As autism research continues, there is still much that scientists are still discovering about how the brain works and why autism occurs.
Most notably, autism is now treated on a broader spectrum and is often overshadowed by other disorders such as ADHD, OCD, depression, and even anorexia. Many people discover they are autistic later in life. So does an increase in autism diagnoses mean autism is increasing?
Jonathan Bastian talks to Francesca Happe, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at King’s College London about how research has progressed to better understand what it means to be autistic? “Trying to cure someone’s autism is a big deal like maybe psychiatrists, in the last century, thought they had to cure people’s homosexuality. Their autism is part of who they are and it’s not a disease, it’s a different way of being,” says Francesca Happe. Photo by Linda Nylind Happe explains one reason girls and women have historically been underdiagnosed. “Autistic women work very hard to appear neurotypical non-autistic, often because they have been bullied or ostracized because of their autistic behavior,” says Happe. “They might, for example, pick a woman in their workplace who seems to be socially successful and copy everything about her how she walks, how she talks, what she talks about, how she does her hair, her makeup, what she wears. , and that’s their way of trying to cover up so they don’t get negative attention.” Asked if society is becoming more accepting and accepting of neuro-divergence, Happe says not yet. “We don’t do a good enough job of accepting, really accepting neurodivergence because autistic people don’t have to be authentic,” Happe says. “We all have different ways of behaving for different environments. in a job interview, I will behave differently than I would with my family, but I can do so without feeling that it erodes my sense of self, whereas autistic people have clearly had such negative experiences of identifying as autistic that they feel that they just can’t be their true selves.” We delve into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by participating in Life Examined Facebook Discussion Group.