Reading the Research: Catastrophizing

Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.

Today's article is some long overdue pushback against the Autism $peaks style catastrophizing of autistic lives and outcomes.  

For decades, studies on autistic people and our lives have typically focused on what we can't do, and what things we struggle in.  This is because of the history of the diagnosis and the medical field overall.  Things are labeled as illnesses, a treatment (typically just one, like for a broken leg) is prescribed, the patient does the treatment and gets better.  

This is simplistic, but it works for many physical ailments.  The thing is, autism is not that.  There is no broken bone.  Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition.  There is no one-size-fits-all treatment, and there never will be.  We are simply too different from each other.  Those individual differences have to be accounted for.

This study differs from those of the past by having a much broader focus.  Instead of starting and stopping the narrative with, "well, your kid is autistic, and they're always going to be autistic, so it's time to give up any dreams and hopes you had for your kid and prepare for a life of suffering," this study instead chose to see whether autistic children learn and grow in understanding and ability.  

Unsurprisingly, I hope, to anyone who's met an autistic person, the answer is yes.  While not every autistic kid will necessarily reach all milestones for "normal" communication or independent living, we do continue learning throughout our lifetimes.  Recognizing those successes is an important part of support for autistic people and our families.  It also goes a long way toward undermining the doom and gloom that medical professionals and even some parents project onto 

The study also examined what factors contributed to autistic growth and development of skills.  Unsurprisingly, it helped to have a certain amount of income.  Adequate income takes a significant amount of stress off the family, and allows for more options for family and singleton therapy, as well as support services, better schooling options, and their choice of doctors and medical professionals.  

I'll be interested to see what this group's research on adolescents shows.  This study only went up to age 10, which is definitely sufficient to prove that autistic people aren't magically stuck at the developmental age they're diagnosed at.  But the teenage years are distinctly more demanding and difficult than the years before them, and so that data would be exceptionally useful as well.  

For further information on this learning and growing (also called neuroplasticity), please also consult this podcast episode.

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)