Top Autism Myths
There are too many myths about autism to cover, so here we'll only talk about the most important ones. I think it's important to clear them up now - not only so that your perception of autism isn't clouded by them, but also so you can debunk these myths when other people say them to you. The article starts with smaller scale myths (the top ten list) and concludes with the blanket myth that so many people believe that I labeled it "The Ultimate Myth."
Autistic people don't have empathy
This is potentially only partially a myth. It is completely a myth in terms of what people think empathy means, but not necessarily a myth in the scientific definition (although even that is debatable). Confused? We'll go over the difference between the two.
Many people argue that autistic people have trouble with empathy. This is often misunderstood as meaning autistic people have no feelings, but in reality what's being misunderstood is the meaning of the word empathy. The colloquial meaning of the word is the ability to care about other people, so parents and others are generally quite horrified to hear this news. The meaning of the word empathy when it refers to autism, however, doesn't mean that at all. So discard what you thought empathy meant and prepare to learn a new definition.
In reality, empathy is simply the ability to 'step into another person's shoes' - to look at someone, see what they're feeling, and then feel it yourself. People on the autism spectrum have a great difficulty telling what other people are feeling through body language/tone of voice, so this is where they can sometimes run into difficulty.
One common "test" of empathy is a quiz where the test taker is asked which feeling is being expressed in a picture of a person's eyes. In short, it's testing ability to read body language. You can take a version of that quiz here - the average neurotypical person only gets about 7 wrong on the 36 question test. The average person with autism would probably be doing well to get that many right. It also should confirm to you that empathy as scientists are referring to it has nothing to do with one's actual emotions or ability to feel sympathy for others (someone who had neither of those could still ace the test).
In fact, newer theories of autism, such as the Intense World Theory, argue that autistic people actually relate too much to the feelings of others. In other words, the problem isn't that autistic people don't resonate with the emotions of others, so much as they can have trouble figuring out what other people are thinking/reading their body language.
Caley can attest to the fact that autistic people do have empathy in the colloquial sense of the word. Caley has so much empathy that she can't manage to watch most movies. She feels so intensely for the main character and whatever woes they may happen to have that it is as though their pain is her own, and the mere act of watching the movie becomes too painful for her. She is not alone in her experience - many autistic people report having too much empathy. Like everyone, empathy levels vary among people on the spectrum, but the idea that being autistic means you don't have empathy (at least, in the way we think of empathy) is a myth.
Many people argue that autistic people have trouble with empathy. This is often misunderstood as meaning autistic people have no feelings, but in reality what's being misunderstood is the meaning of the word empathy. The colloquial meaning of the word is the ability to care about other people, so parents and others are generally quite horrified to hear this news. The meaning of the word empathy when it refers to autism, however, doesn't mean that at all. So discard what you thought empathy meant and prepare to learn a new definition.
In reality, empathy is simply the ability to 'step into another person's shoes' - to look at someone, see what they're feeling, and then feel it yourself. People on the autism spectrum have a great difficulty telling what other people are feeling through body language/tone of voice, so this is where they can sometimes run into difficulty.
One common "test" of empathy is a quiz where the test taker is asked which feeling is being expressed in a picture of a person's eyes. In short, it's testing ability to read body language. You can take a version of that quiz here - the average neurotypical person only gets about 7 wrong on the 36 question test. The average person with autism would probably be doing well to get that many right. It also should confirm to you that empathy as scientists are referring to it has nothing to do with one's actual emotions or ability to feel sympathy for others (someone who had neither of those could still ace the test).
In fact, newer theories of autism, such as the Intense World Theory, argue that autistic people actually relate too much to the feelings of others. In other words, the problem isn't that autistic people don't resonate with the emotions of others, so much as they can have trouble figuring out what other people are thinking/reading their body language.
