🤗🌈 World Autism Awareness Day 🌞❤️

Hello everybody!! 🙋‍♀️ Today is World Autism Awareness Day. 🥰🥰

Perhaps members here on PPG have autism or maybe you have a person in your family or a friend who has autism. So this is THEIR day a bit extra and maybe give them an EXTRA bear hug!!!! 🧸 Of course you need to be super supportive EVERYYY day and not only today, but it is also nice if we give EXTRA attention to autism this day. 🌈🌞🌈

➡️ If anybody wants to write how autism affects their life or from somebody who has autism that you care about, you can do that in this forum. But of course ONLY if you want to tell about it.

➡️ And what do you think is important that people should know about of autism?

Thank you very much for anybody who wants to write. 🙏🙏 Anything about autism you want to tell you can do below. 🌸🌼🌻

As a physiotherapist I have patients with autism.
Every patient was quite different.
Empathy is the key.
Every day.
🙂

In our school we also have others with autism but i think the only what we can do is also be patient and what you said emphathy. You mean like being understanding right and that you try to see things how they see it and be nice and patient.

I remember there was a guy who had autism in my first years of bachelor. He was funnily asking questions out of nowhere in class, but some people used to talk behind his back... I learnt he had autism later from a worker there, and I guess that, because of him, they started to suspect autism in me too, but I've never got a diagnostic.

If ever I was born autistic, then one thing I would like "people" or "society" to know is rather to make diagnostic easier. It takes too much time (a few years) and administration to do. I quickly abandoned this idea on huge part because of that: visiting different people to get 1 "voucher" to go to the specialist (doctor), moving more than 1h away from home in busy transportations/city, probably making phone calls.. All of this is just acting as a repulsive to me.

Thank you very much @Lianshen!! Can I ask maybe a stupid question but how do they make the diagnostic? Do you have to talk with a doctor or they can maybe see with a scan in your brain? I dont understand it takes super long bc if you dont know what you have then they cant do anything to help anybody with autism.

Thank you very much @Lianshen!! Can I ask maybe a stupid question but how do they make the diagnostic? Do you have to talk with a doctor or they can maybe see with a scan in your brain? I dont understand it takes super long bc if you dont know what you have then they cant do anything to help anybody with autism.

From my understanding, you need to take an appointment with a generalist (family doctor) in order to get redirected to a specialist (like a psychiatrist, or even a doctor specialized in autism) with whom you will do a series of tests and interviews (hence many appointments) to assess if you have autism or not (that could include appointments with your family as well to see if your traits were present as a child, if you already are an adult).

From this point, you have 2 solutions:

1) Going to the "Autism Resources Center" (roughly translated), which is a public organism, hence the cheapest option. The problem here is that you have to wait maybe 1 year to get your first appointment. It's very long because there is a lack of budget, but you will probably be followed by several specialists.

You also have to fill some papers first, making it longer.

2) Going to a liberal doctor. It's faster, but also much more expensive.


Usually, it's also not well understood, even nowadays, so the first steps are sometimes taking very long: You may not get redirected by a doctor or anyone first, and spend years not even suspecting it. Then once adult, you might have other priorities that are also in conflict with going to the doctor, maybe far from home (for me, it would be more than 1h30; which would mean I'd need a full day just for 1 appointment, and much more to be ready for it), etc;

Thank you very much @Lianshen!! 🙏🙏 I think that is much too long!!! Bc if it takes so long than it can really be VERY difficult for persons with autism that nobody gives help that they need. But it can also be super difficult bc when do you have autism or ADHD or that you are a highly sensitive person or something else? But i saw one time on Dutch TV that people with autism can sometimes be super smart. But i dont know if THAT is the reason that they have autism or why this is the case. But they did not explain it more than that but they did mention it that it can be the case. 🙄🙄

Thank you very much @Lianshen!! 🙏🙏 I think that is much too long!!! Bc if it takes so long than it can really be VERY difficult for persons with autism that nobody gives help that they need. But it can also be super difficult bc when do you have autism or ADHD or that you are a highly sensitive person or something else? But i saw one time on Dutch TV that people with autism can sometimes be super smart. But i dont know if THAT is the reason that they have autism or why this is the case. But they did not explain it more than that but they did mention it that it can be the case. 🙄🙄

Well, I got news about it, and liberal cost around 3 to 600€ apparently, in France. So it's very expensive.
For the Autism Resources Center (CRA), you need a leter from your doctor, like I said, but it also means that he has to agree to write it down, and he could refuses even if he knows nothing about autism. Some peoplel apparently wait 6 months just for this first step... Then you have to call the CRA, then fill documents or give another phone appointment.

For intelligence, yes. It seems that intelligence in autism almost follow an inverted Bell curve, Many autistic people have average intelligence of course, but it seems that a greater proportion of autists have either lower or higher intelligence than average people. For the reason, I couldn't tell you. People are born this way, although some environmental factors seems to play a role as well (in early age/development)...

Well, I got news about it, and liberal cost around 3 to 600€ apparently, in France. So it's very expensive.
For the Autism Resources Center (CRA), you need a leter from your doctor, like I said, but it also means that he has to agree to write it down, and he could refuses even if he knows nothing about autism. Some peoplel apparently wait 6 months just for this first step... Then you have to call the CRA, then fill documents or give another phone appointment.

For intelligence, yes. It seems that intelligence in autism almost follow an inverted Bell curve, Many autistic people have average intelligence of course, but it seems that a greater proportion of autists have either lower or higher intelligence than average people. For the reason, I couldn't tell you. People are born this way, although some environmental factors seems to play a role as well (in early age/development)...

I think it is really bad it takes so much in France to know if you have autism. It is not a good way to help persons who can use it to make their life better.

And about the intelligence you can also sometimes see it in movies or on tv. And of course with movies it can be that they just did that for the story but not on tv or docus.