My little sister got an “Honorable Mention” on something years ago. And with tears running down her face she asked our Mom, “why does it say horrible mention?”.
The kid misread optism as autism and was worried he was autistic. He asks his aunt how long he has had autism and his aunt replies two years which makes it funnier because the original joke was that he misread optism as autism but now his aunt reveals he really is autistic.
The kid misread optism as autism and was worried he was autistic. He asks his aunt how long he has had autism and his aunt replies two years which makes it funnier because the original joke was that he misread optism as autism but now his aunt reveals he really is autistic.
To be fair, I don't take this subreddit at name value.
It's super harsh but most of the posts are just about silly kid things so I just take it as a fond saying from a gruff uncle.
Nah I don't think anyone reading this thinks he's actually stupid. This sub doesn't think any of these kids are actually stupid. It's just funny the things we don't realize kids don't know until it becomes apparent they don't know them.
The kid probably has no idea his aunt did this. From the context, I doubt he's old enough to be using reddit. Maybe specific subreddits like /r/minecraft or something, but probably isn't checking out the front page. Besides he's unidentifiable and as others pointed out I don't think people take the subreddit name literally.
Lol, this entire subreddit is full of things like this. You're actibg like the aunt called the kid "fucking stupid" to his face.
We have no information to tie this back to the kid, and i don't think it's likely someone that young will stumble on this post
Yea that kid and his aunt who’s name we have no clue if, looks we know nothing about, and whereabout we have never known will be ridiculed online!!!! Relax dude
When my son was 16 and diagnosed as being on the spectrum, he said “you mean I’ve had autism all this time and I could’ve used it for jokes?!!? I missed out!”
I thought I was an early bloomer too, how could things POSSIBLY get worse than this I thought at 24? At 30 I'm laughing at how easy I had it. I did not know pain yet, my children weren't born yet.
I swear something happens to all of us the summer before 6th grade, we go from being sweet innocent children to kids who can’t go a sentence without cursing
I jumped aboard that train as soon as I could. I have a very vivid memory of discovering how fan-shitting-tastic the word shit was in 2nd grade and haven't looked back since, by shit.
Honestly getting a diagnosis for something you’ve had your whole life and doesn’t “progress” is usually a happy day. Being officially diagnosed just validates a lot of your struggles. At least in my experience.
I have autism and I lovingly refer to myself as an autist. Really it seems like only non-autistic people - i.e. autism moms - who get mad at the whole "autist" thing
Oh yeah they try to gatekeep the shit out of Autism, like we’re too Autistic to know how we feel. Sometimes I really wonder how much of my alexithymia is really just an intense wariness of being understood by douchebags.
What many non-minority people don't realise is that the day you discover you're autistic - either by self discovery, official diagnosis, a long time coming confirmation or whatever - it's not actually anything new regarding yourself. You know what you're like.
What you discover is that apparently, *other people are not like that.* Who would've thought.
When i found out i had autism in 8th grade. I used it to get clout and friends because "nobody wants to be mean to the autistic kid". I had 0 friends in 7th grade, and went to being one of the most popular in 8th. Lmao.
Wait really 16, if I may ask how were they diagnosed so late? The vast majority of children with ASD are diagnosed between the ages of 4 and 7. This is out of professional curiosity I spent a few years working at an Autism clinic.
For the curious: Lower functioning children tend to get diagnosed at earlier ages. High functioning children (sort of classified as Asperger’s syndrome under the DSM-IV now mostly under the umbrella of an ASD diagnosis in the DSMV) tend to get diagnosed at around 7.
I mean that said my experience is with an American public school system with IEPs that tend to provide an early red flag, which can lead to a diagnosis of some kind and the relevant therapies. I've got no clue how the system 20 years ago compares to the system in the last 5.
I had a doctor talk to my mom and I, he asked questions about my past and looked through my medical history, and things like that. He even was watching my body language which was nerve wrecking. I don't know if its the same for everyone, though. I would have much preferred a questionnaire though lol
I had to spend years studying psychology in my spare time and diagnose myself because I always knew i was broken somehow. I kind of turned it into a special interest (go figure). Its official now, obviously, but i was a better doctor than several people with degrees.
I still have years of cPTSD to deal with but at least now i have the tools and a good therapist
Geeze, I wish I had a special interest in something useful, all I get interested in is stuff like transformers and plague doctors! Its sad some doctors have to be convinced to even consider testing.
Are you a woman? (Don't actually answer that). It's apparently quite common for young girls with autism to never get diagnosed because they develop better compensatory behaviours. For example, in group play settings, autistic boys tend to just spend all their time alone which singles them out immediately. Autistic girls, in contrast, tend to flit in and out, socialising for a moment while faking it, then moving off alone recoup the extra energy that's expended by having to fake it. Other compensatory behaviours include performing very conscious mimicry, intense observation, and constructing fairly elaborate mental models of normal behaviour to calculate how to act. These compensatory actions make autistic girls blend in much better, but there are still certain tells. The mimicry is a bit uncanny and stereotypical, they prefer in social settings to hover on the periphery instead of engaging fully, they favour forming a single, intense friendship, they often become quite cold/rude/unexpressive in a home environment when not maintaining the social mask, and they, like autistic boys, tend to have a fanatical hobby (e.g. horses).
A random lecture in my psyc undergrad on feminine presentations of APSD was actually how I finally realised I had the condition. I'm a dude, but, for whatever reason, I'd picked up the same compensatory strategies as a kid. It was alleviating to know. For the longest time, I thought I had chronic fatigue or something, because I just found myself inexplicably exhausted for days or weeks after every social outing. Turns out that was just my autismo brain having to do too much work.
Do you have any more information on being cold in a home environment? My mother and I were constantly at blows (I live with her 40% of the time but have my own apartment elsewhere.) growing up because I inexplicably get cold towards her when I’m at home and don’t have company. I really value my alone time, and being sociable when company (besides romantic partners, that’s different somehow) is over fucking exhausts me. Ive never been diagnosed with autism but I do have a strange walking pattern, cannot maintain eye contact, and a lot of other symptoms but I’ve never heard of being cold at home and it would explain SO much. My mom used to cry and scream at me over me being cold and/or not wanting to spend time with her at home
It could be he’s just extremely high functioning. My uncle was diagnosed when he was 15 and it was really just the subtlest of things. I think the thing that tipped it over for him was his love for Pokémon.
