Can symptoms of autism get worse as people age?

Schizophrenia= ‘spiritual awakening’
ASD= ‘next stage in human development’

There may not be large numbers of them, but they can be very vocal.

Just found on Twitter

Even outside of these folks, there are a LOT of self-advocates who try to blame every single autistic symptom on parental abuse.

I saw a theory floating around that when autistic kids hit themselves, it is because their parents hit them to make them be quiet so they’re repeating the pattern. Which is just…wrong. Like, sensory seeking kids inflict pain because it is a very loud sensory input that can block out the others. Misattributing it to child abuse can put autistic kids at risk for being removed from their homes and treated for traumas they don’t have, rather than being given sensory therapy and taught less damaging ways to regulate.

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I think that habits become more ingrained over the years, and sometimes insight improves, so what may look like a worsening condition is just the awareness of ingrained coping mechanisms that work for self-soothing, etc., but don’t work socially…
I teach life skills to high school students with special needs, primarily autism. The students who have not been taught replacement behaviors are “worse” than the ones who have been taught and have support and reinforcement at home.
I think you will fall back on habits/behaviors that you’ve found comforting, but may be isolating or awkward, if you don’t practice replacement behaviors regularly.

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I just think that social norms and criteria for “success” are eschew in society. There’s no room for diversity of expression or thought because it makes people feel unsafe. You’re not a loser, you’re an individual.
I work in education and year after year I see the exact same “accomplishments” celebrated, but very little originality. It’s boring to follow in the footsteps of so many before, like a conveyor belt of factory processed humans.
Celebrate your uniqueness and stop comparing yourself to robots. :heart:

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That’s when they’re not fighting with each other for not doing autism correctly.

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Or yelling at their caregivers for being “ableist” because they got grounded for hitting people when they were kids

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It makes me upset this is the case as there are few other ways to network and share experiences when people online are behaving like this

I think that book is permanently out of print.

A lot of people with ASD are very rules or process oriented and they can’t tolerate deviation from how they feel things should be done. Other people with ASD have their own processes and rules that conflict with the processes and rules of different autistics. Friction from this is inevitable. Add to this that most are at different levels of social function.

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