Caley can attest to the fact that autistic people do have empathy in the colloquial sense of the word. Caley has so much empathy that she can't manage to watch most movies. She feels so intensely for the main character and whatever woes they may happen to have that it is as though their pain is her own, and the mere act of watching the movie becomes too painful for her. She is not alone in her experience - many autistic people report having too much empathy. Like everyone, empathy levels vary among people on the spectrum, but the idea that being autistic means you don't have empathy (at least, in the way we think of empathy) is a myth.
Autistic people are violent
There's so much information on this subject that I can sit back and let reputable sources do the myth-busting for me:
CNN
"There is absolutely no evidence or any reliable research that suggests a linkage between autism and planned violence," the Autism Society said in a statement. "To imply or suggest that some linkage exists is wrong and is harmful to more than 1.5 million law-abiding, nonviolent and wonderful individuals who live with autism each day."
The New York Times
"And if study after study has definitively established that a person with autism is no more likely to be violent or engage in criminal behavior than a neurotypical person, it is just as clear that autistic people are far more likely to be the victims of bullying and emotional and physical abuse by parents and caregivers than other children."
Still don't believe me? Click on the name of the media outlets above and read the articles for yourself. If you haven't concluded it already, by the end you'll agree that there is no link between autism and violence towards others.
CNN
"There is absolutely no evidence or any reliable research that suggests a linkage between autism and planned violence," the Autism Society said in a statement. "To imply or suggest that some linkage exists is wrong and is harmful to more than 1.5 million law-abiding, nonviolent and wonderful individuals who live with autism each day."
The New York Times
"And if study after study has definitively established that a person with autism is no more likely to be violent or engage in criminal behavior than a neurotypical person, it is just as clear that autistic people are far more likely to be the victims of bullying and emotional and physical abuse by parents and caregivers than other children."
Still don't believe me? Click on the name of the media outlets above and read the articles for yourself. If you haven't concluded it already, by the end you'll agree that there is no link between autism and violence towards others.
There is an autism epidemic
Many readers have probably heard this myth stated as fact before, and will likely be quite surprised to hear that it is, in fact, false. While there has been an increase in the number of people with the diagnosis, this is widely regarded as an improvement in diagnosis (yes, there are so many articles to that effect that every single one of those words leads to a different link), rather than a change in the rate of autism itself. I'll break the reasons down for you here.
1. The label of autism has only existed for a short time.
Leo Kanner described children with autism for the first time a mere seventy years ago, in 1944, discussing it not as we refer to it today, but as autistic psychopathy. At the time and through the 1960s it was thought to be some form of childhood schizophrenia and diagnosed accordingly. It was only in the 1980s that the criteria for diagnosing autism was clearly defined as part of the DSM and its diagnosis separated from that of schizophrenia.
Not having the autism label means that as of 1943 there were officially zero people diagnosed with autism. That is not a reflection of how many people existed, the label simply didn't exist at the time. Back then people who would have been diagnosed as autistic today went undiagnosed or were given other labels, such as schizophrenia.
2. There is evidence of autistic people from centuries ago.
The next logical point is to determine whether or not the lack of an autism label prior to 1944 was because autism itself didn't exist. Rest assured, that is not the case. You can actually find records of autistic people as far back as the 1800s.
The reason they weren't diagnosed back then (with anything, much less autism) is that psychology as a whole is a very young discipline. It only stretches back about 150 years, and the only diagnoses back then were mania, melancholia, monomania, paresis, dementia, dipsomania, and epilepsy. If you're having a hard time figuring out where autism would fit under these categories, you're not the only one.
The idea of diagnosing different mental disorders and keeping statistics on them is younger still; the first diagnostic and statistical manual (DSM) for psychologists wasn't published until 1952 (at which point it was far from what it is today, only a little over 10% as long and including only a mere third of the disorders we recognize today), and autism was not added as a diagnosis in the manual until the 1980s. As you might imagine, the lack of diagnostic criteria made it impossible to diagnose anyone with any mental disorder at all as we know of them today, much less autism.