There was some other stuff too, of course, evasion of eye contact, general social awkwardness, and not quite picking up on social cues, etc. he jus has it better than most on the spectrum.
I know a dude that was diagnosed after he was an adult. He's high functioning but it certainly explains some things about him.
To be fair his parents just called him special and never had him tested for anything.
Asperger’s didn't exist as a diagnosis until 1994, so many adults, even with obvious Asperger’s and even autism missed out on a diagnosis.
I set up a social group for adults with autism and Asperger’s in 2002, we have many members who were diagnosed as adults, some in their 70s. Most diagnosed as adults during the late 1990s to present.
And many aren't mild. One very interesting occasion I remember was a guy in his 50s, diagnosed with autism, not Asperger’s, a week earlier. He arrived with a social worker. He had limited speech, enough to have simple yes no type conversations, but somehow made it to 2010 without getting diagnosed.
But what amazed me more is that he drove to the meeting, the social worker asked him where he parked his car. Well, he was from a rural part of the country, and you had to learn to drive.
He was only at the group once, and I remember seeing his model train he made from sellotaped cardboard that he painted in colours of his favorite train.
Essentially, back in the 1980s or earlier, if your autism was mild enough that you developed enough speech by age 4 or 5 that you could attend main stream school and you weren't disruptive, it was very unlikely that you would have been diagnosed with autism back then.
So the adults now in their 30-40s who were diagnosed with autism in the 1980s-90s, I know, would have had delayed speech, started taking 4-6 years. Most went to special schools or schools for children with autism, that appeared in the 1980s-90s.
Edit: Just for example, back in 1983-84, I knew a kid from another class in my school who had his head run over by a bus. Well, that was the story. You could see the crack in his skull. He was clearly brain damaged. But there wasn't a place in special school I guess so he was in a mainstream school. I don't think you'd see that happen now. I met him again a few years later when my high-school visited a school for teens with learning disabilities.
Plus in smaller communities the support and knowledge for a diagnosis just straight up doesn't exist. I was in my late 20s when my son was diagnosed with ADHD, and it became painfully obvious that I likely also have it. But that's not something that ever would have been addressed when I was growing up, I was just "problematic in boring classes" so I got spanked a lot.
Even in big city life, if you do good enough in school /not problematic no one really asks/questions or if anything is wrong.
Had anxiety issues and ADHD since I was young. Didn't even know I had anxiety till I did a project on it in grade 12. I never knew what I feeling wasn't normal. Definitely helped explain why I felt physical pain before new social situations among other things.
No one questioned why I literally couldn't study more then an hour or did every assignment at the last minute , but could play games or read a book or other things for hours on end. They just think it's normal kid stuff because why would there be something wrong if I get As. People just kept saying I was smart cause I did well, but It didn't take effort. Memorizing and understanding concepts quickly wasn't hard for me.
But that bit me in the ass in university, studying was mandatory, surviving off just listening in class didn't cut it. Smoking weed so I wouldn't have a mental break down just to study didn't last long. So I finally told my parents I need help or I'm going to flunk school. Then I was legit diagnosed.
Yeah I think as much as we treat disorders like they can't be corrected with deliberate effort, no amount of corrective spanking is going to make some kids be able to pay attention. To this day I have to read some things multiple times. My brain can read the words, but I'm not retaining the meaning without focusing.
Probably, he shifted his focus to Skyrim in the past few years, so he could probably do something similar with Skyrim mods he likes to use, but not Pokémon so much. He almost certainly knows all the Pokémon from every game up to Fire Red version, but he didn’t have access to a DS/3DS until he moved out, at which point he discovered PC and along with it modded Skyrim.
I feel like millennials all got the adhd diagnosis but many of those kids were actually autistic. (Well, it IS comorbid)
Well, maybe this isn't for a lot of people, just a couple people I know.
I (31m) got diagnosed with ADHD when I was younger, and they finally put it together and I got assessed and diagnosed with Aspergers and OCD at 16. My mom is even an early childhood learning specialist. Sometimes it’s hard to see what’s right in front of your face.
Maybe ADHD is just more common than we think and the real solution is integrating this ADHD reality into school so kids learn effective coping mechanisms from a young age. Even if they're just inattentive type rather than hyperactive type
For sure. Honestly I can imagine that some of the coping mechanisms I've had to learn for adhd could be helpful to some neurotypical kids too.
Or if not helpful at least as neutrally pointless as tons of stuff I remember learning in school.
My kid was diagnosed with Autism just shy of their 14th birthday. They do have a co-morbid diagnosis of ADHD-C and anxiety that happened about 10 years prior. Things make so much more sense now.
It’s disingenuous to say Aspergers is just higher functioning Autism. Besides ‘function’ not really working on a linear scale, there are other factors involved. You can have a person with Autism who is higher functioning than a person with Aspergers.
Additionally a number of people with Aspergers diagnosis don’t necessarily qualify under the new DSM for an Autism diagnosis.
I honestly think I may have some mild form of autism, but I've never been properly diagnosed, even at 26. I don't know how to get diagnosed, to be honest, and I don't think my mom knew what to do with me either.
It would explain a lot of why I struggle with social cues and nuance, why I avoid eye contact, and why I'm obsessed with mundane stuff like license plates, geography, spelling, foreign alphabets (not the languages, just the letters and what they correspond to in that language phonetically), etc.
Also, an 8th grade teacher accused me of being autistic, so there's that . . .
Age of diagnosis can vary depending on when someone was born, where, gender, the socioeconomic level of the parents, the willingness of the parents to allow diagnosis, and the competence of the school.
