I'm interested - for reasons. Does anyone have a sense of what this study means in a practical or actionable sense?
In toto, the conclusion of the paper:
> Together, these findings define a dual-layered model of molecular convergence in ASD: convergence through shared interaction networks in the wild-type state and convergence through recurrent functional consequences of interaction rewiring in the mutant state. More broadly, this work establishes a scalable framework for systematic interrogation of the autism proteome, enables prioritization of druggable protein interfaces, and provides a rational foundation for precision therapeutic strategies aimed at restoring neurodevelopmental trajectories.
I have no grounding here. Does anyone want to have a go at teasing the meaning out?
rickydroll · 2026-08-27 19:28:42 UTC
I interpret it as they think they can find treatments that will course-correct the development of a child, but they're not saying anything about fixing something that's already broken.
kelseyfrog · 2026-08-27 19:40:09 UTC
Brave to say on one of the most autistic web forums that autistic people have something that's broken :|
krapp · 2026-08-27 19:49:02 UTC
This isn't /g/ what are you talking about?
djaro · 2026-08-27 19:55:47 UTC
I mean, it's classified as a disability for a good reason.
I would guess that even if this platform has more autistic people due to being tech focused, autistic tech nerds and programmers are on the extreme end of high-functioning. Many low-functioning autistic people will never be able to have a job or live by themselves.
This is the same issue as high-functioning ADHD'ers saying "ADHD is my superpower", meanwhile people with severe ADHD do significantly worse than the general population in basically any metric, up to having a lower life expectancy.
This isnt to say its morally bad, theres nothing wrong with being autistic or having ADHD, but it is a disability. Just like someone who's deaf can live a totally happy life but still be disabled because they are not able to hear, someone with autism is disabled because they are not able to process social cues at the same speed, even if they are a great person and have a good life.
seanhandley · 2026-08-27 20:01:23 UTC
It depends, and that’s the point.
It’s such a wide concept. Essentially it boils down to how a brain processes sensory information and at what point it becomes overwhelmed.
We all have tolerances set at different gauges. It’s a disability if it’s at odds with the environment a person finds themselves in.
forestrywat · 2026-08-27 20:01:38 UTC
"Have a disability" and "broken" are not synonyms.
There's no judgement or moralizing in having a disability. Autism and ADHD like you mentioned are disabilities.
But the people who have them are not broken. Having a disability means some part of your life is more difficult. But that's very very different from you as a person are broken.
For example, if you can fix the environment and the person can now function equally to someone without a disability, then maybe it's the environment that's broken. If you can fix the social expectation and suddenly the person can function equally, then maybe the society is broken. Even if you cannot accommodate the person's needs, insinuating they are broken is not a great framing -- it creates a sense of pity rather than constructively looking at means to support them.
nick__m · 2026-08-27 20:32:04 UTC
What else but pity should I feel toward non verbal autistic people?
kelseyfrog · 2026-08-28 01:47:17 UTC
Compassion?
forestrywat · 2026-08-28 05:56:35 UTC
Love? Affection? Friendship? Camaraderie? Care?
All the stuff you feel towards any other human?
hoppp · 2026-08-27 20:58:33 UTC
What is strange about the disability is when neurotypicals attack autists. It takes less then 1 second for the negative bias to trigger.
If you see a person without legs, do you tell him he is a piece of shit because he can't run? So why harass autistic people?
switchbak · 2026-08-27 21:11:43 UTC
That's just people though, if you walk around with a scar on your head you'll see lots of knee-jerk immediate reactions. Some people are able to mediate those initial reactions and be kind, others just go with it and treat people poorly. Yes - some people are a'holes, and treat those without legs poorly.
The same is true of basically anyone that doesn't fit into what you typically see - there's always some people that will treat them poorly. It's unfortunate, but was probably adaptive during our evolution, and something we just have to deal with today.
aleph_minus_one · 2026-08-27 21:46:02 UTC
> If you see a person without legs, do you tell him he is a piece of shit because he can't run? So why harass autistic people?
If you have not yet realized it, here is a black pill for you: most people are deeply manipulative and bullying basically all the time. For example nearly all social rules that are commonly accepted in society are basically about which kinds of manipulations and bullying of other people are accepted by most people vs not.
With this in mind, the answer to your question
> So why harass autistic people?
is trivial: because it is currently socially mostly accepted.
hoppp · 2026-08-27 21:56:21 UTC
Yeah I agree. I think autists pretty much live in a dystopia.