3. The criteria for diagnosis have changed.
Even once autism was included in the DSM for the first time, the symptoms required for diagnosis have changed over time. In the DSM III and III-R, for instance, language impairment of some sort was required for diagnosis. Therefore, those with no verbal delays (people diagnosed with Asperger's) would not have qualified for a diagnosis of autism at the time, despite being currently recognized as autistic. This was not changed until 1994 and represents another hurdle which kept the numbers of diagnosed people with autism artificially low at the time.
4. There's about the same rate of autism in adults as children.
A 2011 study of adults living in the UK found there is about the same rate of autism in adults there as in children. This points to the fact that the rate of autism itself has stayed about the same, but the rate of diagnosis has increased over the generations.
An additional fact to support this is the fact that many parents get diagnosed only once their children are. The parent didn't suddenly develop autism. The only thing that changed is that back when the parents were growing up, people with less obvious characteristics like them weren't diagnosed. For those parents, now that times have changed and their childrens' autism is diagnosed, parents often look at the symptoms of autism that their child has and realize that they themselves have those characteristics. Again, it doesn't mean they weren't autistic before; they simply weren't identified.
With all of this data and historical perspective, it's clear to see the rapid increase in autism diagnoses is not a reflection of more autistic people so much as a reflection of improved diagnosis. The increasing rates show that the campaigns for autism awareness have worked and professionals are now recognizing and diagnosing autism better than ever before; a cause for excitement, not alarm.
1. The label of autism has only existed for a short time.
Leo Kanner described children with autism for the first time a mere seventy years ago, in 1944, discussing it not as we refer to it today, but as autistic psychopathy. At the time and through the 1960s it was thought to be some form of childhood schizophrenia and diagnosed accordingly. It was only in the 1980s that the criteria for diagnosing autism was clearly defined as part of the DSM and its diagnosis separated from that of schizophrenia.
Not having the autism label means that as of 1943 there were officially zero people diagnosed with autism. That is not a reflection of how many people existed, the label simply didn't exist at the time. Back then people who would have been diagnosed as autistic today went undiagnosed or were given other labels, such as schizophrenia.
2. There is evidence of autistic people from centuries ago.
The next logical point is to determine whether or not the lack of an autism label prior to 1944 was because autism itself didn't exist. Rest assured, that is not the case. You can actually find records of autistic people as far back as the 1800s.
The reason they weren't diagnosed back then (with anything, much less autism) is that psychology as a whole is a very young discipline. It only stretches back about 150 years, and the only diagnoses back then were mania, melancholia, monomania, paresis, dementia, dipsomania, and epilepsy. If you're having a hard time figuring out where autism would fit under these categories, you're not the only one.
The idea of diagnosing different mental disorders and keeping statistics on them is younger still; the first diagnostic and statistical manual (DSM) for psychologists wasn't published until 1952 (at which point it was far from what it is today, only a little over 10% as long and including only a mere third of the disorders we recognize today), and autism was not added as a diagnosis in the manual until the 1980s. As you might imagine, the lack of diagnostic criteria made it impossible to diagnose anyone with any mental disorder at all as we know of them today, much less autism.
3. The criteria for diagnosis have changed.
Even once autism was included in the DSM for the first time, the symptoms required for diagnosis have changed over time. In the DSM III and III-R, for instance, language impairment of some sort was required for diagnosis. Therefore, those with no verbal delays (people diagnosed with Asperger's) would not have qualified for a diagnosis of autism at the time, despite being currently recognized as autistic. This was not changed until 1994 and represents another hurdle which kept the numbers of diagnosed people with autism artificially low at the time.
4. There's about the same rate of autism in adults as children.
A 2011 study of adults living in the UK found there is about the same rate of autism in adults there as in children. This points to the fact that the rate of autism itself has stayed about the same, but the rate of diagnosis has increased over the generations.
