Combining the Useful Notes of Asperger's Syndrome and Autism Spectrum

It has been decided on TRS in April 2021 that:

1. UsefulNotes.Autism be moved into UsefulNotes.Autism Spectrum, and
2. UsefulNotes.Aspergers Syndrome be merged into UsefulNotes.Autism Spectrum.

As of time of writing (Dec 16, 2022 at around 8pm PST), decision (1) has been implemented, but decision (2) has not, i.e. UsefulNotes.Autism Spectrum and UsefulNotes.Aspergers Syndrome are still separate pages. As recommended by Trope Talk, I'm opening this thread to finalize this TRS, and I have just launched Sandbox.Autism Spectrum, which contains the current content of UsefulNotes.Autism Spectrum.

Please feel free to discuss what we can do to handle this combination.

If we're merging Asperger's into the Autism page, unless I'm missing something, why are there still mentions of Asperger's in the sandbox?

Ah gotcha

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Dec 16th 2022 at 8:29:37 AM

I just copied and pasted the current content of UsefulNotes.Autism Spectrum into the sandbox and have not done any further edits.

EDIT: the link has been removed.

Edited by SamCurt on Dec 16th 2022 at 8:33:00 AM

I just took a glance and... it's really crappy, clearly below the standard of a Useful Note page.

For one thing, if it's titled "Autism Spectrum," then why the article seems to be exclusively using the term "Asperger's"... I think the article should start with history (Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger's independent observations of their clients), and followed by descriptions generally applicable to the autism spectrum as a whole.

I'd say that a rough outline of a merged page would be as follows:

• Introduction
• Brief history of social and clinical understanding (including the "Autism Spectrum Disorder" merge in the DSM-5)
• Traits (including how they're defined clinically and how they're defined by actual autistic people)
• Sociocultural aspects of ASD (including stuff like the dichotomy between autistic and allistic views of autism, common stereotypes, the neurodiversity movement, and the push against using the term "Asperger's," even in countries where Asperger's is still a separate diagnosis)
• Listing other pages on this wiki relevant to autism (e.g. Hollywood Autism, Creators on the Autism Spectrum, Autism in Media, etc.)

Edited by bowserbros on Dec 16th 2022 at 10:45:33 AM

I would as well suggest, in addition to controversy regarding the usage of "Asperger's", also the controversy of the so-called "functional labels". I think they are inter-related, to be frank.

Makes sense to also add that, yeah - there's been a lot of criticism and controversy around the "high-functioning/low-functioning autism" labels

There's also been some pushback against the term "Asperger's syndrome", since Hans Asperger collaborated extensively with the Nazis and was responsible for sending many disabled children to their deaths.

Yeah, I mentioned the pushback in the outline. And I agree with and that the sociocultural section should also mention the criticism/controversy surrounding functioning labels.

Edited by bowserbros on Dec 17th 2022 at 9:25:06 AM

I think we should also set some definitions straight in the beginning. At a minimum, I think the word "autism" should be used here just as a shorthand for the autism spectrum as a whole, since some places still see Kanner's and Asperger's autisms as separate conditions. I prefer the phrase "Kanner's autism" for the pre-2000s definition of the word "autism" (which is mostly based on Leo Kanner's observations).

Agree

Considering that the neurodiversity movement typically favors the DSM-5's umbrella label, I think it'd be best to touch on the separate diagnoses in the history section, and note in the intro and sociocultural section that even though the ICD (which is what is used outside the United States) still uses separate diagnoses, the umbrella version of Autism Spectrum Disorder is favored by the neurodiversity movement worldwide. The sociocultural section could integrate that discussion with the push against the term "Asperger's."

Edited by bowserbros on Dec 17th 2022 at 12:16:29 PM

Sorry for responding to this rather late—the cable internet broke down for the entire morning.

I made some major changes to the sandbox:

1. The original content is nearly completely commented out with the exception of the first paragraph. The consensus of the above indicates the article should be substantially rewritten, but I kept the old contents in case some can be reused in the draft.
2. I made section headers as recommended by bowserbros and started writing up some new content, although I've only written the "what 'autism' means here" clarification, as well as the beginning lines of the history section.

You are free to add whatever you think should be added to the sandbox, although anything added to it is subject to discussion on this thread.

I have added two points of the terminology controversies to the Sandbox today. I will write more the issue of functional labels, as well as trying to write more about the history part. I have convenient assess to medical libraries, which should help with the writing.

However, I would prefer people who are more familiar with the neurodiversity movements to write the part about it; while I believe I agree with most of its positions, I am not particularly familiar with its history and beliefs.

Tagging tropers who engaged in the discussion at Trope Talk here: ~bwburke94, ~Libraryseraph, ~MacronNotes, ~Nen_desharu, ~Nousername, ~The Mayor of Simpleton, ~WarJay77, and ~Zanreo, in alphabetical order.

Edited by SamCurt on Dec 19th 2022 at 11:32:37 AM

So, while I do have Asperger's, I know so little about any of this stuff that I'm not sure how much I could help. But I'll try and pitch in here and there if needed.

I also have Asperger's and while I'd love to help, I'm not exactly scientifically knowledgeable enough to go into any real specifics.

Just popping in to say that I made a small grammar tweak, and think that aside from needing some other grammar fixes that I don't have time to address ATM, the hidden material gives me the impression that the page is off to a good start...and after reading it, I feel extremely seen.

Same, I'm autistic and might try to help out where I can, but not sure I know enough about stuff to write a lot about those parts

Thanks for everyone's opinion. I just came back from vacation and would start writing this again; I added a bit on the naming part a few minutes ago. If anyone can suggest good resources that I can reference, that's even better—I'm not necessarily sure what I wrote is the current view of the appropriate community, and the one thing I work with fellow neurodiverse people is that it's a no-no to think my personal experience automatically applies on another one of us.

Apparently the ICD-11, which went into effect last year, finally adopted the merged "Autism Spectrum Disorder" umbrella label that the DSM-5 uses, so stuff about the ICD still listing classical autism, Asperger's, and PDD-NOS as separate diagnoses ought to be updated. The one major difference is the treatment of Rett syndrome, which is recategorized as a "developmental anomaly" in the ICD-11 rather than being removed altogether like in the DSM-5.

Thanks.