They have to hide themselves because it's socially acceptable to harass them.
Their experience of the world is a disorder "to be cured"
If the future is here but not evenly distributed then the dystopia is here but not everyone lives in it. Some maintain it.
wredcoll · 2026-08-27 23:00:49 UTC
You went from "Neurotypical Peers are Less Willing to Interact with Those with Autism based on Thin Slice Judgments" to "refuse to interact with autists".
What exactly are we doing here?
hoppp · 2026-08-27 23:17:42 UTC
You are right, thats not what I should have written there.
wredcoll · 2026-08-27 23:00:02 UTC
> If you have not yet realized it, here is a black pill for you: most people are deeply manipulative and bullying basically all the time. For example nearly all social rules that are commonly accepted in society are basically about which kinds of manipulations and bullying of other people are accepted by most people vs not.
This is, in fact, not true.
hypfer · 2026-08-27 23:29:37 UTC
> For example nearly all social rules that are commonly accepted in society are basically about which kinds of manipulations and bullying of other people are accepted by most people vs not.
Can you elaborate on that?
inigyou · 2026-08-28 04:59:09 UTC
Name a social rule
hoppp · 2026-08-28 12:09:19 UTC
Unspoken rules have no name, they are learned implicitly
wredcoll · 2026-08-27 22:58:49 UTC
> Have a disability" and "broken" are not synonyms
They really are. Like, you can alter the environment all you want but someone who needs glasses to see has broken eyes. Is it super common and do we have a cure? Yes and yes, but it's still, you know, not working. Disabled. Busted. Broken. Whichever word you pick isn't going to change the reality.
forestrywat · 2026-08-28 05:28:56 UTC
"That person is disabled" and "that person is broken" fundamentally are different. You are supposed to fix broken things. We don't fix disabilities. We can support them, treat them, assist them.
Yes, having a disability is hard. But the person is not broken.
wredcoll · 2026-08-28 19:14:32 UTC
> We don't fix disabilities
What? Why not?
iinnPP · 2026-08-27 20:06:54 UTC
The problem is assuming the social cues are important at this point in evolution.
I'd say the opposite is true, frankly. I'm more worried about people's inability to follow simple instructions, like making a hamburger correctly.
hoppp · 2026-08-27 20:59:53 UTC
Social cues are important for reproduction. An autist guy might not notice when girls are attracted to him. So the chances of reproduction are lower.
inigyou · 2026-08-28 05:00:08 UTC
As an autistic man, I'm still not convinced women are attracted to men. At all.
SubiculumCode · 2026-08-27 19:56:48 UTC
Autism is a spectrum. Neurodiversity within and outside of autism is both intrinsically valuable and extrinsically valuable to society. However, not all phenotypes of autism should be viewed as neurodiversity, but as harmful. There is only so much that society can do to make severe intellectual impairments less disabling without identifying a cure for the intellectual impairment. The debate between medical versus disability models, neurodiversity versus pathology, inevitably gets pushed by those that want to classify everything into clean essentialist boxes, but that, I do not believe, is a helpful way to view the world. Not every condition is a pathology, nor is every condition benign if only society would do more to make it less disabling.
Muromec · 2026-08-27 19:44:13 UTC
I for once enjoy the glitches in my signal mixing module, don't want nothing to fix there.
creaturemachine · 2026-08-27 19:56:24 UTC
It's the normies that are missing out.
forestrywat · 2026-08-27 19:49:20 UTC
What do you mean "broken"? Autistic folks are not broken.
raducu · 2026-08-27 19:57:09 UTC
Nobody said they were, but broken in terms of neurotypical circuitry, yes
djaro · 2026-08-27 20:01:19 UTC
Autism is a disability. The function of the brain to normally process social cues is broken. In the same way someone who is blind has broken vision, someone in a wheelchair has broken legs, and someone with ADHD has broken executive function.
This isnt a moral judgement, theres nothing wrong with being disabled, but it remaims a disability that many people struggle due to.
hoppp · 2026-08-27 20:55:20 UTC
The disability exists when compared to neurotypicals but does not necessarily exist when compared to other autists.
As a comparison, if you put a bonobo with chimps the bonobo will be severely disabled socially, but it won't be when compared to other bonobos.
The fact that autists can communicate with each other does not fit typical models of disability. A blind person should be blind to another blind person.
SubiculumCode · 2026-08-27 22:39:19 UTC
There is interesting evidence that autism-autism social interactions are fairly vibrant. Everything is a bit more complicated than simple answers, no matter which way you swing.
forestrywat · 2026-08-28 05:44:10 UTC
You've agreed with what I said. Nothing here is counter to or in opposition to my point.