An additional fact to support this is the fact that many parents get diagnosed only once their children are. The parent didn't suddenly develop autism. The only thing that changed is that back when the parents were growing up, people with less obvious characteristics like them weren't diagnosed. For those parents, now that times have changed and their childrens' autism is diagnosed, parents often look at the symptoms of autism that their child has and realize that they themselves have those characteristics. Again, it doesn't mean they weren't autistic before; they simply weren't identified.
With all of this data and historical perspective, it's clear to see the rapid increase in autism diagnoses is not a reflection of more autistic people so much as a reflection of improved diagnosis. The increasing rates show that the campaigns for autism awareness have worked and professionals are now recognizing and diagnosing autism better than ever before; a cause for excitement, not alarm.
All autistic people are intellectually disabled
Just as good language skills are associated with Asperger's Syndrome, so is average to above average intelligence. And while many people previously diagnosed as classically autistic are often seen as being intellectually handicapped, this insightful article from Wired.com questions the tests given to people with ASD to measure their intelligence, calling it the same as giving "a blind person a test heavily dependent on vision and interpret[ing] their poor score as an accurate measure of intelligence." Another article describing a study of the intelligence of people on the spectrum had this to say (bolding added for emphasis):
'According to co-author Michelle Dawson, "while we know autistics process information atypically, very little thought has gone into how to fairly assess their abilities. In fact there is so little understanding of what autistics do well that their strong abilities are often regarded as dysfunctional. Here we have again found that measurable strengths in autistic spectrum individuals are not "isolated islets of abilities" as previously thought, but are in fact representative of autistics' intellectual abilities. This in turn raises questions about how we can provide autistics with the kinds of information they can process well, as we do with non-autistic individuals. We consider the effort to understand and encourage autistic strengths to be of paramount importance."
Based on these results, the authors emphasize that autistic spectrum intelligence is atypical, but also genuine, general, and underestimated.'
- Science Daily
Michelle Dawson, by the way, is on the spectrum herself and - as you can tell from her quote - extremely intelligent in her own right.
Finally, many autistic people are highly successful even by society's standards, many going on to college, and a few even becoming Nobel Prize winners. So, no, you cannot make a blanket statement that all autistic people are intellectually disabled.
Finally, many autistic people are highly successful even by society's standards, many going on to college, and a few even becoming Nobel Prize winners. So, no, you cannot make a blanket statement that all autistic people are intellectually disabled.
All autistic people are savants
While autistic savants do exist, only about 1 in 10 autistic people fall under that category, so if you meet an autistic person, they're probably not a savant. One of the women quoted in Aspergirls, a great book by Rudy Simone about women with autism, put her feelings about the matter this way. "...the myth that all AS people are super intelligent mathematician science savants...makes me feel, as an Aspie [person with Asperger's] who doesn't have any of that, I'm a double fail - I fail at being normal, and also fail at being AS." In short, this myth just isn't true.
Autistic people can't have successful romantic relationships.
This myth is completely false. If you want to test this yourself, just do a check on Amazon. A search for autism and dating will produce results like, What Men With Asperger Syndrome Want to Know About Women, Dating and Relationships; 22 Things a Woman Must Know: If She Loves a Man With Asperger's Syndrome; Autistics' Guide to Dating: A Book by Autistics, for Autistics and Those Who Love Them or Who Are in Love with Them; and more.
As you may have noticed from the titles, relationships for autistic people are not limited to other people on the autism spectrum. Many relationships are between people on the spectrum and neurotypicals who are not, while others are between two people on the spectrum. Not everyone on the autism spectrum is interested in dating or relationships, and that choice should be respected, but the claim that people with autism are incapable of having romantic relationships is utterly false.
To read more on busting this myth, check out the New York Times article Navigating Love and Autism and NPR's Learning to Love and Be Loved With Autism, both profiling a couple with autism who are in a relationship, or watch the video below about another couple with autism.
