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Simon Baron-Cohen is behind the “extreme male brain” theory of autism. It accompanies the widely circulated “Geek Syndrome”.
These have unfortunately contributed to a lost generation of those who did not fit the stereotypical idea & were never diagnosed, believed & supported. https://twitter.com/obrerx/status/1341132217364320256
These have unfortunately contributed to a lost generation of those who did not fit the stereotypical idea & were never diagnosed, believed & supported. https://twitter.com/obrerx/status/1341132217364320256
The book “Pattern Seekers” sounds very interesting, despite its reported & suspected shortcomings/blind spots; I am sure that systemising ability is well-correlated with a particular autistic-trait phenotype (geeks) & could very well have been genetically favoured evolutionarily.
I read the “Geek Syndrome” article in Wired in 2001 & took the Autism Quotient test every few years; I was always borderline. In retrospect, it’s screamingly obvious, but I didn’t meet the criteria for having a narrow idea of what an “extreme male brain” was. I never got support.
I’ll call out Tony Attwood specifically too for his biases that entrenched this; although he has done some pretty good advocacy work recently on recognising just how different autism looks in girls.
I listened to an awful & sexist conversation Attwood had with Richard Fidler a couple of years ago about autism in relationships - very much all about the “clueless male with the longsuffering emotionally-able wife” hahaha ugh. Attwood has issues with his dad.
#ActuallyAutistic
#ActuallyAutistic