The person has a disability. Part of the person may be broken, but the person isn't broken. I'm autistic. My sensory processing wiring is different and arguably broken. But I am not. I'm disabled. I can overcome the broken parts that result in my disability with support.
nick__m · 2026-08-27 20:29:26 UTC
There a point on the spectrum where someone cannot function without supervised housing and another one where you have non verbal autistic folks.
But I agree broken is not the right word for those poor folks because they were never functional to begin with!
wredcoll · 2026-08-27 22:55:26 UTC
We need some word and "differently abled" is just silly.
Being blind is a problem. It's not a moral judgment, you aren't less of a person, but you aren't going to be driving any time soon.
forestrywat · 2026-08-28 05:26:36 UTC
Disabled is the word. Not broken. Not differently abled. We have a perfectly functional word for this.
mapontosevenths · 2026-08-27 20:34:25 UTC
Some autistic people have to wear helmets and spend all day rocking back and forth eating anything they find in the carpet. The are unable to care for themselves and depend fully on others.
These people are not operating within the nominal range of human behavior that might be classified as "functional."
Only 20-30% of adult Autistics can even hold a job. Not a 'good' job, mind you, ANY job.
hoppp · 2026-08-27 20:56:05 UTC
90% of autistics are undiagnosed and work.
switchbak · 2026-08-27 21:04:02 UTC
Wouldn't that be "???"% of autistics are undiagnosed? Because ... they're undiagnosed?
That study suggests that 65% of autistic individuals are undiagnosed. The 90% is only for middle-aged and older.
Skimming a couple (due to time constraints) of the sources mentioned in the study, one source [1] mention that "3 in 10 autistic people of working age are in employment", and the other [2] that "approximately 50% fail to achieve independence in their living status, employment, and close relationships"
It doesn't seem to support the claim that "90% of autistics are undiagnosed and work".
87.93% of statistics are completely made up on the spot.
DoctorOetker · 2026-08-27 23:20:49 UTC
107.2 % of statistics are undiagnosed
inigyou · 2026-08-28 04:56:26 UTC
You can't spell undiagnosed without unaided song.
Or gonad undies.
mapontosevenths · 2026-08-27 22:09:03 UTC
I kind of thought that the fact I provided a number at all implied that it referred to the diagnosed, but the point that we can't know what we don't know is fair.
Still, my point stands. Most people who have it badly enough to get diagnosed can't hold jobs. Autism isn't some quirky personality trait that makes you a special cool kid on Tik-tok. It's a government recognized disability.
forestrywat · 2026-08-28 05:53:01 UTC
I'm dx'd level 2 and have a job. I think your stats are out of date. Yes, unemployment is high in the autistic community. But it's not to the degree you suggest.
mapontosevenths · 2026-08-28 14:25:18 UTC
> I'm dx'd level 2 and have a job.
Me too, but you and are very lucky.
In my case I have uneven capabilities, but my worst functions are still average and my best are very high. It's far more common for the best capabilities to be average and the worst to be far below. It's like one of those character creation screens in a game where you get to distribute skill points and someone hit 'random'. I got lucky and there were plenty of points to distribute randomly. Most seem to have had fewer to start with.
> I think your stats are out of date.
I looked it up before I made that post yesterday. It's pretty current, unfortunately. There is a ton of variation regionally, and there are different definitions, etc... Like all statistics it's more complicated than the headline, but the TLDR is that globally the diagnosed adult population averages around that number and it's literally one of the worst forms of disability to have as far as employment goes.
I think it's less than this. Perhaps 25%-40%. But highly variable based on socioeconomic status.
But the parent post is also wrong. Statistics vary, but employment among autistic people is as high as 58% in the US (which shouldnt be surprising, given that many autistic folks have no diminishment of iq).
So, definitely huge unemployment rate, but not so dire are the gp suggests.
mapontosevenths · 2026-08-28 11:42:37 UTC
I think I know the study you mean. That misrepresents it.
It says that in the USA (numbers are much worse internationally) :
* 58% had EVER held a paid job since leaving high school.
* About 42% had never worked for pay.
* Nearly 80% of those who worked were working part-time.
* Only about 21% had worked full-time in their current/most recent job.
