Reply to People with milder forms of autism struggle as adults

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You know, we've had very successful autistic people in my family. My HFA uncle works on a factory line and is near retirement and makes more money than I do as a junior associate as a law firm. He is married and has a daughter and two grandkids. It's not that he couldn't succeed. He just needed more support. He bought a house from my grandmother and lived next to her his entire life. He is a vet who served as an enlisted man in Korea.

His uncle (my great uncle) was a successful mechanic and had HFA. He also had close support from family. Uncle P. also married and had kids.

At the same time, I have a friend with ASD who successfully graduated college, but couldn't manage to keep a job in IT. He is currently drawing SSDI.

I'm hoping for the best, but I've made sure that my DS has a clear diagnostic trail so that if he needs to go on SSDI when he is an adult he can. I'm hedging my bets.[/quote]

One of the interesting things from the article is they actually went through and double-checked if these adults would still qualify as PDD-NOS. They were originally Dxed at a different time, before such broad labeling occurred, and before early therapies.

The variables are very different today.

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These family members were never dx'd as children. It only came up when my oldest was dx'd.  There was a bit of trouble getting my head around it when people starting using the ASD label with my son. "No, he doesn't have an ASD. He's just like Uncle R. Some kids in my family are like that. There's nothing WRONG with them."

Well. As it turns out, there isn't anything wrong with Uncle R. other than a mild ASD (and comorbid epilepsy).  With family support. Uncle R. did well. I have the same hope for my son.  Uncle R. got zero interventions (and had a father who beat him with a belt for things like repetitive behaviors and echolalia) and did okay. I hope that since my son has had a lot of speech therapy and social skills training, he will do okay.

I don't think my hope is misplaced. He is currently mainstreamed in third grade and does not have an aide. He is getting all A's.  He's a complete whiz at math.  I've had math professors weirder than my son is now.

I don't want a cure for my son. I don't think many HFA people need a cure. Uncle R. was my favorite family member as a kid. He collected comics and let me read them. He took me to movies. His house was a refuge when my parents were getting a divorce. I love him. He and my son don't need a cure.  
'
 I'm so glad for your family. My question is though, that considering autism is a severe condition according the the DSM, why they would qualify for an actual autism Dx? It would seem that they have many traits of autism, but not the actual disorder.

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We struggled with this with my son.  We repeatedly said "It's not autism, because it's not severe enough." He has undergone an ADOS and we did an ADI-R, however, which is the gold standard for diagnosis. Both were positive for autism. (His DX is autism, not asperger's or PDD-NOS.) Autism doesn't require a life crippling severity to be diagnosed.  Neither the DSM-IV or the DSM-V require that the disorder be severe.  (The DSM-III did, but it hasn't been the diagnostic standard since the mid 1990's.)

Auti[/quote]

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