no-one any favours for people with completely different needs to share a label.
And, unfashionable to say these days, but people towards the normal end of the continuum just need to learn how to live in society. It’s not like it isn’t stressful or anxiety-inducing or hard to deal with for the rest of us too. I’m pretty cynical about a lot of adult diagnoses just being “struggling to deal with life” honestly.
I think she’s also right that what we call “autism” is at least two different types of condition, which I’d characterise as physical hypersensitivity and low empathy. Before someone accuses me of having a go with that latter piece of phrasing, I’d say I have a bit of that myself – it’s what makes social situations so anxiety-inducing, because you (we) can’t intuitively and empathetically feel everyone else’s emotions so you are worried you’ll upset someone all the time. This latter one is what used to be called Asperger’s when combined with high logical intelligence. These two types of “autism” require completely different approaches to get the best out of people.
New-Passenger-882 on
DSM-5 counts family memories of early signs as legit proof. Uta Frith demands 1970s doctor labels, which hardly existed except for wealthy families or kids in institutions. Many working-class ones got overlooked for generations.
Things such as babies stimming, late to talk, melting down in playgroup were called naughty, not autistic. Same signs got diagnosed early in privileged cases like Temple Grandin. Frith ignores history and wealth gaps.
Asperger’s wasn’t “high functioning” it simply meant no speech delay, but often also meant social disability and sensory struggles etc.
Many autistic people can do PhDs through narrow talents like trivia memory or patterns, coping alone with few people around—not thriving, just surviving deeper needs.
Professor Uta Frith is legit—her 80s/90s work on theory of mind totally changed how we think about autistic cognition, still in textbooks, but current science is different: DSM-5/ICD-11 use trait spectrums and support levels (1-3 mild to severe), backed by genetics showing overlap across cases, brain scans with connectivity gradients, population studies proving continuous traits. Her “narrow autism only” take doesn’t match that data; it’s a minority view from a retired researcher.
Doctors/NHS follow needs-based levels, not her categories. Respect her history, but don’t treat the TES piece as today’s standard. Current science groups all levels together (including 24hr care cases) because genetics show shared risk variants across mild-to-profound, brain scans reveal connectivity gradients on one continuum, and population studies confirm traits distribute continuously—not clean splits. Justified by data linking social/repetitive deficits from minimal support to full dependency. [https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3045243/](https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3045243/)
TheStigianKing on
I watched a video of an interview with the head of the UK Institute of study on Autism and his view was different to the woman in the article.
His view was also that Autism isn’t a spectrum, but instead Autism describes the behavioral traits that cause people to struggle with understanding social cues and similar behavioral nuances. Whereas, in the more severe cases Autism also exists alongside severe learning difficulties.
26 commenti
Even if you agree with her that over-diagnosis exists (which is already on pretty shaky ground I think), this is the wrong way to argue it.
It tempts people into gatekeeping based on nothing but vibes rather than evidence-based differential diagnosis
Have to agree, I remember being in a mandatory group webinar discussing Neurodiversity and someone, with entirely well-meaning intentions, mentioned they had a family member who was “high-functioning”.
There was almost a mad scramble by the hosts to be the first to denounce and be the superior ally. It was called out-dated, unhelpful and offensive.
We can’t pretend the Phd-holding Physics lecturer who has the same lunch everyday for the past 25 years has the same condition as the man who can’t speak, is violent and can’t function in society due to his autism.
Not everyone can “be on the spectrum” **and** be treated the same way, it’s unsustainable.
Autism is definitely underdiagnosed, especially among women. But most people don’t know what it means by a “spectrum”. It isn’t that everyone is on it nor that some people are “more” or “less” autistic. But what it means is that different autistic people will show differing symptoms.
Some autists may be unable to recognise sarcasm and unable to get jokes but not get overstimulated and be quite adventurous eaters. Some may be the opposite, getting jokes and sarcasm but being very picky eaters and get overstimulated. Some may lack empathy but be very attuned to social cues, others may have lots of empathy but struggle with social cues. There is a long list of symtoms and very few tick all the boxes and that is what it means by a spectrum, different people on the autism spectrum have different symptoms and different ways in which it manifests.
From a practical perspective though its either a spectrum or a group of different conditions that all resemble each other just with different levels of severity.
You can’t reasonably just say that Bob and Tim have the same condition when Bob struggles a little bit with loud noises, bright lights, and works better with established routines and plans, whereas Tim is incapable of looking after himself, can’t speak, can’t work, struggles with physical coordination, can’t be toilet trained, can eat a grand total of 4 types of food, and goes into full incoherent melt down when anything isn’t done the exact way and at the exact time it was done every previous day, etc.