I live with a child who spends entire days with videos on his tablet. We can't take him anywhere because if the trip differs from what we told him (trip duration or locations), we have to abort the trip to prevent a meltdown. His inflexibility means he can't hold a job or go to school or training. He can't do household chores without prompting and handholding. He will never live alone or have anything resembling a functional life. We have to make plans for how he will live after his mother and father die. We have to make space for his meltdowns that seem to come out of nowhere.
His mother nearly bankrupted herself paying for private school for kids on the spectrum. His parents sued the local school system because they didn't have any teachers who had any skill with autistic children. couldn't protect him from bullying and couldn't or wouldn't follow the IEP. (Note: this is one of those events that ruin retirement plans). The state claims to have resources for my partner and her child, but when they try to get help, the state says it didn't realize she would need that much help.
Then there is the never-ending struggle to get appropriate psychiatric and psychological help for him, and if you think it's hard to find a psychiatrist for ordinary mental illnesses, finding someone who knows how to deal with kids on the spectrum is almost impossible.
His disability has had a negative impact on my relationship with his mother. As she has to make room for her child's emotional outbursts, I make room for my partner's angst about having a child who will never function on his own. There is a big loss of day-to-day intimacy because you never know when you will have to put up an emotional barrier against his behavior.
yea, in my eyes, that counts as broken
ElijahLynn · 2026-08-27 22:29:22 UTC
Thank you for sharing your lived experience, it is meaningful.
I suspect some who say they like autistic traits, mean "level 1" on the ASD.
May I ask if this child is level 2 or level 3 ASD? I'm imagining it is quite a different reality with level 1 vs level 2/3.
My child is a level 1. It has cost me thousands and thousands of dollars to get her help because no one wants to give her resources because she's so high functioning. So high functioning! Yes my child who has random panic attacks and bolts in random directions. My kid who had a meltdown because I forgot to tell a friend that if she goes to one particular park, they have to get ice cream. My kid who is 7 and was suicidal from the social isolation that's starting up. And now that she's self-harming, now people want to give help! But not for the under lying issues. She's so high functioning (aka female and coping decently). She doesn't need pragmatic language help or social help or any of that stuff. Her spiraling is just purely chemical imbalance. Here's some pills.
My kid is truly high functioning. Only professionals tag her immediately. For everyone else it takes some long term intimate interaction to realize something is wrong. Any autistic adult who says this is great is coping. I have talked to too many high functioning autistic women and there only seem to be two camp: lots of mental health issues with possible commitments or intense treatment that their parents poured so much money into. And never of those is okay or what I'd wish on a kid. I didn't even know it was possible for a 7 year old to be suicidal without a major life event and apparently this is just a thing with some high functioning autistic kids. This is not okay.
forestrywat · 2026-08-28 05:41:40 UTC
I'm dx'd level 2. I was diagnosed until later. It's hard to be an autistic kid, full stop. Nothing but empathy for you and your daughter.
If it's any consolation, childhood years can be very tough around that age for autistic kids, but many of us find significant communities once we get online and around other autistic people our own age. Many of us go on to be very successful and happy adults once we find our niche.
rickydroll · 2026-08-28 03:35:03 UTC
He's never been classified that way as far as I know. I would say somewhere between level 1 and level 2. He writes very well. But speaking person to person, not so good. And as I described, there's significant rigidity in his behavior. For example, when he cooks, he can't generalize. Cooking is by time, not appearance, food has to come the same packaging etc.
forestrywat · 2026-08-28 05:38:25 UTC
Level 1 is minimal assistance needed. Simply "requires support". Might need headphones sometimes or additional space to process feelings. This can often be just some extra coaching or training.
Level 2 is "requires substantial support". This is where there are significant obvious impairments to daily life. You may not see emotional reciprocity, and peer relationships may be difficult. Sensory sensitivities may be more pronounced.
Level 3 is where people may be nonverbal or not always verbal. They may need significantly different communication systems like pictures. Aggressive outbursts, repetitive and narrow interests, self harm like head banging, shutdowns or meltdowns from moderate to mild stimulae are not uncommon. They will likely need supervision and may need support to consistently complete basic daily tasks like eating, toileting, etc.
I'm diagnosed level 2. What you are describing does not at all sound like level 1. Perhaps you've flipped the scale and meant somewhere between 2 and 3?
rickydroll · 2026-08-28 08:26:16 UTC
You're probably right. I may have flipped the scale. I see most of what you describe in level 2 combined with significant difficulty being flexible. At the same time, he writes very well expressing his emotions and insights. He can handle basic things like hygiene, laundry and food prep if it's pre-packaged but has a hard time with emptying the dishwasher. Frequently when he does things around the house, he is watching videos on his tablet in one hand and using the other hand for the task.
cuttysnark · 2026-08-28 01:32:48 UTC
Sounds like your relationship is suffering. If it’s as you describe, in my eyes, that counts as broken.
