Ellie Wilson

You can't develop it in the middle of life and you also can't grow out of it.

That's another big misconception is that autism is something that affects someone throughout their entire life.

It's not something that goes away once you become an adult.

And I think there can certainly be autistic people that

learn all kinds of great strategies and access resources they need to sort of manage their disability over time.

There are certainly many cases of autism where you might not know from looking at somebody.

You know, we're going to talk about the spectrum shortly.

And that spectrum is really wide.

So there are all kinds of sort of assumptions baked in and stereotypes to address.

But the point is, you have it from the time you're born and you have it until you die.

So...

It is included in what we call the diagnostic and statistical manual.

So someone who is trained in psychiatry in medicine is qualified to diagnose autism alongside any number of other developmental disorders, intellectual disabilities, mental health conditions.

It's all under the purview of that DSM, which is the guidebook that helps people make those diagnoses.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

I mean, people learn to cope in different ways at different ages.

And of course, new stressors or circumstances can be introduced to an autistic person's life at any time.

So I don't mean to imply that the trajectory is linear.

What I mean to say is that

You know, the ways in which an autistic person presents can be quite obvious and earn a diagnosis at a very young age.