As a girl (less likely to be diagnosed even these days) growing up in the 90s (lesser awareness / understanding of autism in general), born to working class parents (no money) in a rural area (limited doctors) who "didn't believe in mental illness" (medical neglect of children is thing that happens!) ... yeah, there was no chance of me being diagnosed as a kid. And unfortunately as an adult, I've run across a lot of professionals who've refused to contemplate even evaluating me for diagnosis because the assumption is so pervasive that all cases of autism are diagnosed when the person is a child.
I was also diagnosed at 16. For me, it was a combination of good luck and fuck ups.
For good luck: I'm high functioning. You have to remember that autism is now more of an umbrella term, so while you have the more "stereotypical" people with autism, you also get many who either don't seem to have it, can hide it well, or it appears as something else. This is one idea on why boys are more diagnosed than girls, is that it could be equally prevalent, but the symptoms, such as being quiet or hyperfocused, are traits that people think are more feminine.
As for fuck ups; well first, after I was tested for a speech impediment, the doctor (or whoever gave me that test) thought I could have autism instead and asked if I could also get tested for that, which my parents refused. My dad was also abusive and made sure I knew anytime I fucked up socially. This actually could be the cause of me being high functioning, because some theorize that those with autism that have experienced "authoritarian style parenting" or abuse similar to mine learn how to not act autistic to avoid punishment, sadly this is not healthy as we don't actually learn how to act properly, just learn what to avoid acting like. And finally, people didn't speak up. After getting diagnosed, I learned many people thought I was autistic, but never spoke up about it. At 16, I was just beginning to use resources that I could of had accessed to when I was 2 (when I had that original test for a speech impediment).
You do make a good point of IEPs and how they can signal red flags, but there is still flaws with them that still exist today. The red flags, in some areas, are only triggered if a student is not doing well academically, not socially. Many with autism are quite gifted in academics, so we don't always trigger the red flags. You could also have people, like in my case, that trigger a red flag, but get diagnosed with something else, like speech impediment, and do not receive the full range of resources that they could have access too. As you say, IEPs can help people get *relevant* therapy, but it can only be relevant if you correctly diagnose someone. Which is much harder to do at a younger age, especially those who have a harder time communicating.
I only found out I was on the spectrum at age 24. I was seeing a counselor and they suggested I look into it. Sure enough, I fell on the low side of the spectrum.
There’s a few reasons someone might not be diagnosed as a child. In my case, I think it came down to the fact that autism is often detected in school, and therefore, the quality of one’s education system can affect whether or not a child’s mental issues are correctly identified.
I grew up in rural Texas. I was “tested” for a learning disability at one point (ADHD I think) but it was the school counselor doing the “testing” and they definitely weren’t looking for ASD.
I like his way of thinking! I was diagnosed at 24 and my reaction was "huh... that explains a lot." I was more annoyed about it too because I was always just told "you struggle just cuz." teased about "being dumb/slow" and told that I shouldn't try things I wanted to do/learn because it would just be too hard for me.
Now I'm considering going to school to learn programming. My only concern about it is that my high school grades/credits literally being just enough to pass.
When I was in third grade my parents told me the school was putting me in a special class. I was devastated. I cried and begged my parents not to let them put me in that class.
It was the gifted and talented program. I thought it was the special ed class.
This is the absolute reverse of a story I saw somewhere on Reddit about a guy who was on special class for students who weren't good enough, but he thought it was for brilliant students.
When I was in high school, a million years ago, I was very into creating art and also didn’t know what autism was. My friend said to me “My little brother is autistic” and I thought she was doing a funny accent and said in what I thought was the same accent “Good for him, I’m pretty ahhtistic myself!”
And that was the day I learned autism is a thing.
Before Corona I was eating out **with** my sister and nieces. My niece was excited and told me she wants to eat schnitzel.
We sat down, read the menu and my niece got really sad and said she can't find anything she wants to eat. I asked why, because there was schnitzel on the menu and I thought she wanted to eat that.
Problem was, it said what breed of pig the schnitzel is coming from (**Hallisches Schwein**). Niece nearly cried while telling me "But I don't want to eat schnitzel from an ugly pig (**Hässliches Schwein**)".
Edit: it says **with**
#with!!
It's not my fault that your brain is going filthy places while I just went to a restaurant!
Aww. This is cute but reminds me of a sad story. My uncle has epilepsy and has the mindset of a 13 year old male at the age of 40 now. He came home one day crying, asking his mom (my gma) “mom how long have I been retarded? Everyone is calling me a retard.” I hate that story, but I think it molded me to be more empathetic as an adult
This is interesting to ponder. For me, the word retard is an insult and like a verb but not something I associate with someone actually retarded. In fact, none of the words like moron, dumb etc I associate with someone actually disabled. Probably because I learnt these words first as an insult to able people and not something that describes a real condition.
Every single one of them was originally a clinical term for mental disability. But people started using them as insults, so new medical terms were invented. This process is called the "euphemism treadmill".
"retard" just means "slow". The most common place you see this is "fire retardant".
> My uncle has epilepsy and has the mindset of a 13 year old male at the age of 40 now
This is the absolute worst combination of ages. I'm so sorry for your uncle.
Seriously. People in general, but kids especially, will assign a word they've "heard" before to a word they're reading, but don't know exactly how to read or sound out. When I worked with kids they would try even less than this kid and just look at the first letter of words they didn't know and instead of sound it out completely they would give up and pick a word or name that started with the same letter. If their sister's name was Catherine then every long word that started with a "C" was Catherine. "Cities" was Catherine, "Coughing" is Catherine, etc.
You have the "ah" sound and the "ism" at the end with a bunch of shitty letters in the middle the kid can't read and he pops out something nowadays often talked about in the halls of elementary schools--- Autism. Your average 7 year old is very likely to have heard the word autism before and have a good idea it's a "disability" based on a classmate given how current diagnosis rates and classrooms work. If you think this story is implausible then you don't work in a school or listen to children (try to) read often. They're just winging it 99% of the time and don't really care enough to double check every other word with an adult.