Either its a spectrum with Bob at one end and Tim at the other, or they have different conditions. I don’t honestly know which approach would be more useful to people with Autism or to the government in helping those people. But the least useful approach would be to claim that its a single specific condition.
I get what she is saying. The spectrum is so wide that the extreme ends of it might have little in common. No one argues that someone who is able to live independently and hold a job has it worse than someone who needs a carer 24/7. However, I do think that the high functioning group do have struggles that can easily result in depression, addictions, difficulty holding jobs, inability to form meaningful relations etc. If someone who is always fatigued, has no friends and finds it difficult to leave their house other than for work, goes to GP, they will probably get prescribed antidepressants. How is this more insightful if someone is not depressed? If getting diagnosed with autism brings someone a little closer to increased quality of life through understanding their own strengths, limitations, what can be helped a little with medication(not cured) etc., how is it a negative to society?
I am the stereotypical late diagnosed autistic woman, able to advocate for myself enough to get a diagnosis in my 30s.
My daughter is non verbal and developmentally delayed due to her autism.
At no point will our life experiences be the same. The manifestation of my condition is so completely different to hers, it has no business being called the same thing.
Im sure the discussion surrounding recent suppositions by the woman who pioneered much of the current research into autism and dyslexia will be reasonable and objective.
Excuse me while I go and get my popcorn
As a woman in her late 30s on a waiting list for ASD diagnosis, I totally understand there being a need to differentiate people like me from people who are non-verbal and living a completely different life needing 24/7 care. However, *christ* this was an infuriating read.
“Experts who know what they’re talking about keep going on about masking. Personally, I think people who mask are just tired out, but who even knows why??”
And then the bit about how parents want their children to have a diagnosis of Aspergers because loads of geniuses have that so it’s like this coveted thing, and wanting to call people like me just, “hypersensitive”?
>If we think about the reasonable adjustments that schools are expected to make, some of the most common requests are around sensory sensitivities – for example, letting a child wear ear defenders or turning down the lights in the room. These adjustments are easy to make, but they have very little scientific grounding.
>We don’t really know what causes the sensory issues, and I think people love the idea of being able to do something about it. Giving a child ear defenders feels intuitive; it feels plausible. But I’m sceptical.
This is bordering on comedy. She could just listen to autistic people, but instead she’s tying herself into a pretzel to avoid just coming to terms with reality. I stuggle walking in the wind because the noise of it can trigger a meltdown due to sensory overload. Ear defenders stop that. It’s quite straightforward. Autistic people have varying thresholds, but what scientific explanation does she need? Those explanations already exist in many books written on the subject. She either doesn’t want to read them, or she has an issue accepting the truth.
>As far as I know, there hasn’t been any research into finding out whether these sensory adjustments actually improve lives. I’ve no idea whether it’s good for the child or not. It may feel good to them, but not actually be good.
What fucking harm does wearing ear defenders do to a child? Make them look all weird and disabled?
Uta Frith is a joke of a person.
eta – Also absolutely reeks ABA-style shit.
The term “overdiagnosis” suggests that there is a quota/limit to how many diagnoses can be given out. This would be dismissed instant to for any physical ailment (but I bet a lot of “inconvenient” neurodivergent conditions and mental health conditions are next in line for this treatment). It’s interesting how this line of thinking seems to stem from how much of an inconvenience Autism is to schools and teachers, not the lack of support and resources for autistic people.
There’s a lot of dismissive thinking in this article. Apparently masking isn’t exhausting and the presence of a sense of humour indicates that you don’t have autism (sorry team, we’re not allowed to laugh anymore)! It’s worrying how someone who has been apparently so influential in autism research still spouts incorrect options like this.
I can see this going the way of removing any and all supports for “high functioning” or “low support” autistics, or the reintroduction of a separate classification. The aim of this article seems to be “How do we justify removing support and accommodations from children who we don’t think deserves them?” They’re using the guise of “we want to give support to those who need it” to hide their agenda of wanting to gate keep or control their ideal of autism, so we’re (again) pigeonholed into who’s the most inconvenient to neurotypicals who are literally in careers to support us.
