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They're Gonna Take Away My Kid's Diagnosis!

This is like the third time I've heard some variant of this complaint:

"My kid turned X years old and now the Doc wants to take away their diagnosis because they are social!"

You don't just stop being autistic. It's a lifelong condition. If the kid was autistic during diagnosis, the kid is autistic now. But what does "social" mean, like, verbal? plenty of verbal autistics. Well-spoken, interests outside of their age group, Hans Asperger's "little professors" are very social - to adults. Not so much to their peers. These autistic people are the savants, the maskers, the people who get shit on for being too autistic to fit in with the neurotypicals and get shit on for not being autistic enough to match somebody's stereotype. (Hey, internalized bullshit is still bullshit.)

Anyway, bit tired, sorry, recommend reading this article on Augmentative and assistive Communication for verbal and semiverbal autistic adults; and my collection of articles on the common experiences of highly-masking and not-masking autistic adults; and the DSM-5 criteria for autism diagnosis. 

Hope it helps.





image used with permission, Gustavo Fring, Pexels.
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