Scary coming and going

[rolanni]

OK! Scary medicine time! Researchers suggest (in an as-yet-unpublished paper) that there are fewer autism-diagnosed girls because the manifestations of "oversensitivity," "shyness," and "obsessional interests centered around people and relationships" are seen as typically girly, and not as worrisome to parents as those same symptoms are in boys.

Um, wow.

Are we going to see an uptick in girls diagnosed with autism, now? I mean, c'mon -- "oversensitivity"? And speaking as someone who is herself quite shy (stop laughing, you over there in the corner) how shy do you have to be to be labeled "autistic?"

The story's here

Comments

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Everybody is "pre" something, nowadays, to the point where I was told by a doctor some years back that he was scheduling me for a "pre-cancer screening."

No, he wasn't joking.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Can't remember who said this, but "We're all pre-dead."

[zola.livejournal.com]

It's almost like we forget that normal is a RANGE, not a POINT.

[grassrose.livejournal.com]

Two things about "pre-cancer screening" -

It could have been so that they know what everything looks like when it works properly (a baseline), but you knew that.

My mom had surgery for "pre-cancerous lesions". Given that this happened about thirty years ago, they probably took out more than they would have, today. Nonetheless, I think "pre-cancer screening" is WONDERFUL! :o)

~ R