So you disagree that we are all autistic?
With your heightened autism-awareness, you may now realise that a work- colleague, a friend, or someone you have read about: Bill Gates some say,
displays autistic traits (or you may have found a minor trait or two in yourself).
Is that person, (or are you) therefore to be taken off a “neuro-typical” line and placed on a completely separate “spectrum” line?

Let me pose a scenario: let us say we have a woman who is effective in her business-work, and has at least average communication skills, but who is perhaps a little compulsive: let’s say she likes to be the last out of the meeting room to turn off the lights, but nothing more different than that. Or perhaps it is hard to get her attention when she is really focused on a job. Perhaps alternatively, her only ‘different’ trait is she is not quick on picking up subtle face-cues, though if you make your expression more obvious she will get the message. We have a functioning, capable person with a minor trait, though clearly a little-more autistic than average. Are we going to put her on a separate  “spectrum” line for this? How would she react if you told her she was “autistic without hope of ever being normal” ? She’d probably laugh at you, and so would her friends and family.

This then raises the question:

How autistic do you have to be – for some “authority” or “specialist” to decide that you are “fundamentally not normal”, to be removed from the implied ‘normal’ line, to be forever consigned to the “them” class with an “ncurable condition”? And how many traits do you need to be damned to eternal autism? Where’s the dividing line? Do you only need one big trait to qualify? Or do you need two? Or perhaps three little ones? What if you significantly reduced one of those traits over time, not displaying it more often than, say, once a month. Traits can and do diminish. If the “qualifying requirement” were three small traits, and you have gone from three to two traits, are you then no longer on the spectrum? Are you now fundamentally different, part of the “us” group, no longer one of “them” ? No, according to experts, you are forever different.

How absurd it all is!

Likewise, I have been told there are 13 clinically significant signs of autism, no doubt used by paediatricians in the field: where is the “tip-over point”? They would have to provide some definition. Let us posit that by their yardsticks you are marginally autistic, for argument’s sake, if you display 7 out of their 13 traits. If over time you significantly reduce 3 of their criteria, are you still forever consigned to autismness? Or will they allow you graduation into “normal-ness” if these experts are true to their own criteria? Or via other tests like “cars”, again if your Child is just on the “autism” side of  the border can they be flexible or are you either one thing or the other forever, in spite of future reductions in your autism level?

Of course we are ALL a bit autistic: who of us does not feel some need to “sort something out definitely” (‘compulsively’) every now and then?
Where is “autism” supposed to end, and where is “neuro-typicality” supposed to start? If we all have some degree of autistic behaviour, then it follows we should all be on the line, towards the end maybe, but on the line nonetheless. 

Do you then have some degree of autistic behaviour? Of course you do!
In the “Would you like to experience autism?” series on my Site (www.mild-autism.com). you behaved classically autistically to the stresses described.

You found yourself overwhelmed, unable to pay attention, unable to communicate effectively, and barraged by stimuli that sent you to escaping into your Own World, (yes, of course you have your “Own World” to escape to – with your private thoughts, quiet and removed from the hustle and bustle of the outside world, where you can reassert your sense of self, recharge, and indulge in favourite personally pleasing pursuits – surely you wouldn’t try to deny that!? And yet that is the classic definition of an autistic, “you are inhabiting your Own World, reluctant to access the Real world – YOU ARE THE SAME – the difference is you just don’t spend as much time there, consequently you have developed better communication and socialisation skills, but this is a matter of DEGREE, NOT A FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE! )

If so-called ‘autistics’ develop better social and communication skills through effective Training, and of course they can and do, (this is after all what all parents and carers attempt to achieve, and even with poor training techniques they achieve some success), such autistics can well get to levels of proficiency that are indistinguishable from a large percentage of the population (examples to follow). How prejudiced and discriminatory would you then have to be, to say that such a person can never be like you or other normal people?
In fact how dare you exclude such worthy people? If this all begins to feel similar to the racial discrimination scourge that is now heartily discredited and still being dismantled, it is because – it is!

And how severely has this “you are incurably autistic” indoctrination affect had on peoples’ lives and their optimism? So that conceiving themselves unable to ever be lifted out of this damning distinction feel defeated before they start?

Someone like Taylor Morris seems to have been told that “neuro-typicals don’t have Own Worlds”, since she describes that as the distinction between them and herself. (Unfortunately she has taken that YouTube video down, so I can’t give you the reference) Someone really ought to tell her the truth, though fortunately in her case the feeling she is forever different hasn’t stopped her!
Surely Chris Varney https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1HQKB2txgY
cannot seriously continue to describe himself as completely different, in his own words “from a different planet”?
Pretty extreme for someone looking so “neurotypical” on stage! Are his different behaviours still present? Or have they long since faded into occasional behaviours? Would an impartial observer of Chris now deem his ‘deviations from the norm’ whatever ‘norm’ is, as significant, or insignificant these days? Based on his on-stage appearance and performance I imagine “insignificant” would be a likely conclusion. Maybe he wishes to perpetuate the pronouncement “I am Autistic” to highlight how the positive attitudes of his mum and others have helped him become effective, “in spite of the condition”. I would certainly endorse that positive message, but in perpetuating the implied message “I am forever autistic in spite of my advances” I do not believe he is supporting a concept that is in dire need of correction.

