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254 points perihelions | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.313s | source
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0x1ceb00da ◴[] No.43811069[source]
One thing this will do is disincentivize high functioning autists from identifying themselves as autists, which is a very good thing IMO. Just look at this channel https://www.youtube.com/@NationalAutisticSoc/videos. There is a lot of survivor-ship bias on this channel towards high functioning autists who can talk in front of a camera.

Just to give an idea to those not familiar with the difference between high functioning and low functioning autism, high functioning autists face problems like not being able to communicate properly some of the time, and low functioning autists face problems like not even being able to tell their caretaker which part of their body is in pain, or which kid in the group punched them.

Edit: The National Autistic Society is UK based but the situation is not that different in other countries.

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monero-xmr ◴[] No.43811161[source]
There isn’t a definitive test for autism. High functioning autists would have been considered quirky or odd in the past. We label everything now though
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1. mrguyorama ◴[] No.43826704[source]
We also just used to chain the "weird" family members in the attic and pretend they didn't exist.

For a while, the popular treatment was mulching their brain matter through their eyeball. This was done to a lady kennedy for being too weird. The doctor who suggested we scramble people's brains if they had certain diseases that were hard to treat in other ways got a Nobel Prize.