As you may have noticed from the titles, relationships for autistic people are not limited to other people on the autism spectrum. Many relationships are between people on the spectrum and neurotypicals who are not, while others are between two people on the spectrum. Not everyone on the autism spectrum is interested in dating or relationships, and that choice should be respected, but the claim that people with autism are incapable of having romantic relationships is utterly false.
To read more on busting this myth, check out the New York Times article Navigating Love and Autism and NPR's Learning to Love and Be Loved With Autism, both profiling a couple with autism who are in a relationship, or watch the video below about another couple with autism.
If someone has a relative on the spectrum, they are authorities who understand it.
We'll start with examples of this assumption and how it can go wrong. Here's our first example:
We already thoroughly debunked the idea that autism and violent acts are linked earlier on in the article, so you already know that there's no connection. Yet Scarborough, who says himself that he has a son with Asperger's (you have to feel for his son), says that the characteristics of autism are linked to mass shooters. This, thankfully, was quickly debunked and protested by people on the autism spectrum and the Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD), who awarded him their first ever "autism ignorance award." He might be related to someone on the spectrum, but he certainly doesn't seem to understand it very well.
In a more recent and perhaps more troubling incident, Temple Grandin's mother wrote an article for The Daily Beast called "Autism and Child Pornography: A Toxic Combination" in which she made one false claim after another, relying on assumptions to justify giant leaps of theory. For her main theory, that autistic people view child pornography in higher rates (they don't) she readily admits that "the group is very small; numbers are not available, and few arrests are on record," ...and yet applies her theory even without these numbers to all autistic men. To give you a flavor for the article, one of her worst offending paragraphs was this one:
In a more recent and perhaps more troubling incident, Temple Grandin's mother wrote an article for The Daily Beast called "Autism and Child Pornography: A Toxic Combination" in which she made one false claim after another, relying on assumptions to justify giant leaps of theory. For her main theory, that autistic people view child pornography in higher rates (they don't) she readily admits that "the group is very small; numbers are not available, and few arrests are on record," ...and yet applies her theory even without these numbers to all autistic men. To give you a flavor for the article, one of her worst offending paragraphs was this one:
Over and over in the article she infantilizes and stigmatizes people on the spectrum, even comparing them to computers. The scary thing is, though, because of her status as "Temple Grandin's mother" many people won't think twice before accepting her many claims.
Those are just some examples, but there are many more. My point is that many people assume that if you're related to someone who's autistic you understand autism; worse yet, the relatives frequently think the same thing. As we saw in these examples, being related doesn't automatically mean you have all the facts about autism. You're more likely to be aware of it, but awareness, unfortunately, does not entail understanding.
In conclusion, being related to someone on the spectrum doesn't automatically mean you understand it, and you shouldn't take anything someone with an autistic family member has to say about autism as truth by mere virtue of their relationship (nor any other authority). Always question and do your own research before accepting a claim as true.
Those are just some examples, but there are many more. My point is that many people assume that if you're related to someone who's autistic you understand autism; worse yet, the relatives frequently think the same thing. As we saw in these examples, being related doesn't automatically mean you have all the facts about autism. You're more likely to be aware of it, but awareness, unfortunately, does not entail understanding.
In conclusion, being related to someone on the spectrum doesn't automatically mean you understand it, and you shouldn't take anything someone with an autistic family member has to say about autism as truth by mere virtue of their relationship (nor any other authority). Always question and do your own research before accepting a claim as true.
Bad parenting causes autism.
"There's nothing wrong with that child that a good spanking wouldn't fix." I heard this phrase or variations of it said to my parents repeatedly growing up, but repetition didn't make it any less false or less hurtful to my parents (and, for that matter, my sister).
People on the spectrum aren't the only ones that suffer from myths; parents of autistic children are also harmed. Out of these myths, the most harmful ones I can think of are any that put the blame on parents for autism or its symptoms, allegedly due to poor parenting skills. The refrigerator parent hypothesis was disproven long ago, and yet we still persist in trying to search for something, anything, in child's parenting that we can blame. Lack of maternal warmth, lack of discipline, giving the child too much sugar, helping the child get things without requiring them to use their words, we still consistently blame these and other parenting factors as causing autism or its symptoms, but it's completely untrue.