Do you have any biological children? This child is not yours, you made that sufficiently clear.
999900000999 · 2026-08-28 02:48:14 UTC
Not everyone should be a step parent.
GP, you don’t have to do it.
I’d much rather be alone forever than treat another human being as a mere obstacle to my happiness.
rickydroll · 2026-08-28 03:48:10 UTC
It's one of those choice not choices. I love my partner a lot. We bought a house together with a great yard with a significant fruit and veggie garden.
Separating would be significantly destructive / damaging on both a personal and financial levels.
That said, I entered this relationship without fully understanding the impact of an autistic child. I would not condemn anyone who refused to be in a relationship if the other person had an autistic child.
999900000999 · 2026-08-28 04:34:23 UTC
> I would not condemn anyone who refused to be in a relationship if the other person had an autistic child.
Let me correct that for you,
> I would not condemn anyone who refused to be in a relationship if the other person had a child.
Being a step parent is one of the most difficult things a person can do.
If you can’t or don’t want to do it that’s fine.
rickydroll · 2026-08-28 05:08:48 UTC
That's a good correction. Heck, leaving space for the child to grow up and have their mom when they need them and not helping if it is not asked for is difficult at times.
From my admittedly limited experience, the parent and child have relationship that will keep you on the outside even if the family has made a conscious choice to include you as a step parent. I have made a conscious choice to be okay with being on the outside.
My deepest relationship and commitment is with my partner. Everything else is secondary... except maybe watering the plants in the garden during a drought.
999900000999 · 2026-08-28 06:56:37 UTC
Ok.
You have 2 options.
Stop making so many harmful assumptions about your partners child. Theirs a good chance he’s just weird and he’ll grow out of it, but you’re not exactly helping here.
Hell, to be honest I was weird as shit as a kid until my dad kicked me out and then I matured real quick.
If I had to guess my issue is that I’m essentially half asleep most of the time unless I have a Red Bull or 2.
Or you can always just leave.
Right now your post reads like ; “This annoying kid is messing up my relationship with his mom, I’m the victim here”
I’d venture to say all kids are annoying and if you can’t deal with that date someone without kids.
rickydroll · 2026-08-28 03:41:41 UTC
Yeah, it does suffer but we make a conscious effort to find the positive things in our relationship and life.
No, I do not have any children of my own. I am thankful for that because my ex-wife apparently was also autistic but not diagnosed until after divorce. On my maternal side of the family all of us kids inherited some form of severe depression through my brother was schizoaffective. I survived, found good treatment that left me feeling like myself with a clear mind. My brother on the other hand was tortured by his demons and ended up taking his life a couple of years ago.
Not having kids was a conscious decision because I didn't want to take a chance of spreading the family curse to the next generation
DoctorOetker · 2026-08-27 23:18:48 UTC
From the language of the paper, replace the commentor's "broken" with "mutant type" instead of unaffected "wild type"
slantedview · 2026-08-27 19:40:12 UTC
There's a CNN article that has some expert quotes for context, but isn't quite as in depth as the study itself: https://archive.ph/yBiM8
AndrewDucker · 2026-08-27 19:43:10 UTC
Nothing yet. This is incredibly preliminary, with lots of this being tested in frogs.
It hopefully gives hints which will be tested,better understood, and show actual mechanisms in humans. But probably not for years.
klipt · 2026-08-27 20:22:33 UTC
Dr: I have good news and bad news
Patient: What's the good news?
Dr: We have a two step treatment to improve your social-emotional life.
Patient: What's the bad news?
Dr: The first step is, we have to turn you into a frog...
inigyou · 2026-08-28 04:52:29 UTC
that's easy right? you just gotta ssik a ecnirp.
randomImmigrant · 2026-08-27 19:56:28 UTC
Here’s how I’m thinking about it (still digging into the details): across genomics, it’s become clear few traits have clear traceability to a few loci in the genome.
Instead, evidence has been growing that epistasis, the nonlinear interaction between genes and other genomic regions, predominates in explanations of most phenotypes.
What this paper does is show where upstream of the genome various combinations of mutations can interact to cause damage during development, thus leading to the phenotype. Rather than correcting a particular mutation, or targeting drugs to their protein products, we may find downstream protein-protein interactions that are strong drivers of the phenotype, and hopefully find ways to prevent/reverse these effects.