It’s only a matter of time before this shit bleeds into the workplace 🙄
This is the same sort of argument that causes those with physical injuries or illnesses, especially Women, to be dismissed because they do not look like they are in pain or display enough obvious symptoms. An actual scientific diagnosis is based on whether someone has a condition, not on how much it impacts them. How to approach treatment obviously depends on the severity and symptoms, but that doesn’t mean refusing to diagnose someone because they are able to mask the symptoms more effectively than someone else.
For an article that wants to claim we need to be more “scientific” about things it sure as hell spends a lot of time making unscientific claims and vague allusions.
just a quick thanks for posting this, its an interesting article from a leading expert in the field, but its another subject that is not open to discussion on reddit or any social media really.
The comments on masking and the difference between male and female diagnosis is quite frustrating.
Yes everyone is *technically* masking all the time. But yes it is also understood the process that goes on in this is quite a bit more intensive for people on the spectrum and why issues like burn-out and fatigue have their own little autistic nuances.
My theory and what I feel is generally well supported by published data and chats with my female friends on the spectrum regarding the social communication side. I’ll go a bit stream of consciousness here so sorry if it gets hard to follow –
People are social animals. We are raised from birth in a social context, we are *constantly* being trained to some level that we receive signals and react or respond appropriately. A big part of autism is a breakdown in the instinctive autonomic levels of this process. You might see or sense the signal but its not clear *what it is* or what you are expected to then do. The big difference between male and female child rearing is the amount of attention put into this training. Think of the gendered nature of child-rearing and what it means to “be a boy” versus to “be a girl”. Every guy I know to some level has had space in their life where they dress how they want, they kind of do what they want, if they want to engross themselves in some level of special interest of fixation, that’s kind of just normal and expected. In contrast absolutely not all but quite a lot of girls I’ve known have told me about the level of attention given to their appearance, the clothes they wear, what’s appropriate for what setting, how to stand, how to walk, how to sit, how to chat in a variety of settings, there is a lot more to “being proper” or whatever as a girl that as a young boy was just absolutely nowhere near on my radar. Now obviously us autistics we are still intelligent humans capable of thought. We want to fit in, we want to be normal like everyone else. We will, to varying degrees, hatchet and hash our way through learning to some level some degree of appropriate signal detection and response. However I think its this gap in child-rearing that makes a lot of female children on the spectrum basically float on through under the radar as they learn from a much much earlier age how important all this stuff is and the lengths they need to go to in order to fit in. Obviously this is itself a spectrum and goes across both genders, its not either/or, just some thoughts I have had for a while on what’s going on.
I read this interview. A lot of it boils down to “I don’t believe all the things autistic people say about their own experience” whatever you believe on autism, I think we have to acknowledge how unscientific this is.
The tragedy of this thread is that Uta Frith’s work (among with others at the Institute of Psychiatry) was instrumental in humanising people with ASD, destigmatising the condition, highlighting specific capabilities and moving beyond the idea that ASD is just a side effect of bad parenting and has a biological underpinning.
Literally devoted her life to moving the field forward.
As someone who was around when people with ASD were written off as “thick” or “no hopers”, and mainstream services had a “lock em up and forget about them” attitude, reading posts from people with ASD sticking the knife into her here is like seeing women slagging off Emily Pankhurst.
It shouldn’t be a spectrum. It should be separate individual neurological conditions. A person who can’t talk properly, jumps up and down all hours of the day, and screams and slaps people due to their condition shouldn’t be in the same league as some one who avoids eye contact and finished university at 14 years of age.
There is a lot of research underlining sensory integration difficulties – so I don’t understand why she is is saying there is no scientific basis to sensory accomodations. She also seems confused by the concept of comorbid conditions. It is possible to have an intellectual disability and no other conditions, and it is possible to have an intellectual disability and autism. Likewise you can autism with or without an intellectual disability.
I know she’s one of the world’s most respected autism experts but reading this article made me question how well she understands autism. Has she been pressured into taking this position because the government can’t afford to increase support?
Either way, more research is probably the answer. Adult autism/adhd diagnoses seem to be helping a lot of people.
Autism is just an umbrella term for developmental delay that occurs in certain mental domains but not in others. The term autism doesn’t contain any information about the cause of the condition, it is a descriptor. Its a cluster of developmental delays that tends to occur together. We don’t exactly know why.
