5 The Problem with “Autism Levels” – Topic Presentation
🇬🇷 Ελληνικά
1 Categorization and Its Shortcomings in Practice• It does not always ensure proper support and often leads to underestimation of capabilities and removal of autonomy, or conversely, to non-recognition and lack of support. This reflects an overall misconception about autistic functioning and what is actually needed for access and support.
• Direction and guidance toward normalization of behavior instead of real support. It reveals carelessness and indifference on the part of the system. And a subsystem—a behaviorist industry—that has taken over the situation in place of support, to which medical categorization and diagnosis lead in the form of “therapeutic intervention.”
From the lack of recognition and the existence of an “invisible level” (which I discuss in the post and video The Ableist Construct of “Camouflage”), to the direction toward behavioral normalization and indifference to support, the existing system and prevailing model is full of gaps and superficiality. It is officially left to the behaviorist subsystem, to which it grants authority, while the gap is also filled by other “alternative” subsystems that exploit parents’ sense of helplessness and the real lack of support (pseudo-therapies, even dangerous ones).
2 Perceptions Connected to Levels
The first thing that must be clarified about “levels,” however, is that we are referring to support—nothing more and nothing less.
Beyond the problems of categorization itself—whether it practically leads to support and quality of life, or merely reflects indifference and a channeling into the subsystem that has taken over—there are perceptions connected to these levels that need to be disentangled. These perceptions concern, more broadly, the framework of “diagnosis” (viewing autism as a “disorder,” and therefore a nosological entity, with levels translated as “mild” or “severe”), its historical context, and the dominant ideas and stereotypes that spread socially through the prevalence and authority of medical model approaches. They concern ideas of “high intelligence” or “normal behavior” that have prevailed as the basis for the division into levels.
I analyze these ideas connected to the categorization of diagnostic “levels” in my more comprehensive recent text on this topic: Three Distinct Problematic Points of the Medical Model and the Misinterpretation of “Levels.”
1. Overall disease framework, with gradations of mild and severe
Τhe word “autistic” is being redefined today within a different framework. In this framework, we speak of a mode of functioning; there are no gradations or levels within it—levels in relation to what? This does not negate any support that an Autistic person may need. All it tells you is that the person “is Autistic”, they do not “have autism”, because it is not a disease.
2. Eugenic and sexist origins of the “functioning” divide
This divide is linked to ideas of “high intelligence”, the “male brain”, and perceptions of disability as a measure of the value of human life. From this emerged the notion of “levels” as two extremes — “high-functioning” and “low-functioning.” These ideas have influenced the medical model throughout its historical continuity and have shaped perceptions and stereotypes that continue to permeate society.
• Eliminationist views regarding so-called “low functioning” are still expressed today. Temple Grandin, a highly privileged Autistic with access to Harvard, has expressed such views and considers that only “high-functioning” Autistics should be born.
• “Intelligence” as a comparative measure and criterion of value.
• Ideas of “productivity”, “usefulness” of people in society, and of “sociality”, as defined (also) in National Socialism as an inherent characteristic and its deficit (Gemüt).
• The origins of diagnosis within the historical context of National Socialism and the child psychiatry that prevailed as its continuation. Asperger’s separation of certain white Autistic boys who met criteria, and the extermination of all the rest, including all the girls. The impact is evident in the predominance of diagnosis in boys and socially in the stereotype of the white Autistic boy with “high intelligence”.
Recently, extensive historical evidence about the context of diagnosis has come to light, including in Edith Sheffer’s book Asperger’s Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna (2018). This article offers a concise and helpful review of the book: https://dsq-sds.org/article/id/864/
3. Perception of functionality as behavior based on allistic functioning
This is reflected in ideas about “camouflage”. The erasure and denial of the real difference in functioning. From this emerges the idea of “levels” as, on the one hand, pathologized “autism”, and on the other, the non-recognition of difference (and what that entails), reframed instead as a “personality type”. The behavioralization and psychologization of difference in functioning.
This is not playing a character, as an actor would. These are not characters. So what exactly is this neurotypical persona? And in terms of systemic access, what does it achieve—and how?
• This is also expressed in the idea of “therapy”, behaviorism, and the behavioral practice “ABA,” aiming to change “behavior” and eliminate so-called “Autistic behavior”. If the person themselves “achieves” camouflage, they supposedly do not need anything; they are normal. Or they have mental health issues, trauma, personality disorders, and other diagnoses for which they must seek therapy or “manage” individually. The aim is the elimination of Autistic existence through “behaviorism” — elimination they call treatment — or invisibility.
