https://www.acamh.org/blog/results-of-the-acamh-awards-2020/
Content warning, but a very extraordinary 10 min video re whether we are autistic, from Prof. Dame Uta Frith, one of the original leaders of the autism world.
I am going to talk about its contents, because I cannot agree with Uta's thoughts here. Thread/

I'll give us a canter through the contents. Do brace yourselves please.
Uta comes from Medical Model autism, in which we are a deficit caused by a faulty mechanism that needs treatment. She explains this in her video.
The current diagnostic teams are given a very hard time/

/and told in no uncertain terms that they are "falsely diagnosing" autistic people with a "creeping extension" of the proper autism she used to diagnose.
"Are they even autistic?", "superficially autistic like" she says, smiling at the camera.

<swigs tea>

Moving on/

Uta lists out what she believes autism is, by way of its 'deficits'
Poor false belief
Poor comprehension
Poor deception (!)
Poor expressive gestures
Poor joint attention.

Mmm.

Then/

Uta says that the reason we don't like socialising is because of our 'inability to mentalise', which means we cannot make sense of communication signals.

Well, this is quite strange, isn't it.

The world certainly has moved on. All fields do. One cannot remain in the past/

I would like to send love to the millions of autistic people who were left to sink without trace, in that quest to prove that it looked like a low IQ and extreme behaviour.
The autistic females left with no diagnosis because of path myths.
Those in BAME communities, likewise/

To send love also to all who have been 'gaslighted' for decades, saying 'yours isn't Proper Autism', and in some cases bullied literally to death by people.

I am not sure we need any of the original autism people, no matter how many titles they have, pouring more harm onto it.

For those valuing the findings of the last few years of excellent research, involving asking actual autistic people what's going on (instead of guessing), there are many useful papers from top teams here:
https://annsautism.blogspot.com/2019/01/autism-some-vital-research-links.html

I appreciate that there are autistic ppl who have extreme difficulties, & need really good support. I, like many others, work hard to help ensure they get that support.
But I cannot hear the other 85% of autistic people being told they're "superficially autistic", and stay silent

We know full well that autistic people coming forward for diagnosis are meeting a full set of criteria as outlined in the DSM 5 and ICD 11. It's not as if the diagnostic teams wake up in the morning and think "Hey, I'll diagnose the first five random people through the door!".

Goodness me.

To the diagnostic teams working flat out to diagnose the backlog of autistic people who were missed from genuine diagnosis, I am so sorry you've had to listen to that.

Sending love to you too.

The only other time I saw this, recently, was in a now-redacted document from a collaboration between some big autism organisations worldwide, and multi $billion pharmaceutical companies, suggesting that autistic people are subdivided into two main groups:/

/Group 1, the 700,000 or so in the UK that have enough comorbidities etc to count as 'high support needs', and who can be used to maximise shareholder profit from 'therapeutics'.
Group 2, the other 1,300,000 or so in the UK who can be behaviour-trained to be compliant workers.

Whilst I am not suggesting that Uta has seen such a document, let alone agreed with its contents, a reality is that the Medical Model of autism = deficit lends itself to such dehumanisation.

I don't like it at all.

I can't remember a single word of love, support or encouragement to autistic people in that video, nor any sign that it was co-produced with any of us.

Is it time to move on? I think so.

And for those doing the 'sharp intake of breath' thing, thinking 'OMG - No-one challenges Uta! Quick, remove Ann from all conferences!', well, someone has to do so.

If we're not prepared to listen to concerns, we might as well pack up and read a novel.