Misconceptions about autism

H.L. Mencken wrote these words, which seem particularly true when it comes to autism:

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.

So it’s worth looking directly at a few of these neat, plausible and wrong ideas about autism. We’ve discussed some of them elsewhere.

“Autism is caused by vaccines.”  There is plenty of evidence that autism is a lifetime condition, and no reputable scientific evidence at all that it is caused by vaccines. Most of the fuss around is it because of a “fraudster and discredited academic” called Andrew Wakefield who was banned from publicising his fraudulent claims in the UK, so moved to the USA.

“But my son’s autism started at age 11.” Autism is a lifetime condition. What may well have happened is that some of the problems associated with autism are to do with capacity, and the demands ramp up slowly through childhood. Below 11, he was working within his capacity; after that he didn’t have enough capacity to meet the demands on him. It’s like with a car that struggles once it hits 30mph – the problem was always there, just you only noticed it when you were going faster.

“Autism is something that some people have as kids and most people get better from.” I think there are three things going on here. The first is that we are much better at diagnosing autism in schools now than we were 30 years ago. The second is that many autistic people learn to mask much better with age – they learn to look less autistic, but that effort takes a massive toll on their mental health. The third is that lots of autistic people hide away, so aren’t as visible once they’ve left school. As noted above, only 16% of autistic people of working age in the UK are currently in work. People don’t “recover” from autism; though they can learn to live with it better.

“Most people with autism are boys.”  The statistics, and our current understanding of autism, is that boys and girls are equally likely to be autistic, but girls are usually much better at masking, especially when it comes to the social symptoms of autism. So as far as we know, autism is equally common in both genders; it’s just more noticeable in men.

“Autistic people can’t do empathy.”  Untrue and offensive. Also ironic – that statement itself shows that the person making it can’t (yet) empathise with autistic people.

“Autistic people don’t have normal human emotions.” We have the same range of emotions as anyone else, though autistic people often express and handle their emotions differently. It’s still in a human way, just differently human.

“Autistic Christians are theologically liberal.” Not necessarily – many are, and I discuss some of the reasons  elsewhere; I’m not. (Sometimes I wish that the neurodiversity movement would get better at including people like me!)

“Autistic people are like Timmy from South Park.”

• Timmy is probably meant to be autistic, and some autistic people do have similar disabilities to him [he’s in a wheelchair and can only say his own name]. But those autistic people have the same value and rights as anyone else in our society. God cares about them just as much as he cares about you. And I’m sure there’s a lot of wisdom to be gained by meditating on that last sentence.
• South Park originally included Timmy to make fun of people who don’t treat him as properly human, which means that people who now use Timmy to make fun of disabled people are being especially dumb.
• There are also plenty of other autistic people who don’t have those disabilities – saying that autistic people are like Timmy is the same as saying that Canadians are like Justin Bieber.

“Autistic people are like Sheldon Cooper.” Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory was also an autistic-coded character, meaning that we’re never told he was autistic, but he is played to have a lot of autistic traits. As he wasn’t written or played by an autistic person, and lots of the autistic features were played for laughs in the early series, it’s kind of equivalent to blackface as a portrayal of race. Better representations of autistic people in TV can be found in series like Geek Girl or The Good Doctor.

“Autistic people are like Elon Musk.”  Stop it already! Autistic people aren’t clones; we are different from each other. And autism is a spectrum condition – it presents in lots of different ways in lots of different people. So yes, one autistic person is Elon Musk; all the other autistic people are not.