[shipman05]

I understand the sentiment, but there's a reason it's called the autism spectrum.

I work with several software engineers with autism who are as capable as their peers. Sure they may have behavioral quirks, but not significantly more so than the normal variation in human behavior. Their brains don't seem to work in an inferior or problematic way, just different.

On the other hand, I have a close relative with more severe autism who could never read and understand this article, could never type a comment such as yours. She's incapable of holding a job or living on her own without assistance. Her mother passed away young, and her older sister, just 19 at the time, had to take on the responsibility of being her sole caregiver, and she will have that burden for the rest of their lives.

For some it may be a different variation of the human experience, but for cases as severe as my relative's, I find it hard to believe that a cure or prevention for autism wouldn't be a massive quality of life improvement for all involved.

[ModernMech]

Indeed, my ex wife was incapable of living on her own or holding a job. I have a whole social circle of autistic friends of different abilities. Some still live with their parents. Men in their 40s living with their parents. Women who left home for the first time at 30 only to have to move back within months. My one friend is a sex worker because she can't hold down a real job. She sells her meds and her body to get by.

I lived with my parents last year, at 36, but I moved out and got a 1 bedroom. It was touch and go for a while, I still can't cook for myself, but at least I can take care of my cats.

I'm never going to have children. I'm never going to have a house. A family like my parents had. My sister as well, well she just got a boy friend so maybe not.

The through line problem here is not autism. Despite the range of (dis)ability, the thing that makes it a problem is how autistic needs are unmet by a society that expects us to be worker bees.

My ability to type this message and read is not a constant. There are times when I am non verbal. There are times when I cannot read because the letters are all jumbled in my head. When I'm able to read and write and speak, society values me. When I'm not, society devalues me. You want to take autism out of the equation so that I can be valuable to society.

What I'm saying is that society needs to be reoriented so that autistic people are valued whether or not they can read or write or speak.

Although I have to say I'm unsettled by you speaking for someone who can't speak, and deciding unilaterally that "curing" them would be a massive quality of life improvement for "all involved". Did you ask them?

[MajimasEyepatch]

> My ability to type this message and read is not a constant. There are times when I am non verbal. There are times when I cannot read because the letters are all jumbled in my head. When I'm able to read and write and speak, society values me. When I'm not, society devalues me. You want to take autism out of the equation so that I can be valuable to society.

> What I'm saying is that society needs to be reoriented so that autistic people are valued whether or not they can read or write or speak.

People like to say stuff like this on social media, but I can never quite figure out what they actually mean. Society emerges from interactions between people. If someone can’t communicate, how exactly are they supposed to participate fully in society? All people deserve love and support and dignity regardless of their ability to contribute economically, but I’m curious what this “reorientation” would actually mean in practice.

[fragmede]

Thank you for sharing your story, that's heartbreaking.

[mewpmewp2]

The problem is there's no such thing as "Autism". It's a survey and observation of behaviors that "oh you don't quite behave like we see 90%+ of people to behave socially, so you must have a disease. Let's call it autism."

You are talking as if Autism was some sort of virus that you catch and it disables some people a bit, and others a lot.

Some people have hard time, then deal with those people and help them, based on the symptoms, but don't say you have to prevent some made up label to group certain set of behaviors which many are perfectly happy to be with those set of behaviors and perhaps even proud to be thinking differently than most.

[jskdndbwkd]

or maybe your successful coworkers and your close relative have two completely distinct conditions that don’t actually exist along a continuum

[somenameforme]

Then people should stop conflating the two. This whole "spectrum" nonsense is nonsense. Your coworkers are not autistic - they are weird or whatever other more PC term you might want to use, and that's great - many, if not most, great engineers are!. There is no need to pathologize differences in people. Your relative, by contrast, is. If you have a habit of feeling sleepy at work, it's not like we say you're on the narcolepsy spectrum. It's just a completely dumb concept.

People like your relative, or the kid who sits around flapping his hand and starts freaking out if anybody interacts with him - those people are obviously not just 'weird'. They clearly have severe mental disorders, and if we want to call whatever it is that they have autism - fine. But if we do, then we need to stop calling people like your coworkers, Bill Gates, or whoever else also autistic.

[Tijdreiziger]

I got my autism diagnosis in my early 20s (from a licensed psychologist, before you ask).

It was a life-changing experience for me. Suddenly I was able to understand and validate my experiences and shortcomings, and to improve myself based on that understanding, instead of resigning myself to the fact that I’ll always just be a ‘weird’ human with ‘weird’ opinions, feelings and experiences.

I suppose though that since a random guy on HN said so, this is actually impossible, and I should just go back to having the entirety of my lived experience dismissed as ‘weird’.

Gee, I’m sure glad we cleared that up.

[MajimasEyepatch]

There’s this thing people online tend to do where they’ll take a well-defined word or phrase like autism spectrum disorder and just decide that it actually should mean something else and get mad when everyone else uses the word in the “wrong” way. It consistently derails conversations, and it almost never brings anyone around to a place of greater understanding.

[cubefox]

> Autism is known as a “spectrum” disorder because there is wide variation in the type and severity of symptoms people experience.

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/autism-spectrum-disor...

[rjmunro]

There is a continuous range of people in between. Where do you draw the line?