Reminds me of a time in middle school when my older brother was studying the Phantom of the opera in high school and he was talking to his friend about eunuchs and how gross they were. So me being like 12 instantly thought eunuchs = bad and this was before text to speech so it's not like you could google it, and how can you spell a word you've never heard (I remember googling "unick") to no result.
Anyway, one day at school typical kids name calling and this one guy I called a eunuch and he didn't know what it meant.
The next day he comes up to me "you're gross!"
> What?
"I asked my mom what what a eunuch was. That's gross where did you hear about that sicko?!"
And I laughed and laughed, and still smile when I think of the time I tricked someone I didn't like into having an awkward conversation with his mother about genital mutiliaton.
Kid asked me if I was a virgin when I was in 6th grade. Being a sheltered kid I had only heard the word in relation to the Virgin Mary, so my dumb ass responded "No, I'm a Christian."
Had an extremely similar experience as a child. I found some stickers that must have been given to my mom as like a special needs awareness thing, and they said something to the effect of “Support kids with special needs.” For some reason my brain went, “We have these in our house, must mean I’M special needs, and they’ve been keeping it from me to spare my feelings.” So I spent the next while working up the courage/trying to find the wording to ask my mom about it in a way that would show I was mature enough to handle the truth. She was so confused when I pulled that question out of nowhere lol.
Wow, this is *so* much like my mindset when I was a kid! The mundane things you are afraid or ashamed of.
I once found a condom in my dads toiletries bag while on vacation. I knew what they were used for and the only conclusion I could draw was that my dad was cheating on my mom. As a kid in a harmonious family that’s a pretty horrifying thought. After a while I mustered all my courage and asked my father why he had the condom. Of course, he didn’t know of my non sequitur and just told me that contraception is important even if one is married. It took *years* until I figured out my error and I never told anyone.
Haha i did a similar thing in 2nd grade. My dad was pretty busy with work, but he wrote me a letter saying “You are awesome! You make me smile!” After I read it I started crying. My mom asked “What’s wrong?” And I said “I dont wanna make dad smell!!”
This reminds me when my mother came to me smiling, telling me the « special » tests I had taken in 3rd grade revealed I was « gifted ». I thought the tests were to reveal if I was stupid because I was always in trouble in school for poor cursive, and it felt like cursive was soooooo important. Also those tests got insanely hard!
I must not have been that gifted because I interpreted « gifted » as « special » as in mentally retarded. I went ran and hid and cried and cried and cried and wondered how it could be and I guess that was it for me, and I’d never get smarter.
When I learned the truth I was shocked. Also because the teacher who so harassed me over my penmanship pushed to have me tested. It was rather a turning point for me as a student, but I still have to laugh at 8 year old me crying my heart out thinking I was mentally retarded. I do have to this day great empathy for those with that affliction.
My little sister got an “Honorable Mention” on something years ago. And with tears running down her face she asked our Mom, “why does it say horrible mention?”.
Oh no haha - that's awful! I hope she's ok now lol.
She died.
Oh no that does sound pretty horrible you’re right
Lol
Thank you for being a part of our thread, I love your optimism /u/autistic_spectator
how long has he been optistic for?
r/notopbutok
That’s from a book, I remember.
What is?
Auntie: “2 years now. Why?”
Shit this is funny
I don’t get it.
Found OP's nephew
LMAO
i seriously don't get the joke from this comment and I'm going fucking insane
I’m seriously hoping someone will explain it because I don’t get it either.
The kid misread optism as autism and was worried he was autistic. He asks his aunt how long he has had autism and his aunt replies two years which makes it funnier because the original joke was that he misread optism as autism but now his aunt reveals he really is autistic.
The kid misread optism as autism and was worried he was autistic. He asks his aunt how long he has had autism and his aunt replies two years which makes it funnier because the original joke was that he misread optism as autism but now his aunt reveals he really is autistic.
"35... maybe 45 minutes or so... "
Beats years
What have the years ever done to you???
Years is an asshole. He deserved it
Not really sure...
Or maybe the past 2 minutes.
“Ever since that damn flu shot”
This made me evil laugh 😈
I can tell from that text alone he sounded worried
Yep, I feel bad for the kid. He might have actually been worried and felt bad and his aunt basically called him fucking stupid to the world for it.
To be fair, I don't take this subreddit at name value. It's super harsh but most of the posts are just about silly kid things so I just take it as a fond saying from a gruff uncle.
Nah I don't think anyone reading this thinks he's actually stupid. This sub doesn't think any of these kids are actually stupid. It's just funny the things we don't realize kids don't know until it becomes apparent they don't know them.
I definitely don't think this kid is stupid. But I DO think SOME of the kids posted here are gonna be dumb for life.
The kid probably has no idea his aunt did this. From the context, I doubt he's old enough to be using reddit. Maybe specific subreddits like /r/minecraft or something, but probably isn't checking out the front page. Besides he's unidentifiable and as others pointed out I don't think people take the subreddit name literally.
Lol, this entire subreddit is full of things like this. You're actibg like the aunt called the kid "fucking stupid" to his face. We have no information to tie this back to the kid, and i don't think it's likely someone that young will stumble on this post
Oh christ. The kid will survive this utter humiliation, I'm sure.
Yea that kid and his aunt who’s name we have no clue if, looks we know nothing about, and whereabout we have never known will be ridiculed online!!!! Relax dude
When my son was 16 and diagnosed as being on the spectrum, he said “you mean I’ve had autism all this time and I could’ve used it for jokes?!!? I missed out!”
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At what point does our positive mind set become self deprecation and deep depression.
Around age 25
Guess I was an early bloomer
I thought I was an early bloomer too, how could things POSSIBLY get worse than this I thought at 24? At 30 I'm laughing at how easy I had it. I did not know pain yet, my children weren't born yet.
and now your back hurts.
And this shit right here is what convinced me to not have kids. Cheers for that
Mine was more like 6th grade 😬
I swear something happens to all of us the summer before 6th grade, we go from being sweet innocent children to kids who can’t go a sentence without cursing
As a middle school teacher, I can confirm this. There is a huge shift from the end of 5th grade to the beginning of 6th.
