Busting Common Autism Myths #1

I thought that I might tackle some common myths about autism that seem to still be perpetuated about the place. I'm marking this number one, because I think we might see a few more of these in the future. To note - for those that aren't aware, I am #ActuallyAutistic.

Myth #1 - You Grow Out Of Autism
This one has been prevalent for a good while, even among psychologists. The idea is that you have autism when you're young, but you can grow out of it when you're older. (This also births a similar myth, that only kids have autism, not adults.)

Where this comes from is that most of the diagnostic criteria around autism is defining it by deficiency. Defining it by inability to be "normal" (whatever that is). The diagnostic criteria that we currently have struggles to define someone as autistic if they're doing well and prospering. A frequent pattern we see is that as people get older, less "classically autistic" traits are displayed, and so people are said to have grown out of autism. But instead, what is actually happening could be a number of things. Sometimes, the autistic person has grown skilled at masking (looking "normal" on the outside), and so the autistic traits are hidden; sometimes, the autistic person is thriving and doing well, and so less of these "problem" traits are being displayed. But neither of these mean that a person ceases being autistic.

Autism - and other conditions - are now being grouped together as something called "neurodiversity". The term exists for two main reasons, though there's plenty more that could be said. Firstly, to celebrate the positive nature of these differences, rather than to focus on the negative - diversity is something to be encouraged and sought after. Secondly, to help people understand that this is a functional difference in the way that the brain works, from birth. It is something that people are born with, not something that you can gain - or lose.

Myth #2 - Only Guys Have Autism
You've probably heard this one before, or that it's just much more prevalent among guys than girls.

And this is another thing with masking, because girls are often better at it earlier on, and so autism has been less evident historically in women than it has been in men. But that doesn't mean that it's less present in women - just that it's less obvious. There's now much more research around how autism (typically) presents in women, and I found the book Aspergirls really helpful in this. (Though, spoiler alert - autism looks different in everyone, so you get some girls that present more how it typically looks like in guys, and vice versa. Folks on the spectrum are also frequently gender diverse, which makes this more complex, but all good.) So yeah, it's definitely not just a guy thing. We're just good at being blind sometimes.

This myth makes a whole section of autistic people disappear; suddenly, autistic women don't exist, because women can't have autism. Which is - not okay.

Myth #3 - Autistic People Are Emotionless Robots
Slight amount of sarcasm there, but only slight - you still get people who pretty much believe exactly this.

This misconception comes down to a difference between feeling and expressing emotion. People on the spectrum are characteristically not great at being able to express emotion - which means it may not always show well in their body language or facial expressions, and they may not be able to describe well how they feel. But that doesn't affect their ability to feel emotion at all. In fact, I know many people on the spectrum who are extremely sensitive to other people, and feel emotions quite deeply (including myself).

Furthermore, this myth dehumanises us. It treats us as being less, because of the idea that we "don't have emotions" somehow. It paints us as strange and other - at best the weird friend that you can't really connect to, at worst the psychopathic killer.

-----

More myths will be busted soon, but there's three to start us off with! I've got at least another three ready to go, I think, but let me know if there's particular ones you'd like to see me tackle.