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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's sad, but it seems that most parents can handle an ADHD diagnosis. They can accept it and many are okay with medication to treat it. But an Autism diagnosis scares the hell out of people and they'll try to come up with every possible way to explain away behaviors so that they don't add up to Autism.

The problem with this thinking is that outsiders will generally cut a family slack if the kid has a disability. [b]Nobody who is a decent human will expect a kid that the parents acknowledge has Autism to behave just like kids who don't have it.[/b] But if parents won't acknowledge it and the kid displays typical ASD behaviors like not coming over to greet your aunt you haven't seen in a year or not being able to thank your cousin in person for the gift they brought, people will judge the parents for failing to raise their kid with manners and they'll judge the kid as rude and inconsiderate. 
[/quote]

You've described it exactly.  Kids with ADHD are expected to generally act like, now or in the future, kids who don't have it.  But ASD is a disability, and everyone, including you, others them.  Kids who are autistic are disabled and do not and never will act like kids who don't have it.

The idea of lack of theory of mind makes autistic people seem alien or inhuman.  Only recently has it been rephrased as a delayed theory of mind or even merely a language issue and nothing to do with theory of mind at all.  Autistic people are not inhuman after all.

(I have two kids with ASD and one with ADHD and yes, the one with ADHD is both harder and easier.  But none of them are disabled.)[/quote]

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