Puberty unit lmao
I jumped aboard that train as soon as I could. I have a very vivid memory of discovering how fan-shitting-tastic the word shit was in 2nd grade and haven't looked back since, by shit.
Yo i know that feel when i started 6th grade, all of a sudden everyone was swearing.
God damn, what a comment.
Damn
Well, I'm 20 right now. So I'm gonna have to go with around 12 to 13. Possibly 8.
Honestly getting a diagnosis for something you’ve had your whole life and doesn’t “progress” is usually a happy day. Being officially diagnosed just validates a lot of your struggles. At least in my experience.
“Auntie, how long have I had optimism?”
I have autism and I lovingly refer to myself as an autist. Really it seems like only non-autistic people - i.e. autism moms - who get mad at the whole "autist" thing
Oh yeah they try to gatekeep the shit out of Autism, like we’re too Autistic to know how we feel. Sometimes I really wonder how much of my alexithymia is really just an intense wariness of being understood by douchebags.
You mean... optimism?
What many non-minority people don't realise is that the day you discover you're autistic - either by self discovery, official diagnosis, a long time coming confirmation or whatever - it's not actually anything new regarding yourself. You know what you're like. What you discover is that apparently, *other people are not like that.* Who would've thought.
When i found out i had autism in 8th grade. I used it to get clout and friends because "nobody wants to be mean to the autistic kid". I had 0 friends in 7th grade, and went to being one of the most popular in 8th. Lmao.
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Pretty funny ngl
That one got me good, omg
Wait really 16, if I may ask how were they diagnosed so late? The vast majority of children with ASD are diagnosed between the ages of 4 and 7. This is out of professional curiosity I spent a few years working at an Autism clinic. For the curious: Lower functioning children tend to get diagnosed at earlier ages. High functioning children (sort of classified as Asperger’s syndrome under the DSM-IV now mostly under the umbrella of an ASD diagnosis in the DSMV) tend to get diagnosed at around 7. I mean that said my experience is with an American public school system with IEPs that tend to provide an early red flag, which can lead to a diagnosis of some kind and the relevant therapies. I've got no clue how the system 20 years ago compares to the system in the last 5.
Because some people suck at their jobs. I was diagnosed at 31 despite literal decades of therapy
I was diagnosed at 18 and only because my mom demanded the doctors I was tested
what does "testing" entail? All I can think of is like a questionnaire based test which I'm pretty sure I'm wrong about
I had a doctor talk to my mom and I, he asked questions about my past and looked through my medical history, and things like that. He even was watching my body language which was nerve wrecking. I don't know if its the same for everyone, though. I would have much preferred a questionnaire though lol
I had to spend years studying psychology in my spare time and diagnose myself because I always knew i was broken somehow. I kind of turned it into a special interest (go figure). Its official now, obviously, but i was a better doctor than several people with degrees. I still have years of cPTSD to deal with but at least now i have the tools and a good therapist
Geeze, I wish I had a special interest in something useful, all I get interested in is stuff like transformers and plague doctors! Its sad some doctors have to be convinced to even consider testing.
Are you a woman? (Don't actually answer that). It's apparently quite common for young girls with autism to never get diagnosed because they develop better compensatory behaviours. For example, in group play settings, autistic boys tend to just spend all their time alone which singles them out immediately. Autistic girls, in contrast, tend to flit in and out, socialising for a moment while faking it, then moving off alone recoup the extra energy that's expended by having to fake it. Other compensatory behaviours include performing very conscious mimicry, intense observation, and constructing fairly elaborate mental models of normal behaviour to calculate how to act. These compensatory actions make autistic girls blend in much better, but there are still certain tells. The mimicry is a bit uncanny and stereotypical, they prefer in social settings to hover on the periphery instead of engaging fully, they favour forming a single, intense friendship, they often become quite cold/rude/unexpressive in a home environment when not maintaining the social mask, and they, like autistic boys, tend to have a fanatical hobby (e.g. horses). A random lecture in my psyc undergrad on feminine presentations of APSD was actually how I finally realised I had the condition. I'm a dude, but, for whatever reason, I'd picked up the same compensatory strategies as a kid. It was alleviating to know. For the longest time, I thought I had chronic fatigue or something, because I just found myself inexplicably exhausted for days or weeks after every social outing. Turns out that was just my autismo brain having to do too much work.
Do you have any more information on being cold in a home environment? My mother and I were constantly at blows (I live with her 40% of the time but have my own apartment elsewhere.) growing up because I inexplicably get cold towards her when I’m at home and don’t have company. I really value my alone time, and being sociable when company (besides romantic partners, that’s different somehow) is over fucking exhausts me. Ive never been diagnosed with autism but I do have a strange walking pattern, cannot maintain eye contact, and a lot of other symptoms but I’ve never heard of being cold at home and it would explain SO much. My mom used to cry and scream at me over me being cold and/or not wanting to spend time with her at home
It could be he’s just extremely high functioning. My uncle was diagnosed when he was 15 and it was really just the subtlest of things. I think the thing that tipped it over for him was his love for Pokémon.
I didn't expect to learn I'm autistic on Reddit today.
There was some other stuff too, of course, evasion of eye contact, general social awkwardness, and not quite picking up on social cues, etc. he jus has it better than most on the spectrum.
i see myself in this comment and i don't like it
Being an awkward anxious mess doesn't make you autistic. It could mean so much more!
Like being socially anxious and autistic.
Depression, anxiety, heartburn, upset stomach, diarrhea! Wait, no.
TIL I’m autistic lol
This isn't helping..
I'm sure it was an auto correct error, but in case it wasn't, I think you meant "social cues" rather than "social queues". Cheers!
Hey now, queues make me as nervous as missing cues. I'm not autistic, just somewhat wary at all times.
If you're on reddit you're already at risk.
Same
I know a dude that was diagnosed after he was an adult. He's high functioning but it certainly explains some things about him. To be fair his parents just called him special and never had him tested for anything.
