This is a very interesting/insightful thread I copied from Twitter before the storm, in the 'how does this total stranger know so much about my life' category. Some of our conversation at the meeting Saturday reminded me of it so I thought I would share. Written by Dr Sam Porter @PerinatalBirder His Twitter profile describes him as "#Neurodivergent Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist" and he describes this thread "Here’s a thread I’ve written for psychiatrists to help them pick up recognise when their patients are autistic, because 1 in 5 are!" He's from the UK so some of the acronyms are unfami ..read more

This article from The Guardian is about the UK but I'm sure this happens in Canada as well, maybe not as much because I think its more difficult to get diagnosed as an adult in Canada. "In recent years, the number of people diagnosed with autism has rocketed; a study of diagnosis trends, published in August, found the median age for diagnosis is 10 for males and 13 for females, and there was a 787% exponential increase in its recorded incidence, in the 20 years to 2018. " At least they're talking about diagnosis here and not autism itself. In the recent CAHS assessment prepared for the Federal ..read more

Autistic spiky profiles and positivity! is about something called "spiky profiles" which is a term I was not familiar with but according to the writer its a common term in the 'autistic community' :) Although I wasn't familiar with the term, it is certainly a concept I'm familiar with"we are good at some things, bad at other things, and the difference between the two tends to be much greater than it is for most other people"from Neuroclastic. Most other people referred to here meaning people who are not autistic and not adhd. The article describes the common autistic traits and describes how t ..read more

This article was recently shared on twitter. Are Co-occurring Conditions Part of Autism? This was written by Max Sparrow It's a couple years old but I thought it was interesting especially when you consider the way autism is defined compared to what non autistic people often think it is. It talks about the many co-occurring conditions that autistic individuals may have and yet those conditions are not actually autism. But at the same time you're more likely to get a diagnosis for autism if you have other conditions co-occurring with autism. And that includes conditions like intellectual disabi ..read more

I saw this on Facebook this morning from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network . Although I've already posted a couple other descriptions of autism, I enjoyed this one because its not as clinical and its also not all negative. "Autism is a developmental disability that affects how we experience the world around us. Autistic people are an important part of the world. Autism is a normal part of life, and makes us who we are. Autism has always existed. Autistic people are born autistic and we will be autistic our whole lives. Autism can be diagnosed by a doctor, but you can be autistic even if you d ..read more

I saw a thread on twitter recently that started "Still investigating what it means to be semi-speaking" and continued with a list of examples of what semi-speaking means for the OP. I found it very interesting for a few reasons. I first heard about this condition a few years ago, some people refer to it as selective mutism or being semi verbal. It is basically "an anxiety disorder in which a person who is otherwise capable of speech becomes unable to speak ... usually co-exists with social anxiety disorder." The condition is not specific to autism and not all autistics have this condition. To ..read more

Unfortunately this is a condition that affects many autistic people. I think it affects me. The entire article is here https://neuroclastic.com/living-with-rejection-sensitive-dysphoria/ "What is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria? Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, or RSD for short, is a common issue experienced by Neurodivergent (ND) people. It is thought to be caused by increased difficulty in regulating our emotions, which leads to an incredibly heightened experience of rejection. Put simply, it is an increased sensitivity to rejection (as the name implies), and the rejection does not have to be re ..read more

I wasn't aware the hashtag #AutisticElders existed until this morning along with the #AskingAutistics and of course identifying yourself as #ActuallyAutistic. This article is from https://www.autastic.com/ #AutisticElders Advice Line "So what’s this hashtag all about? Because autism wasn’t included in the DSM until 1980 and Asperger’s Syndrome not until 1994, widespread screening wasn’t available for children born earlier. That means that the roughly 1.2 million autistic girls, boys, and non-binary children born per generation worldwide1were left with little information about who they were, fe ..read more

This is an older entry but I thought it was very interesting and a good read even though its about children and not adults. DON'T MOURN FOR US by Jim Sinclair [This article was published in the Autism Network International newsletter, Our Voice, Volume 1, Number 3, 1993. It is an outline of the presentation Jim gave at the 1993 International Conference on Autism in Toronto, and is addressed primarily to parents.] Parents often report that learning their child is autistic was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to them. Non-autistic people see autism as a great tragedy, and parents expe ..read more

Unmasking This is a very thoughtful/interesting article on a great website. In fact, I added the website to our resources as there are many great articles by Mykola Bilokonsky and other guest writers. As usual, I would love to know what other autistic adults/seniors think of this article. It talks about dropping the mask, both the active and passive masks and being your natural self: "It turns out it’s easier than you may think to stop a lot of your active masking behaviors; some of them may be harder than you can imagine. It just depends on how deeply ingrained these things are in you and on ..read more