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Autism's a weird subject since the diagnosis gets thrown around super liberally for any sort of 'does not play nice with others' psychological diagnosis, and it's such a wide spectrum.
My mom used to work at a private school dedicated to let's say 5th-10th percentile intelligences. Not the absolute lowest rung, but the one above it. The vast majority of her students had diagnoses for Autism (along with whatever myriad difficulties they had) and were essentially incapable of functioning above a 4th-grade level. When that bloc is contributing to the statistics, it's very hard to be successful on the aggregate. Without going into the amount of criminals or ne'er-do-wells hit the psychological diagnosis arena and get 7 different things assigned, one of which is invariably ASD. These people are already on an atrocious course and further drag down averages. It is my belief that if diagnosis was a firmer line and was universal, that the gap would be a lot smaller.
The most 'successful'/able-to-cope Autistics are also unlikely to ever pick up a formal diagnosis, especially if they're presently older than mid thirties. I'm diagnosed with what was Aspergers. My dad is a very successful engineer who is 99% to also get diagnosed (and indeed self-diagnosed after I received the diagnosis) if he ever had occasion to pursue it, but as he's now in his mid 70s, retired and in no need of psychological assistance he's unlikely to ever get his autism certificate.
I feel like you are picturing the 'average autistic person' as a FANG developer who struggles with dating/social contact but is otherwise able to get some benefits out of the quirk in their brain chemistry. This is a person who's like 85th percentile.
One my (deeply unpopular) autism related views are that the elimination of Aspergers as a diagnosis and the folding of all similar conditions into vague levels has been an absolute disaster. Normies have a slightly less uninformed idea of what Aspergers is, even if their idea gravitates towards Sheldon Cooper. Meanwhile, if you say the world Autism they will automatically assume "Guy who punches himself in the head and screams", regardless of any attempts by the establishment to reband Autism away from this thought.
I agree with this, but the Aspergers diagnosis got banded about willy-nilly so it kind of had to be hauled back (plus the culture war tones, I guess)
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Agreement on this. None of us in my paternal family have (so far as I know, it may be different for the current generation of children) formal diagnoses of at least Aspergers (before that was folded into the Autism Spectrum) but there are undeniable signs of something like that scattered all through, going back generations. I've done online "test yourself" quizzes and come out as "probably autistic", so while self-diagnosis is no diagnosis, I think I probably have something.
I'm nowhere near as high functioning in a FANG job because I have no maths skills. I can get by with literacy skills (and the slight obsessiveness over details that comes with the package), but I have no social skills (and hence can't 'network' my way into anything), and while support would be nice, it's way too late in the day for that to make a meaningful difference to me now (back from the age of six? oh yes, but no use crying over spilled milk). I'm not a success by any metric of any area; 'but at least you have friends, you have this, you have that' - nope, no, none of it. I liked the Covid lockdown in my country because you want me to stay indoors, don't go out, don't gather in groups, don't socialise? I do none of that already, I am not suffering the deprivations other people complain about. For once, the world was running the way I liked it (no noise! no crowds! no having to pretend to care about chit-chat and small talk! no interacting with people for more than the tasks we need to do! stay in my shell? bliss!). Which brings me on to:
Yes, we do, and that's just a fact of life. While there should be support and accommodation, autistic people also have to learn how to adapt to the wider world, as best they can. If the majority of people are right-handed, things are set up for the right-handed. If over-exposure to sunlight gives you sunburn and skin cancer, you can't demand the right to walk about naked for twelve hours a day under the desert sun. Learn to cover up and put on sunscreen.
Ironically, in view of everything, I've ended up working in a place that deals with children with additional/special needs, and that includes autism. They're pre-school aged, and part of the care is helping them pick up the skills that will help them integrate when they go on to kindergarten and primary school. It is about helping those kids feel comfortable in their skin, because they do suffer otherwise, either locked in their own isolated little world or rigidly sticking to a set routine that cannot deviate in the slightest or else the child has a full-blown meltdown. It's not about turning them neurotypical, it's about doing as much as can be done. Maybe that's not a lot, maybe they'll never be able to integrate and function, but leaving them be is the worst thing you can do and it's a disservice (as I said, I wish there had been something when I was six, maybe my life would not have been such a failure if I learned better how to pretend to be normie). And some are severely disabled, like the cases of "will literally beat his brains out against a wall so has to wear a helmet 24/7" teenager encountered in another job. It's not one-size-fits-all, Hollywood Crazy (which just means quirky) nice view of "smart, high IQ, maths nerds autistics who work the big paying jobs in software engineering that give you normies the high economic value society you enjoy".
This is the way it is. Fire burns, water is wet, society is neurotypical, and that shouldn't be changed. Accommodation and support yes, "I'm (self-diagnosed with, or even officially diagnosed with) Such-And-Such, I get to do what I like and no consequences and you have to cater to my every whim!" no.
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Mmhmm.
I spent a couple years at a private school which was designed for autistic integration. Maybe 10% of the students had a pretty severe disability. Some of them worked through the social skills, the emotional development, and so on. Presumably they get to engage with society. Others...they will spend their whole lives with significant reliance on their caretakers. These were all kids with loving parents and enough of a support network to pay private-school tuition. Not everyone has that.
Exactly. That's essentially the environment my mom worked at (albeit essentially purely aimed at the bottom 10% of your cohort), and a positive outcome of a 12 year education at that school was 'capable of holding a shelf stacking job or consistently contributing on government subsidized work for the lesser-abled and moderate sociability'.
I had a friend like that at high school. Basically stuck at an 11 year old's level of mental development, though he was more like a 5 year old at the start of high school. (Adolesence seems to have done him a lot of good.) With a ridiculously good family and presumably some government help, he's been able to hold a steady job through all of his adult life, a very happy long-term romantic relationship with an autistic woman, and enjoy a diverse range of interests (biking, video games, anime). Many non-disabled young men don't do so well.
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