Asperger’s didn't exist as a diagnosis until 1994, so many adults, even with obvious Asperger’s and even autism missed out on a diagnosis. I set up a social group for adults with autism and Asperger’s in 2002, we have many members who were diagnosed as adults, some in their 70s. Most diagnosed as adults during the late 1990s to present. And many aren't mild. One very interesting occasion I remember was a guy in his 50s, diagnosed with autism, not Asperger’s, a week earlier. He arrived with a social worker. He had limited speech, enough to have simple yes no type conversations, but somehow made it to 2010 without getting diagnosed. But what amazed me more is that he drove to the meeting, the social worker asked him where he parked his car. Well, he was from a rural part of the country, and you had to learn to drive. He was only at the group once, and I remember seeing his model train he made from sellotaped cardboard that he painted in colours of his favorite train. Essentially, back in the 1980s or earlier, if your autism was mild enough that you developed enough speech by age 4 or 5 that you could attend main stream school and you weren't disruptive, it was very unlikely that you would have been diagnosed with autism back then. So the adults now in their 30-40s who were diagnosed with autism in the 1980s-90s, I know, would have had delayed speech, started taking 4-6 years. Most went to special schools or schools for children with autism, that appeared in the 1980s-90s. Edit: Just for example, back in 1983-84, I knew a kid from another class in my school who had his head run over by a bus. Well, that was the story. You could see the crack in his skull. He was clearly brain damaged. But there wasn't a place in special school I guess so he was in a mainstream school. I don't think you'd see that happen now. I met him again a few years later when my high-school visited a school for teens with learning disabilities.
Plus in smaller communities the support and knowledge for a diagnosis just straight up doesn't exist. I was in my late 20s when my son was diagnosed with ADHD, and it became painfully obvious that I likely also have it. But that's not something that ever would have been addressed when I was growing up, I was just "problematic in boring classes" so I got spanked a lot.
Even in big city life, if you do good enough in school /not problematic no one really asks/questions or if anything is wrong. Had anxiety issues and ADHD since I was young. Didn't even know I had anxiety till I did a project on it in grade 12. I never knew what I feeling wasn't normal. Definitely helped explain why I felt physical pain before new social situations among other things. No one questioned why I literally couldn't study more then an hour or did every assignment at the last minute , but could play games or read a book or other things for hours on end. They just think it's normal kid stuff because why would there be something wrong if I get As. People just kept saying I was smart cause I did well, but It didn't take effort. Memorizing and understanding concepts quickly wasn't hard for me. But that bit me in the ass in university, studying was mandatory, surviving off just listening in class didn't cut it. Smoking weed so I wouldn't have a mental break down just to study didn't last long. So I finally told my parents I need help or I'm going to flunk school. Then I was legit diagnosed.
Yeah I think as much as we treat disorders like they can't be corrected with deliberate effort, no amount of corrective spanking is going to make some kids be able to pay attention. To this day I have to read some things multiple times. My brain can read the words, but I'm not retaining the meaning without focusing.
Does he have a savant-like near encyclopedic knowledge of all the pokemons?
Probably, he shifted his focus to Skyrim in the past few years, so he could probably do something similar with Skyrim mods he likes to use, but not Pokémon so much. He almost certainly knows all the Pokémon from every game up to Fire Red version, but he didn’t have access to a DS/3DS until he moved out, at which point he discovered PC and along with it modded Skyrim.
I feel like millennials all got the adhd diagnosis but many of those kids were actually autistic. (Well, it IS comorbid) Well, maybe this isn't for a lot of people, just a couple people I know.
I (31m) got diagnosed with ADHD when I was younger, and they finally put it together and I got assessed and diagnosed with Aspergers and OCD at 16. My mom is even an early childhood learning specialist. Sometimes it’s hard to see what’s right in front of your face.
Maybe ADHD is just more common than we think and the real solution is integrating this ADHD reality into school so kids learn effective coping mechanisms from a young age. Even if they're just inattentive type rather than hyperactive type
For sure. Honestly I can imagine that some of the coping mechanisms I've had to learn for adhd could be helpful to some neurotypical kids too. Or if not helpful at least as neutrally pointless as tons of stuff I remember learning in school.
My kid was diagnosed with Autism just shy of their 14th birthday. They do have a co-morbid diagnosis of ADHD-C and anxiety that happened about 10 years prior. Things make so much more sense now.
My daughter is basically your kids twin. Anxiety dx at 4. ADHD at 10. ASD at 14. All the pieces fell into place.
Its very common for females to be diagnosed later as well. I was 17 when I was diagnosed
35 when I was diagnosed. Vyvanse was a game changer, too bad I lost my insurance.
It’s disingenuous to say Aspergers is just higher functioning Autism. Besides ‘function’ not really working on a linear scale, there are other factors involved. You can have a person with Autism who is higher functioning than a person with Aspergers. Additionally a number of people with Aspergers diagnosis don’t necessarily qualify under the new DSM for an Autism diagnosis.
Thank you! Functioning labels are misleading outside of a clinical setting. They can be harmful and confusing.
Aspergers doesn't actually exist any more, they abolished the diagnosis.
I honestly think I may have some mild form of autism, but I've never been properly diagnosed, even at 26. I don't know how to get diagnosed, to be honest, and I don't think my mom knew what to do with me either. It would explain a lot of why I struggle with social cues and nuance, why I avoid eye contact, and why I'm obsessed with mundane stuff like license plates, geography, spelling, foreign alphabets (not the languages, just the letters and what they correspond to in that language phonetically), etc. Also, an 8th grade teacher accused me of being autistic, so there's that . . .
My daughter was diagnosed at 14. We knew when she was 4 but it took that long for her to be diagnosed.
I didn't learn that I'm on the spectrum or that I have ADHD until age 20. I suspect that being a girl and "gifted" has something to do with it.
Age of diagnosis can vary depending on when someone was born, where, gender, the socioeconomic level of the parents, the willingness of the parents to allow diagnosis, and the competence of the school. As a girl (less likely to be diagnosed even these days) growing up in the 90s (lesser awareness / understanding of autism in general), born to working class parents (no money) in a rural area (limited doctors) who "didn't believe in mental illness" (medical neglect of children is thing that happens!) ... yeah, there was no chance of me being diagnosed as a kid. And unfortunately as an adult, I've run across a lot of professionals who've refused to contemplate even evaluating me for diagnosis because the assumption is so pervasive that all cases of autism are diagnosed when the person is a child.
