
An Autism Diagnosis That Isn’t Always Permanent - bookofjoe
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/the-autism-diagnosis-that-isnt-always-permanent/ar-BBVcO1C
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mercer
Related, but possibly tangentially:

I'm convinced my father would've been diagnosed with 'high-functioning autism'
had it been a thing in his day/environment.

But he's happily married to someone who compensated for many, if not most of
his deficiencies. Together they form a pretty functional human, and as a son
I'm very lucky to have grown up with that.

At the same time, many of his quirks have become very noticeable now that I've
been officially diagnosed with 'high functioning autism' too.

From his inability to deal with emotions of any sort to OCD(-ish) behavior
around the house, from a lack of social life independent of his wife to
obsessive interest in the most specific things, all of it strikes me as rather
autistic, and uncomfortably recognizable, but softened by a life-long
partnership.

It often makes me think about such diagnoses and how insular/individualistic
they can often be, and how powerless they can leave one feeling when
diagnosed. If you're 'on the spectrum' but your symptoms are mediated by
partner/family/culture, are you still on the spectrum? In some ways, yes, but
perhaps we don't talk enough about the influence of others or environment.

All this not in direct response to the article, just saying.

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jaggederest
You could be talking about my life. My family has the same characteristics, in
my case both my parents and myself are clearly on the ASD spectrum.

I do think that there's a ton that can be done by support. I think it's
especially interesting since, as my parents have aged, many of their supports
have been removed or become irrelevant, as you say, making their neurological
quirks more and more evident. I hope when we get older there will be a better
support network in place for aging ASD folks.

In my case a big challenge for me has just been accepting that I do need a
significant support structure, and not feeling like that makes me less of an
independent adult.

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_nalply
I have a four year old son who is diagnosed with autism spectrum. As a father
I would like to know from adults with autistic tendencies what I should do to
make him happy and to help him grow up to become independent and self-reliant
and what I should avoid.

Autism spectrum is a very wide field, I realize, so I tell you that my son
probably has neither Asperger nor AD[H]D, but perhaps early infant autism and
as it seems not in a very severe manifestation but distinct enough that I
sometimes have to explain it to other parents at the playground, for example.

August he will start kindergarten in a private school with Montessori
pedagogy, in fact, he already attends a playgroup there two times a week and
one afternoon outside in the woods and he always returns happy from there.

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kothman
So, by providing therapy to appear less autistic, these folks get better at
masking their symptoms (by making eye contact, holding conversation)?

"Children who are longer diagnosed with ASD show improvements with
communicating and interacting with other people, which can include more eye
contact and an easier time with back-and-forth conversations.

The children, whose mean age was 2.5 years old, were diagnosed and treated at
a university-affiliated early intervention program in the Bronx. They were re-
evaluated four years later, on average. Most of the children received a mix of
speech and occupational therapy and applied behavior analysis, the standard
treatment for ASD."

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walshemj
You don't cure things like this you just get better at developing coping
strategies.

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dang
We changed the URL from [https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-autism-diagnosis-
that-isnt-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-autism-diagnosis-that-isnt-
always-permanent-11553526845) to one that isn't behind a hard paywall.

