Yeah my first psychiatrist (who prescribed me citalopram vs depression/anxiety and methylphenidate vs symptoms of AD(H)D but only gave me GAD diagnosis) must've thought along that line. Cause he told me [paraphrasing] he could give me a lot more diagnoses which wouldn't help me. Well, I'd love to have known earlier in my life. Because all my pros and cons, my personality can be deducted to the root being ASD. Meanwhile, my cousin had asperger diagnosis and my mother told me that describes me as well. ASD runs in my family, in both sides.

Anyway, I firmly disagree. Self acceptance knowing you are wired differently and understanding aspects like Theory of Mind are a great opportunity to better function. The earlier the person learns to deal with these fundamentals (with which they likely WILL face issues with including in early childhood), the better.

Case in point: my 5 y.o. daughter just does not read her little brother's social cues. She cannot fathom he does not want X or Y.

What if anything do you do in practice to help in those situations where she doesn't read his social cues?

Very good question.

I explain her needs and desires do not necessarily align with his and that she must try to notice his (I describe them like do you hear he is yelling because of XYZ). This is largely futile. Because she notices he yells but doesn't understand why. He's only 3, so he mostly plays parallel (normal for his age).

I also describe the circumstances of the situation. Usually it is before dinnertime. So I explain right before dinner isn't a good time to play together. Because they trigger each other. So it is a good time to play solo and respect each other's boundaries. At that time they're hangry and difficult, so often some drama isn't avoidable.

Unfortunately some triggers cannot be avoided. They have to go bath sometimes, and we settled for once a week. He hates to wash his hair. Our daughter had same, as did I.

shes five. i doubt most five year olds really understand social queues. your adult understanding is distilled in cultural expectation, and years of behavioural correction.

That she is not an expert socializer at five years old does not indicate shes autistic. There are tens of thousands of confounding variables.

It is one of the many flags/signs/signals/factors (whatever you want to call it) which we are familiar with. There are many more. Yes, some of her peers also have a couple of these, but I haven't met a peer yet (primary peers being elementary school and mom's friends) who has all these as clear as she does. Though I'd say I leave it up these parents (if (eventually) required).

No.

Until I knew I had a brain injury, I could not figure out how to work around my issues. Everything I tried was a dead end. It was unrelenting failure and judgement.

Knowing what a problem is gives you the ability to solve it. Not everyone will use that knowledge to their benefit, but withholding the knowledge from someone is abusive.

im with you but many people really would choose the blue pill. They just dont want to know.

I was surprised by this when in my high school class the teacher (a doctor) asked the students if they would like to be accutely aware of an unfixable chronic brain impairment (if i recall it was memory impairment in this case). To my horror almost everyone said no.

Actually being trapped in a non-functioning mind or body without knowing the problem would change many minds. Don't read too much into an offhand high school thought experiment.

If anything, as I have interacted with more and more neurotypical people as I have aged, I believe this thought experiment is more representative of the average population than I used to, and more informative.

It's still a thought experiment. People in general lack imagination outside of the range of their experience. Imagination is a skill that has to be practiced or lost.

Labels are freeing. Labels are also confining and limiting.