The issue with the ‘spectrum’ model is that it raises the question of where to draw the line between pathology and normal physiology, and whether that line can ever be truly objective
got to love the non-autistic people talking like experts in this comment section
There was some research just last year which suggested two groupings based on genetics— the genes of the ‘earlier group’ are different to the genes of ‘later group’ and the challenges they face follow two different patterns…so maybe two separate disorders like Frith is saying here
I’ll hunt it out:
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/study-reveals-genetic-and-developmental-differences-in-people-with-earlier-versus-later-autism
It isn’t that an individual is somewhere on a spectrum between 0-10, it’s that the symptoms of autism form a spectrum that makes people who have it present in vastly different ways. On person with ASD might have get overwhelmed by loud sounds, while another doesn’t mind sounds, but can’t stand certain smells, while another can’t communicate verbally etc. Autism presents as a spectrum of challenges and behaviours.
This article suggests that “being able to read between the lines in a conversation, and to get irony and humour” should be a “contraindication” of autism. For a so-called expert on autism, how can Uta Frith be this uneducated on how some of us can, in fact, have a sense of humour? I’m AFAB & diagnosed autistic since 9 y/o and I have… *thoughts* on this whole article, but surely this quote alone should be enough to make you question the validity of everything else this article says.
I suspect what will happen is the term autism will be given to the very young who are diagnosed early and profoundly affected. Mainly affecting boys. The phenomenon mainly seen in girls will be renamed something like hypersensitive personality disorder to be treated with resilience trailing, things like that. It’s just winding the clock back really and expanding on diagnosis like emotionally unstable personality or defining a new personality disorder mainly for the girls.
They’re also going to target the ADHD, anxiety and depression youngsters and teens with resilience training id imagine.
It all seems old fashioned, they want to get back to bread and butter diagnosing of old.
This is a thoughtful read and I encourage you all to read through it and take it in, don’t just react to the headline.
I’ve never really liked the term “spectrum”. It implies that we’re all just different colours and there’s no real reason to treat the colours differently, if only society could be more accepting. But that’s not the case, some people who label themselves autistic are mildly bad at personal interaction and can live with it, and some are non verbal and scream at lights and need medical or therapeutic help. It does no-one any favours for people with completely different needs to share a label.
And, unfashionable to say these days, but people towards the normal end of the continuum just need to learn how to live in society. It’s not like it isn’t stressful or anxiety-inducing or hard to deal with for the rest of us too. I’m pretty cynical about a lot of adult diagnoses just being “struggling to deal with life” honestly.
I think she’s also right that what we call “autism” is at least two different types of condition, which I’d characterise as physical hypersensitivity and low empathy. Before someone accuses me of having a go with that latter piece of phrasing, I’d say I have a bit of that myself – it’s what makes social situations so anxiety-inducing, because you (we) can’t intuitively and empathetically feel everyone else’s emotions so you are worried you’ll upset someone all the time. This latter one is what used to be called Asperger’s when combined with high logical intelligence. These two types of “autism” require completely different approaches to get the best out of people.
DSM-5 counts family memories of early signs as legit proof. Uta Frith demands 1970s doctor labels, which hardly existed except for wealthy families or kids in institutions. Many working-class ones got overlooked for generations.
Things such as babies stimming, late to talk, melting down in playgroup were called naughty, not autistic. Same signs got diagnosed early in privileged cases like Temple Grandin. Frith ignores history and wealth gaps.
Asperger’s wasn’t “high functioning” it simply meant no speech delay, but often also meant social disability and sensory struggles etc.
Many autistic people can do PhDs through narrow talents like trivia memory or patterns, coping alone with few people around—not thriving, just surviving deeper needs.
Professor Uta Frith is legit—her 80s/90s work on theory of mind totally changed how we think about autistic cognition, still in textbooks, but current science is different: DSM-5/ICD-11 use trait spectrums and support levels (1-3 mild to severe), backed by genetics showing overlap across cases, brain scans with connectivity gradients, population studies proving continuous traits. Her “narrow autism only” take doesn’t match that data; it’s a minority view from a retired researcher.
Doctors/NHS follow needs-based levels, not her categories. Respect her history, but don’t treat the TES piece as today’s standard. Current science groups all levels together (including 24hr care cases) because genetics show shared risk variants across mild-to-profound, brain scans reveal connectivity gradients on one continuum, and population studies confirm traits distribute continuously—not clean splits. Justified by data linking social/repetitive deficits from minimal support to full dependency. [https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3045243/](https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3045243/)
I watched a video of an interview with the head of the UK Institute of study on Autism and his view was different to the woman in the article.
His view was also that Autism isn’t a spectrum, but instead Autism describes the behavioral traits that cause people to struggle with understanding social cues and similar behavioral nuances. Whereas, in the more severe cases Autism also exists alongside severe learning difficulties.