Danny Raede from “Asperger Experts” is a fluent and engaging speaker. Yes I have seen him on video displaying disorientation after a noisy party, but who doesn’t have such a response? If his responses to such stimuli are fractionally stronger than others, does that really mean he is so fundamentally different that he needs to be put in a completely separate category?

Here is another example of how we are all autistic, it is just a matter of degree:
I still remember clearly my Youngster being enrolled in a kindergarten course for kids who weren’t as social as the others (in fact I think I still have the notes). The course described the need for kids to be aware of the “otherness” in the other kids (to help them share better), to ‘ask with their eyes’ for things they wanted, and a host of similar trainings. The course-content could have come straight out of an autism course given to older-age kids.

About a third of the kids in the kinder needed that kind of help, they would have been described as autistic had they continued those behaviours into later years. But most I am sure developed social interaction skills to the point that their self-oriented behaviours were no longer significant. I bet many are still less social than most. In fact they could be accurately described by my more liberal and ‘socially-mobile’ definition as ‘more autistic than most’ . But I image most are (fortunately) not significantly-autistic enough to have been given the brand..!

You self-talk occasionally, don’t you? It’s nothing to be ashamed of, everybody does it, however next time your youngster launches into a louder more self-absorbed version of it, don’t think of him or her as a different species, just a more extreme version of what you and I are all like.

Let us look further at the “Withdrawal to Own World” that typifies the autistic.
The need to “Retreat to our Own Worlds” is not unique, it is universal!
The next time you see a person walking down the street wearing dark glasses (on an overcast day..!) with music earplugs attached to ears, or scrolling madly on the phone screen, even at risk to his or her life – while crossing the road..! remind yourself that this person is trying to escape the Real World as much as possible in the current circumstances, and if there were other convenient ways to detach even further from reality, he or she would be taking them.

You might say, “but when that person takes off the sunglasses and detaches the earplugs and gets off the phone, then he or she will be able to have an interactive conversation”.
My response is “they might converse, but not willingly unless you had something they wanted. And had they been allowed to do the amount of Withdrawing they do now, from birth, then yes they would be noticeably autistic, because their notion of reality would have been formed from within an Own World cocoon. They were not able to do this much Withdrawing as children, being dragged into Real World by their parents and teachers.”

Many people would, if given the chance (eg not having to face the world to earn money, or clothe/feed themelves) spend most of their time in other escapist Withdrawal activities, on the TV /computer all day, playing computer games, looking at YouTube, with junk food in hand (food is often used to create deeper Withdrawal) . Having done that for a month or two, would these people then be as able to engage in a meaningful conversation as they were before their Own World binge? Possibly, with reluctant effort, and less-so over time.
They would prefer to keep up with the Withdrawal, because the more you have, the more you are mired in it (unless you are encouraged out, with reasons that harness your own Motivations).
Because they would not be terribly interested in communicating, they would have increasingly-poor skills. “Veging” in front of the TV is a common expression (at least in Australia), which contains a direct-link with the “vegetable” state of a neurologically-impaired person. A drunk or self-drugged person, one who has Withdrawn as far as he or she can go, does not engage, and importantly does not want to engage: these are classic autistic traits.
Some people become recluses: uninterested in, and eventually far less capable of, communciation.
Shouldn’t we then say these people have crossed the line the other way and are now autistic? If they were to be “diagnosed” as such, would they then also be told they could never again be normal?

The more Withdrawn you are, the more autistic traits of un-interest and self-absorption you exhibit.  I have recently read that the loss of brain cells due to drinking is a myth – however if you are  frequently drunk you will be using fewer “neurotypical” brain cells or their synaptic connections,  so they may as well be lost: and your communication skills will be reduced. The Rule of  “Use it or Lose it” is firmly established in modern neuro-science.

So where does mild-autism end, and “neuro-typicality” begin? It doesn’t.

We are all on the one line.  And what does that mean when it comes to treating your Child? It means abandoning those “us-them” “there is no cure” limits stated or implied by mainstream autism exponents and their literature, it’s not a relevant line of thinking. Instead, with those shackles removed, aim for the sky! You’ll go much further and much more if you believe that your Child’s potential is unlimited, and the tag can be discarded as not relevant or useful.

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