They just can't accept that we can be Autistic, because for them it's a condition that 3-year-old boys have, and not adult women. If they accept it they'll still see it as a "mild case" according to the medical model, because for them it is divided into "mild" and "severe," so "severe" is an issue (for 3-year-old boys again).
So for them, an undiagnosed adult Autistic woman is basically allistic with some "difficulties" that can be worked through in therapy, as with any allistic.
The medical model is very damaging.
• This point, too, is intertwined with and deeply rooted in the historical context of diagnosis — as are ABA, its ties to “conversion therapies,” and its founder, Ivar Lovaas.
• Projection of traumatic, antisocial, hostile, and inaccessible environments and systems as inherent deficits in “sociality” and “empathy”, as pathologized or negative “traits,” and as “behavior problems.”
• Victim-blaming. Mechanisms of rationalization and enabling of exclusion and abuse.
“Camouflage” is conveniently charged to us as something we do — a personal act of invisibility that some of us are supposedly “capable” of. A false status that maintains our lack of access and our oppression. And those who are seen as “not capable” are expected to try harder — or to achieve it through conversion therapies. A massive industry and system built on the promise of this false status, with long, exhausting conversion therapies that are traumatic and destructive. These practices can cause PTSD, while also making people — especially the children targeted — vulnerable to abuse and unable to assert their own will. This exposes children to numerous dangers and undermines their boundaries and self-respect.
The construct of “camouflage” as a goal of elimination and invisibility within dominant medical-model approaches.
- Denial of difference in functioning
- Camouflage framed as a level of functioning
- Camouflage is constructed as a personal act of invisibility that autistic people are charged with
- The separation of “behavior” as an independent entity
- The construction of an invisible “functioning level”
Dominant approaches shape social understandings of camouflage.
- Internalized ableism
- The idea that camouflage magically allows someone to transcend their own functioning and gain access.
- Camouflage as a social skill or an art
- Denial of difference, behavioral and psychological framing (negative or romanticised traits), personality type, level of functioning
- Acceptance of allistic functioning as superior and of the pathologization of autism
- Acceptance of camouflage as an act of invisibility charged to autistic people
As Autistic identity becomes destigmatized, more and more people who consider themselves “high-functioning” come to realize and accept that they are Autistic. However, they separate themselves from the pathologized stereotype, which they reject as part of their own identity.
Yet depathologization does not mean “levels,” with one level being pathological and another being a “personality type.” In reality, they have not accepted it. They have accepted something else about themselves. Then the impression of a “trend” is created, and all of this is recycled without resolution, offering itself up as a show and for exploitation.
Highlights
As long as we keep talking about “masking,” or focusing on “traits” and “behaviors” that need to be accepted, we remain in the wrong framework. We remain within a behavioral framework — focused on individual behaviors.
We talk about it as if it were a matter of etiquette.
Why do we typecast autism?
And why do we separate something called “autistic behavior”? What is it that we are covering when we say masking or camouflage? Something that exists somewhere else, without us?
At its core, all of this is a denial of difference in functioning.
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We cannot fake accessibility.
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No art, no skill, and no learning of a foreign language leads you to burnout.
Three Distinct Problematic Points of the Medical Model and the Misinterpretation of “Levels”
Η Ableist Κατασκευή του «Καμουφλάζ»
You can read the presentation, with the posts in full, here: Το Πρόβλημα με τα «Επίπεδα Αυτισμού».
Read on the blog
Δεν μιλάμε για «κόστος». «Μπορούμε» = «μπορούμε». ΔΕΝ ΤΟΥΣ ΕΝΔΙΑΦΕΡΕΙ.
Η Αυτιστική λειτουργία δεν είναι θέμα «etiquette». Παραμένουμε σε μία τοποθέτηση συμπεριφοράς.
(English)
Deconstructing Camouflage – Autistic Journals S2Ep1
Common Misconceptions About Autism Levels – What It Really Means (S1Ep5)
The Ableist Construct of "Camouflage"
Videos
Common Misconceptions About Autism Levels – What It Really Means
The Ableist Construct of “Camouflage”
Deconstructing Autistic Camouflage
Podcast Autistic Journals Project
A personal voice on the Αutistic experience, sharing a different understanding shaped by my journey. If parts of your experience leave questions unanswered, this open space for thought may be just what you’re looking for. Available in English and Greek (audio and subtitles).
Related Link (compiled material on ABA)
The Great Big ABA Opposition Resource List
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