Attempts to Divide Autistic People Into “High Functioning” and “Low Functioning” Only Create Misconceptions About Autistic People

Originally uploaded to Facebook on April 5th

Attempts to Divide Autistic People Into “High Functioning” and “Low Functioning” Only Create Misconceptions About Autistic People

“That girl is very bad, she is severely autistic.” “He’s doing okay, he’s at the high end of the spectrum.” “She’s only a bit autistic.” “He’s at the severe end of the spectrum.” “Her son is low functioning.” Have you heard phrases like this before? What do they all have in common? They encourage a narrow view of autism and autistic individuals.

I’ll use myself as an example. I would usually be considered a so called high functioning autistic person. Or some might say I’m “mild”, or “only a bit autistic”.

Do these terms make sense when applied to me though?

The reason people might judge me to be “high functioning” is that I often interact socially with relative ease. The first thing I’d like to say is this isn’t always the case. But let’s say I had no difficulty with social interaction. Autism is not just difficulty with social interaction. (Also it’s not always clear whether autistic people have difficulty with social interaction or whether we simply have a different type of social interaction.) What about my need for sameness? I have not been able to go on a foreign holiday since 2010, because I found leaving behind what is familiar to me to be increasingly terrifying, until I decided for the sake of my mental health that I needed to stop entirely. In fact, I find travelling even within Ireland difficult. One of my great passions in life is cycling, but I often experience terrible anxiety when I’m cycling a mere 15 miles down the road, because I’m so far from the feeling of safety in my house. My need for sameness is such a problem that while others rejoiced at the lockdown ending, I was terrified until I readjusted to “normal” life, things were the same for two years, then all of a sudden they were changing.

I also have an issue common to autistic people called executive function problems, there’s a lot to explain in this topic, but it means my brain refuses to co-operate and I find it difficult to get tasks that are important to me done. But on other days I have what’s called hyperfocus, where I am getting so much done that I literally have to force myself to take a rest. So I could be “low functioning” or “high functioning”, depending on the day!

So, am I low functioning or high functioning? Am I mild or severe? Would it be more correct to say that none of these terms are appropriate?

If we say that having good social skills puts a person in the “high functioning” category, what are we to make of Carly Fleishman? Carly Fleishman is a non verbal autistic woman who used to run a talk show on you tube. Here is her interview with Channing Tatum:

So what category does she go in? She is non verbal, so is “severe”, but has a grasp of social interaction better than many “high functioning” autistic people, in fact better than a lot of neurotypical people. When you watch Carly Fleishman’s interviews (which you should because they are really funny!) you realise how little sense that dividing autistic people with all of these terms makes. She fits the nonsensical ideas of so called “mild” and “severe”, “low functioning” and “high functioning” at the same time, which serves to show that categorizing autistic people in this way doesn’t make any sense.