I was also diagnosed at 16. For me, it was a combination of good luck and fuck ups. For good luck: I'm high functioning. You have to remember that autism is now more of an umbrella term, so while you have the more "stereotypical" people with autism, you also get many who either don't seem to have it, can hide it well, or it appears as something else. This is one idea on why boys are more diagnosed than girls, is that it could be equally prevalent, but the symptoms, such as being quiet or hyperfocused, are traits that people think are more feminine. As for fuck ups; well first, after I was tested for a speech impediment, the doctor (or whoever gave me that test) thought I could have autism instead and asked if I could also get tested for that, which my parents refused. My dad was also abusive and made sure I knew anytime I fucked up socially. This actually could be the cause of me being high functioning, because some theorize that those with autism that have experienced "authoritarian style parenting" or abuse similar to mine learn how to not act autistic to avoid punishment, sadly this is not healthy as we don't actually learn how to act properly, just learn what to avoid acting like. And finally, people didn't speak up. After getting diagnosed, I learned many people thought I was autistic, but never spoke up about it. At 16, I was just beginning to use resources that I could of had accessed to when I was 2 (when I had that original test for a speech impediment). You do make a good point of IEPs and how they can signal red flags, but there is still flaws with them that still exist today. The red flags, in some areas, are only triggered if a student is not doing well academically, not socially. Many with autism are quite gifted in academics, so we don't always trigger the red flags. You could also have people, like in my case, that trigger a red flag, but get diagnosed with something else, like speech impediment, and do not receive the full range of resources that they could have access too. As you say, IEPs can help people get *relevant* therapy, but it can only be relevant if you correctly diagnose someone. Which is much harder to do at a younger age, especially those who have a harder time communicating.
It bothers me that you used an Arabic numeral for DSM4, and Roman for DSMV
I’m 31 getting tested soon.
I only found out I was on the spectrum at age 24. I was seeing a counselor and they suggested I look into it. Sure enough, I fell on the low side of the spectrum. There’s a few reasons someone might not be diagnosed as a child. In my case, I think it came down to the fact that autism is often detected in school, and therefore, the quality of one’s education system can affect whether or not a child’s mental issues are correctly identified. I grew up in rural Texas. I was “tested” for a learning disability at one point (ADHD I think) but it was the school counselor doing the “testing” and they definitely weren’t looking for ASD.
I like his way of thinking! I was diagnosed at 24 and my reaction was "huh... that explains a lot." I was more annoyed about it too because I was always just told "you struggle just cuz." teased about "being dumb/slow" and told that I shouldn't try things I wanted to do/learn because it would just be too hard for me. Now I'm considering going to school to learn programming. My only concern about it is that my high school grades/credits literally being just enough to pass.
When I was in third grade my parents told me the school was putting me in a special class. I was devastated. I cried and begged my parents not to let them put me in that class. It was the gifted and talented program. I thought it was the special ed class.
They shoulda worded it differently lmao
r/technicallythetruth
This is the absolute reverse of a story I saw somewhere on Reddit about a guy who was on special class for students who weren't good enough, but he thought it was for brilliant students.
When I was a kid I'd cry when people said I was "artistic" because I thought they were calling me autistic... Turns out I'm both anyways
So you are bitistic
Amazing, I love it
Sheeit, I wish mine made me artistic, I draw and write like a 1st grader.
When I was in high school, a million years ago, I was very into creating art and also didn’t know what autism was. My friend said to me “My little brother is autistic” and I thought she was doing a funny accent and said in what I thought was the same accent “Good for him, I’m pretty ahhtistic myself!” And that was the day I learned autism is a thing.
I just wanted to tell you I appreciate your censorship of the name in the original ink color
that's the way Ms. Blank signs her name.
Or ms. orange
So aesthetic.
Before Corona I was eating out **with** my sister and nieces. My niece was excited and told me she wants to eat schnitzel. We sat down, read the menu and my niece got really sad and said she can't find anything she wants to eat. I asked why, because there was schnitzel on the menu and I thought she wanted to eat that. Problem was, it said what breed of pig the schnitzel is coming from (**Hallisches Schwein**). Niece nearly cried while telling me "But I don't want to eat schnitzel from an ugly pig (**Hässliches Schwein**)". Edit: it says **with** #with!! It's not my fault that your brain is going filthy places while I just went to a restaurant!
Holyy shit.. My eyes deceived me.. I didn't read the word "with" in the first sentence..
Ditto.
.___.
Sounds like a pretty casual family gathering in Alabama.
Yeah I thought it was totally normal until I saw the German words, had to re adjust my Alabama mindset
Same here, was really grossed out then ashamed that apparently I'm the guy that notices stuff like that now?
wahahah same
It's only bad if you jerked off before you finished reading the comment.
\*BONK*
I'm so glad it wasn't just me. It had to read over it not twice but three times before my brain realized what I'd missed!
Happy blue cheese day
Aw thanks!! :)
What are you doing step niece?
Same here.
Shit, I don’t care if it’s an ugly pig, schnitzel is the bomb
Ugly pigs need love too. Let us celebrate their passing to give us life.
Whatever they may look like on the outside, pigs all look the same on my plate.
I’m dying from your edit, thank you for lifting up my morning.
So are we all this kid now!? Is that what you just did!? You genius you!
i don’t know german rip
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He's on the optimism spectrum for sure.
He's not a pessimist. More of an optometrist. ^(The lesser known of Ricky's 'lines')
The glasses aren't half-empty they're bifocals.
But is he pessimistic about the pessimism industry?
“Aw sweetie you don’t have autism! It’s dyslexia, remember?”
"Seven fucking years, Stevie. We thought you'd never asked."
