Adults On the Autism Spectrum

Encounters with Disability: High-Functioning Autism

More and more people are being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in adulthood, after being undiagnosed in childhood. Often these are people who are verbal and may have normal or above-normal intelligence. They still experience significant difficulties in communication and occupational functioning. According to Alvares (et al., 2020), even when compared with other developmental disabilities, there is a lower correlation in individuals with ASD and adaptive functioning and IQ.

I have met someone with a diagnosis of ASD and was not aware of this until informed of the fact. Although the person was shy and avoided eye contact, I would never have assumed that the individual was on the spectrum otherwise. In retrospect, I can see some indications of his being overly focused on technical details and somewhat more literal in communication. It was not something I considered unusual or out of keeping with some other friends who are very conscientious, intellectual, and introverted.

However, I was both pleased and surprised about how frank this person was about talking about his late diagnosis and how it affected him as a person. He noted that at work, sometimes his sense of humor (or lack thereof) had resulted in people becoming offended, and sometimes he had difficulty picking up on emotional clues, such as when he was going on and on about a subject which interested him but should really change the topic. Although he was employed, he said that he knew he had missed out on some opportunities to advance himself, because he had been graded poorly during performance reviews on his leadership ability and his ability to keep his superiors informed about different tasks. He said he liked to do things his own way, which could sometimes result in getting into trouble at work.

This highlights how disability is a spectrum, and even when someone is highly functioning, he still may encounter obstacles when his brain is not neurotypical. No one at work was aware of his diagnosis (because it occurred so late in life), so he may have missed out on support and other opportunities because people were not aware of his difficulties in communicating in a socially personable manner.