People on the spectrum aren't the only ones that suffer from myths; parents of autistic children are also harmed. Out of these myths, the most harmful ones I can think of are any that put the blame on parents for autism or its symptoms, allegedly due to poor parenting skills. The refrigerator parent hypothesis was disproven long ago, and yet we still persist in trying to search for something, anything, in child's parenting that we can blame. Lack of maternal warmth, lack of discipline, giving the child too much sugar, helping the child get things without requiring them to use their words, we still consistently blame these and other parenting factors as causing autism or its symptoms, but it's completely untrue.
80% of parents with autistic children divorce.
This myth has been disproved time and time again, and yet it persists. I think part of the reason for this is that people know many parents of autistic children who are divorced, and think this constitutes a significant difference, not realizing that divorce rates are high all around (and support group members do not constitute a random sample - if you think about it, single parents are the most likely to need support). Back that up with a convincing sounding statistic and it's enough to make anyone believe it. Yet, consistently in large studies it has been shown this so-called divorce rate is completely untrue.
I'll let the studies speak for themselves:
Relationship Status Among Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, April 2012, Volume 42, Issue 4, pp 539-548
"A total of 77,911 parent interviews were completed on children aged 3–17 years, of which 913 reported an ASD diagnosis. After controlling for relevant covariates, results from multivariate analyses revealed NO evidence to suggest that children with ASD are at an increased risk for living in a household not comprised of their two biological or adoptive parents compared to children without ASD in the United States."
A comparative study of the marital relationship between parents with children with autism and those with children without autism
Good Autism Practice (GAP), Volume 14, Number 1, May 2013 , pp. 28-33(6)
"In this paper, they report on a large-scale study which explored the nature of the marital relationship for 475 mothers of children with autism and 62 mothers of typically developing children. ... The authors do in fact find that there are generally more difficulties in the marital relationship of those parents with a child with autism, but that most of these parents stay married and also report that the experience has strengthened their relationships in some cases and they have experienced positive emotions as well as having difficult times."
Even among the one study that did find a difference (after all, scientists don't always agree), the rate comparison is 23.5% vs. 13.8% - not nearly the urban legend of 80%. In short, this myth is completely false (and I'm sure married parents of children on the spectrum are breathing sighs of relief everywhere to read this news).
I'll let the studies speak for themselves:
Relationship Status Among Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, April 2012, Volume 42, Issue 4, pp 539-548
"A total of 77,911 parent interviews were completed on children aged 3–17 years, of which 913 reported an ASD diagnosis. After controlling for relevant covariates, results from multivariate analyses revealed NO evidence to suggest that children with ASD are at an increased risk for living in a household not comprised of their two biological or adoptive parents compared to children without ASD in the United States."
A comparative study of the marital relationship between parents with children with autism and those with children without autism
Good Autism Practice (GAP), Volume 14, Number 1, May 2013 , pp. 28-33(6)
"In this paper, they report on a large-scale study which explored the nature of the marital relationship for 475 mothers of children with autism and 62 mothers of typically developing children. ... The authors do in fact find that there are generally more difficulties in the marital relationship of those parents with a child with autism, but that most of these parents stay married and also report that the experience has strengthened their relationships in some cases and they have experienced positive emotions as well as having difficult times."
Even among the one study that did find a difference (after all, scientists don't always agree), the rate comparison is 23.5% vs. 13.8% - not nearly the urban legend of 80%. In short, this myth is completely false (and I'm sure married parents of children on the spectrum are breathing sighs of relief everywhere to read this news).
