You see similar stuff with Down's syndrome, where it's perhaps even more skewed than with autism. The best few percent are presented as if that's representative for all of them, but there's huge variation and many really are seriously disabled in all sorts of ways – but those aren't on the telly.

I think many disability advocates are afraid that focusing too much on the less positive aspects will lead to unfair stigmas and even discrimination. That's understandable to a degree, but obscuring reality rarely helps your own cause in the long run, so ultimately I fear it's self-defeating. I also feel it takes the piss out of the families having to deal with the not-so-cute Down's cases (i.e. >90% of them, and sets wrong unrealistic expectations.

Or simply put, instead of saying "no, they're not retarded", a much better strategy would be to say "yes, some are retarded, but that doesn't make them any less human" (or whatever the socially accepted term for "retarded" is these days).

I agree that those topics are worthy of consideration, but it seems like they were outside the scope of the report.

>"The review considered five themes

    What initiatives can help to raise awareness, reduce stigma and capitalise on the productivity of autistic employees 
    What more could be done to prepare autistic people effectively for beginning or returning to a career 
    How employers can adjust recruitment practices to meet the needs of autistic applicants   
    How employers can support autistic people already in their workforce 
    How employers can encourage and support autistic staff to develop and progress their career."*

Why would the report touch on a subject explicitly out of scope of the report?

A lot of things exist in the world. You can't accomplish anything if you try and focus on everything. That doesn't mean it isn't important.

The fact that the term autism is applied across such a massive range of outcomes is at the heart of the problem there, I believe.

Any list of "summary advice" can never ably cover that range. Effective advice for a formerly-and-sometimes-still known-as Asperger Syndrome person is indeed going to be hugely different than effective advice for a non-verbal non-independent person.

As the above paragraph implies, the world can barely even agree on names for the most basic sub-categories of autism. We've a long way to go.

Also it bears mentioning that people with milder forms of the condition have their own unique crosses to bear, e.g. imposter syndrome, having people treat you as a fraud by default "because you seem normal", and other fairly significant lifetime burdens.

I found the former situation much worse. I was accused (subtly) of basically taking it at least once.

High levels of raw intelligence can mask emotional stuff that I suspect makes a lot of the high functioning people not really that high functioning, they are just able to compensate a bit more and be less outwardly effected to their peer group.

Consider, as a parallel, the dirty looks and snide remarks someone with cardiac issues or some other invisible disability get for using a handicapped parking space when they “don’t look handicapped”.

>I was accused (subtly) of basically taking it at least once.

You meant to write "faking it" here, right?

But how was the "former situation much worse"?

Surely lumping aspergers into the same general name of "autism" (like is the case now), makes it even more likely to be accused of being a fake when saying you have autism, as you wouldn't fit the stereotype of the high support needs person they have in mind (whereas people already understood that someone with asperger will not look "outwardly effected" like that).

It’s much better because I can say to some random, say, nurse that I have autism and they a general idea. Of things that are likely to be challenging for me.

Sure, but you could say aspergers before, and they'd have an ever better idea (as autism is too wide a spectrum). And doctors and nurses at least can grasp ASD 1, 2, 3 and so on, laymen, not so much.

That was never my experience. It was, for most of it's existence as a diagnosis, not well known at all outside of psychs and developmental people.

>There are people with autism who are nonverbal even as adults, who are not able to care for themselves. The challenges those people and their families face will not be addressed by any amount of awareness or affordances at work.

Well, this is about autistic employment though, not for high support autistic people who can't work regardless of "affordances at work".

So, it's not so much that the disability is "swept under the rug" in this case, but that this stronger disabilities are not applicable to the case.