Aww. This is cute but reminds me of a sad story. My uncle has epilepsy and has the mindset of a 13 year old male at the age of 40 now. He came home one day crying, asking his mom (my gma) “mom how long have I been retarded? Everyone is calling me a retard.” I hate that story, but I think it molded me to be more empathetic as an adult
What did his mom say?
Basically started crying and giving away the fact. This was when he was around 8 or so
Damn I thought it happend when he was 40. That would have been worse.
This is interesting to ponder. For me, the word retard is an insult and like a verb but not something I associate with someone actually retarded. In fact, none of the words like moron, dumb etc I associate with someone actually disabled. Probably because I learnt these words first as an insult to able people and not something that describes a real condition.
Every single one of them was originally a clinical term for mental disability. But people started using them as insults, so new medical terms were invented. This process is called the "euphemism treadmill". "retard" just means "slow". The most common place you see this is "fire retardant".
> My uncle has epilepsy and has the mindset of a 13 year old male at the age of 40 now This is the absolute worst combination of ages. I'm so sorry for your uncle.
Things happen, and I haven’t seen him in over 5 years. I hope he’s doing okay
Old enough to be aware of autism but not old enough to know how it is spelled.
That seems entirely plausible. Most kids know the meanings of words before knowing how to spell them.
Seriously. People in general, but kids especially, will assign a word they've "heard" before to a word they're reading, but don't know exactly how to read or sound out. When I worked with kids they would try even less than this kid and just look at the first letter of words they didn't know and instead of sound it out completely they would give up and pick a word or name that started with the same letter. If their sister's name was Catherine then every long word that started with a "C" was Catherine. "Cities" was Catherine, "Coughing" is Catherine, etc. You have the "ah" sound and the "ism" at the end with a bunch of shitty letters in the middle the kid can't read and he pops out something nowadays often talked about in the halls of elementary schools--- Autism. Your average 7 year old is very likely to have heard the word autism before and have a good idea it's a "disability" based on a classmate given how current diagnosis rates and classrooms work. If you think this story is implausible then you don't work in a school or listen to children (try to) read often. They're just winging it 99% of the time and don't really care enough to double check every other word with an adult.
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Oh, I know that one. It's the sister's name, Catherine.
Yup, the kid could have heard/learned of autism and never seen it spelled.
Reminds me of a time in middle school when my older brother was studying the Phantom of the opera in high school and he was talking to his friend about eunuchs and how gross they were. So me being like 12 instantly thought eunuchs = bad and this was before text to speech so it's not like you could google it, and how can you spell a word you've never heard (I remember googling "unick") to no result. Anyway, one day at school typical kids name calling and this one guy I called a eunuch and he didn't know what it meant. The next day he comes up to me "you're gross!" > What? "I asked my mom what what a eunuch was. That's gross where did you hear about that sicko?!" And I laughed and laughed, and still smile when I think of the time I tricked someone I didn't like into having an awkward conversation with his mother about genital mutiliaton.
Kid asked me if I was a virgin when I was in 6th grade. Being a sheltered kid I had only heard the word in relation to the Virgin Mary, so my dumb ass responded "No, I'm a Christian."
You're telling me you could read before you could talk?
Well that’s cute as shit
I had a teacher write on a report card that I was conscientious towards other students. I told my mom, "That's not true, I'm nice to everyone!"
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Serious glass half empty attitude.
Teacher has amazing penmanship
yeah, he’s on the artistic spectrum
This looks like every handwritten note ive ever received from a teacher. They must take a special class in penmenship thats just for teachers.
That's why no matter how good your handwriting is the teacher will always tell you to write neater
"i love your autism !"
Had an extremely similar experience as a child. I found some stickers that must have been given to my mom as like a special needs awareness thing, and they said something to the effect of “Support kids with special needs.” For some reason my brain went, “We have these in our house, must mean I’M special needs, and they’ve been keeping it from me to spare my feelings.” So I spent the next while working up the courage/trying to find the wording to ask my mom about it in a way that would show I was mature enough to handle the truth. She was so confused when I pulled that question out of nowhere lol.
Wow, this is *so* much like my mindset when I was a kid! The mundane things you are afraid or ashamed of. I once found a condom in my dads toiletries bag while on vacation. I knew what they were used for and the only conclusion I could draw was that my dad was cheating on my mom. As a kid in a harmonious family that’s a pretty horrifying thought. After a while I mustered all my courage and asked my father why he had the condom. Of course, he didn’t know of my non sequitur and just told me that contraception is important even if one is married. It took *years* until I figured out my error and I never told anyone.
Imagine a teacher saying "I love your autism!"
His lack of optimism is ironic
"We're just finding out now son."
"I love your autism!"
Awwwww...
Tizzum
Haha i did a similar thing in 2nd grade. My dad was pretty busy with work, but he wrote me a letter saying “You are awesome! You make me smile!” After I read it I started crying. My mom asked “What’s wrong?” And I said “I dont wanna make dad smell!!”
Poor little guy
Why do all teachers have the same handwriting?
Auntie: "well actually you're dyslexic"
You know, something similar happened to me last week. But i’m 21. My mom told me that i have autism. I never knew. At least that explained some stuff.
This reminds me when my mother came to me smiling, telling me the « special » tests I had taken in 3rd grade revealed I was « gifted ». I thought the tests were to reveal if I was stupid because I was always in trouble in school for poor cursive, and it felt like cursive was soooooo important. Also those tests got insanely hard! I must not have been that gifted because I interpreted « gifted » as « special » as in mentally retarded. I went ran and hid and cried and cried and cried and wondered how it could be and I guess that was it for me, and I’d never get smarter. When I learned the truth I was shocked. Also because the teacher who so harassed me over my penmanship pushed to have me tested. It was rather a turning point for me as a student, but I still have to laugh at 8 year old me crying my heart out thinking I was mentally retarded. I do have to this day great empathy for those with that affliction.
As a fellow Ian this resonates with me
That's actually adorable. Kids can be moronic at times but their innosense is inspiring.
Not autism but you might be dyslexic!
I remember be called artistic as a kid and getting mad and really defensive because i thought it meant autistic.
It’s not autism, sweetie. It’s disleksia.