Vaccines cause autism
This is a very sensitive issue among parents (not autistic adults, nor most professionals, however) in the autism community, and as such it needs to be approached with compassion. However, though my compassion remains, the fact that this is a myth is unchanged. Vaccines do not cause autism (yes, the evidence is so overwhelming that every single one of those words leads to a different well regarded source, although this one is the best summary). If you want to read about the damage that not vaccinating children can do, you can read the post here.
The Ultimate Myth
When my sister and I were talking about this website and what I should put in it she said I needed to mention that not every autistic person thinks in pictures, a myth she runs into all the time. I mentioned that we needed to address that not every autistic person is a savant. Suddenly, we blurted out in unison, "We need to say that not everyone's the same!"
The ultimate myth about autism, as you may have guessed by now, is thinking every autistic person has the same traits and characteristics. For instance, you might see a special on TV about autism which will tell you 'All people with autism are like this.' And then perhaps you'll watch the movie about Temple Grandin and conclude that the previous definition was wrong and this new one is right. In truth, you can't win, because neither definition is wrong...but neither one of them is right, either. They call it the autism spectrum for a reason - beyond the criteria required for diagnosis, autistic people are a very diverse bunch. What is true for some is not true for others, and yet, they are all equally autistic.
My sister is the perfect example of this. While she fits the diagnostic criteria of an autism spectrum disorder, she bears little resemblance to most people's ideas of an autistic person. For one thing, she's one of the rarer diagnosed (note the emphasis) Autistic women. But the differences don't end there. Not only does she not think in pictures, but - as opposed to the stereotypical person with autism - she adores hugs. To add to that, she doesn't thrive in the maths and sciences, as people tend to assume everyone on the spectrum does. Before you ask, yes, she's been diagnosed by multiple professionals. She is very different from our idea of autism yet, as I said before, equally autistic.
My point is that everyone's different and you can't pigeonhole all autistic people into a nice, neat category, no matter how tempting it may seem.
The moral of this is to keep an open mind. Understanding the general aspects of autism will certainly help you to better understand autism and those you know on the spectrum. That said, it is equally certain that someone you meet on the spectrum will deviate from the 'typical' autism profile in some way, if not many ways.
It's up to you to be open to looking at them as an individual, rather than only as a label.
The ultimate myth about autism, as you may have guessed by now, is thinking every autistic person has the same traits and characteristics. For instance, you might see a special on TV about autism which will tell you 'All people with autism are like this.' And then perhaps you'll watch the movie about Temple Grandin and conclude that the previous definition was wrong and this new one is right. In truth, you can't win, because neither definition is wrong...but neither one of them is right, either. They call it the autism spectrum for a reason - beyond the criteria required for diagnosis, autistic people are a very diverse bunch. What is true for some is not true for others, and yet, they are all equally autistic.
My sister is the perfect example of this. While she fits the diagnostic criteria of an autism spectrum disorder, she bears little resemblance to most people's ideas of an autistic person. For one thing, she's one of the rarer diagnosed (note the emphasis) Autistic women. But the differences don't end there. Not only does she not think in pictures, but - as opposed to the stereotypical person with autism - she adores hugs. To add to that, she doesn't thrive in the maths and sciences, as people tend to assume everyone on the spectrum does. Before you ask, yes, she's been diagnosed by multiple professionals. She is very different from our idea of autism yet, as I said before, equally autistic.
My point is that everyone's different and you can't pigeonhole all autistic people into a nice, neat category, no matter how tempting it may seem.
The moral of this is to keep an open mind. Understanding the general aspects of autism will certainly help you to better understand autism and those you know on the spectrum. That said, it is equally certain that someone you meet on the spectrum will deviate from the 'typical' autism profile in some way, if not many ways.
It's up to you to be open to looking at them as an individual, rather than only as a label.
Up Next: Controversies
Now that you've learned about the autism myths, it's important to understand the controversies that swirl around autism - namely, the cause, cure, treatments, research, and organizations associated with autism. An understanding of these discussions should give you a good background for when you talk to someone in the autism community, not to mention it may give you an idea of where you stand on these issues.
