So you wonna' know what autism means, right?
In this video, I'm gonna be breaking that down.
I explaining to you exactly what system is for autism means all that's coming up.
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Okay.
Guys.
So I wanted to, uh, have this video, this chance to just talk about
autism and what it means, because a lot of people hear the term autism
and they don't know what it means.
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So autism, what does it mean?
I'm going to break down the more terminology in the origins of it here,
because I wanted to, um, I want to just go over it because I feel like
it's, it's a, it's an interesting concept to hear the word, but then
not know really what it's about.
So autism, like the word, if you don't get the word autism, right?
The word autism comes from a Greek word autos, meaning the self.
So autism basically means.
Alone.
Right?
Because autism is almost seen upon as being like alone in your own head.
Like your, your, the way you see the world is, is independent to
how everybody else sees the world.
I know typically everybody sees the world differently, but in terms of
someone who is on the autism spectrum, they interact with the world differently
to how a neuro-typical person would.
So there's two types brains that we can currently comes off.
Those a neuro-typical brain, which is the average everyday,
Joe, um, who just goes around.
Does life as life.
And then there's people who are neurodiverse, who are people
on the autism spectrum or ADHD and their neurological paths.
mended a bit differently on creation them everybody else's now that causes
the autism in the brain, because it's kind of like a new developmental
condition that actually happens.
And that's kind of what autism is now.
It's really interesting.
Um, Autism actually started the studies of autism have
been conducted since the 1940s.
Now back then there was two blokes who did it.
One was called Hans Asperger and the other guy was called Leo Kanner.
And they've both simultaneously at the exact same time, started studying
the exact same thing, which was basically what we now know autism.
Initially it was called hands.
Asperger's Asperger's syndrome, which is what I actually had
a diagnosis of when it was the terminology was Aspergers syndrome.
Now up to date, the DSM, which is like the American psychological kind of
way of criteria for diagnosing people with mental health conditions and
neurological conditions called the DSM.
in 2013, took the term Aspergers away and replaced it with just ASD, which
is autism spectrum disorder, because it covers like more big umbrella.
And I'll explain a little bit about that in a minute.
Why they did that up until it was, you know, hans aspergerd.
Asperger's syndrome.
And then Leo Kanner had, Kener, kenner syndrome.
And then he changed it from Kennar syndrome to early infantile autism.
And then they dropped the early infant tile because it was
obviously not just an infant.
It was in grownups adults.
They just call it autism and then hans, Aspergers, uh, you know,
the, they, they fuse them together to make the autism spectrum.
Now, the reason they did this is because when they were looking at the
types of people they were studying at the time, you had people who had.
Really low support needs, where they were able to function.
Typically had a really good vocabulary.
They were quite intellectually capable to go out and do, um, very
interesting complex skills, but then they liked social skills.
They liked emotional skills and then that's what they were labeled
with having Asperger's syndrome.
But the people that Leo Kanner was looking out for
early infantile autism, or just.
Autism where people who had really high support needs, they were not able to talk.
They had no, they were completely nonverbal.
They had no, um, functions of a certain motor skills.
They were unable to communicate on an intellectual level.
And there was no, um, there was no way of communicating appropriately with
these people at that time, because they didn't understand how this all worked or
where, you know, where it was going to.
Come in where they would be able to say, Oh, okay.
I can use like an app now to talk to this person because you've got
to think it was back in the 1940s.
they didn't have iPhones.
Didn't have iPads.
How on earth are you supposed to connect with somebody who couldn't talk back then?
And that's basically how it stood up until, well, 1940 is right up until the
eighties and the nineties has Aspergers.
Aspergers syndrome was a way of diagnosing people with a high
functioning autism, which again is a term we don't really use anymore.
And then you have a low functioning autism, which are the people
who had higher support needs.
So the interesting thing was then is that one of the DSM.
The, uh, the fifth edition of that came out in 2013, they looked at
the whole thing and they said, well, we can't have function labels like
high and low function, because what this implies is that this person
needs more support than this person.
But then if you say that, then is it that the people who need support, where
they have concerns, it would be low function should have all the support.
The people who have high functions should have no support, but that
wasn't really fair because the people who had high functioning Aspergers
syndrome diagnosis still needed support.
So this whole, like.
Area was a bit gray.
And they said, well, how do we do this?
So he said, well, if you fuse them together, they're just call it the
autism spectrum disorder for diagnosis.
Then it becomes very simple.
You have.
People who, uh, have aspergers syndrome, but then they'll just call it autism
spectrum disorder and people who have, you know, classic autism, but then they
just have autism spectrum disorder.
So you're able to offer them help and support equally, but then they can take
and use what they need fairly, which I feel is really good idea when the
DSM changed it, which is interesting.
But I still feel like the term Aspergers syndrome is used and is
still diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome in certain places in the world.
It's not completely taken away and I'm going to do a video all about.
That as well, because I feel like people think that autism Aspergers syndrome
in autism, it doesn't exist anymore.
But I think that's really, really interesting.
Now the, the autism is still used.
It's still the strongest term use.
There is some speculation over using autism spectrum disorder or autism
spectrum condition because a lot of people see that disorder is a difficult thing
to kind of put on somebody as a label.
When it could be cost as a condition.
Now, like I said, it's a new development or condition.
You don't, they don't grow into it and you don't grow out of it.
If you have it as a child, you'll have it as an adult.
It's something that is the way your brain has being set,
which is really interesting.
Cause a lot of people think that people can grow out of autism.
Autism is definitely.
Not curable and it's not a disease, so you can't catch it from somebody.
And it's definitely not curable because a lot of people say that, you know, you can
cure it with like bleaching and horrible things like that, which you just know,
no, you shouldn't ever ingest bleach.
And so there are some.
Really barbaric things that are said about autism and especially
a lot of people think that it's like made up and it doesn't exist,
which is completely irrelevant.
Of course it exists, you know, and we saw it played out in one of the
most famous films called rain man and rain man played by Dustin Hoffman and
Tom cruise was his brother in that.
And Dustin play as a, an autistic savant who actually has savant syndrome,
which is more of a, um, Different kind of like intellectual disability
than autism but it runs along side is kind of still on the spectrum.
Just about kind of like, Oh, add and ADHD kind of on the line.
Oh.
Into the spectrum, then savant would be right at the high end of the spectrum
kind of like just before dropping off and out of that spectrum and Savannah
center was very interesting, but it also is a it's a world away from what
you classes Asperger's syndrome now.
They portrayed that very well.
It was really good.
It was the first time people kind of got to grips with the term autism cause
they mentioned it within the film.
But one thing that the film feels represent is a fair view of autism.
But since then Hollywood have had a good chance at making things better.
And they've had shows like atypical and like the power ranges when there was a
guy on the spectrum of the blue ranger and the new movie on the spectrum.
And it's nice to see more and more shows coming out on having.
More relatable autism characters because people then have a lovely
way of relating to those and understanding those characters.
So that being said, I hope that this understood to you what autism means and
how autism came about and all the kind of background and history on autism as well.
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