SubiculumCode · 2026-08-27 19:42:32 UTC
autism researcher here. I have not yet read this study. It will not be the kind of paper that many, including myself, can read quickly and understand. Autism is a multi-disciplined science, so there is a lot to understand. However, my initial sense from reading the abstract is that this paper might be a really really big deal and incredible new resource.
General problem statement: Many different genetic variants are associated with autism, some strongly, most very weakly. Many have suspected that this plethora of genetic variants might converge onto a smaller set of biological pathways affecting neurodevelopment in ways that results in an autism phenotype or phenotypes. This has been our hope, because the alternative scares the hell out of a scientist. The saying goes that if you met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism...meaning there is a ton of heterogeneity within the autism spectrum, even if a certain set of core autism symptoms are displayed. So there was a existential crisis that there is no "autism", just a billion autisms, where your sample size is always N=1. By demonstrating evidence that many variants converge on the same biological pathways, there is hope that understanding autism is tractable.
gignico · 2026-08-27 19:47:34 UTC
I thought the US government had just decided that the cause of autism was vaccines </sarcasm>
emptybits · 2026-08-27 19:54:47 UTC
No need for your </sarcasm> tag. The United States makes repeated claims linking childhood vaccines to autism.
Come now! It is clear that the sarcasm indicator wasn't suggesting that the government didn't really announce that. The sarcasm was in the invocation of governmental authority, which is thereby implied to be ill-founded and not worth listening to.
Have we gone back to vaccines after announcing Tylenol as the cause?
roughly · 2026-08-27 19:53:42 UTC
Out of curiosity, what leads us to treat ASD as an actual single disorder, as opposed to a billion different individual neurological profiles?
I'd expect one of the things that makes this difficult, too, is that there's a missing component of the "machine" - the genetics affect the pathways, which affect (maybe?) things like signal propagation or network regulation in the brain, but the actual effect of that is on the patient's experience of consciousness, and it's difficult for someone to get more than N=1 of those via commonly accepted legal methods - otherwise, we're all just looking at the outside of the box and saying "huh, this box acts differently than that box, weird."
Alex3917 · 2026-08-27 20:04:25 UTC
> what leads us to treat ASD as an actual single disorder, as opposed to a billion different individual neurological profiles?
We already do treat it as the latter. The medical definition of autism is basically just any neurodevelopmental disorder that isn’t ADHD.
reubn · 2026-08-27 20:15:04 UTC
What a ridiculous take.
kulahan · 2026-08-27 20:58:00 UTC
"Why don't we treat it as many disorders instead of just calling everything autism?"
"we do, autism is everything that isn't ADHD"
...what? I must be stroking out, but I have no idea what point you're making here...?
Alex3917 · 2026-08-27 21:11:44 UTC
My point is that autism is already treated by the medical system as many disorders and not as a single thing. The reason they all share a common label is for political reasons, where it makes sense to group them together. But the actual medical system does not treat them as having anything in common, let alone as being homogeneous.
coldtea · 2026-08-27 21:33:21 UTC
>But the actual medical system does not treat them as having anything in common, let alone as being homogeneous.
That's not really true. Not to mention the very TFA, and the research that led to papers like it, is based on the opposite.
Alex3917 · 2026-08-27 22:22:13 UTC
I mean you can literally upload your genetic methylation variants and bloodwork into Gemini and have it one shot a custom treatment plan for you, how much more personalized do you want? Obviously if you want hand holding from the medical system you can pay a psychiatrist or a functional doctor to do the same thing, but at this point the idea that treatment isn't personalized enough is frankly absurd.
coldtea · 2026-08-27 22:58:03 UTC
Is this satire?
preg_match · 2026-08-28 00:37:01 UTC
No, AI can greatly help with research. It helped me a lot during my cancer treatment, which was very complicated. Which makes sense, every cancer is different, and mine was quite crafty and unique.
But that's it. It helps with research, that's it. You still need doctors, typically multiple different doctors of different specialties, if you want correct treatment. The AI is a good starting point, so you can start asking your doctor the right questions, but it's never the ending point. At least, in my opinion. I'm sure it depends on the condition, and how much it follows a template.
kulahan · 2026-08-27 22:32:30 UTC
Ah, I can see how that would be the case. But I thought it was moving in the other direction? I am extremely ignorant here, so correct me, but the only example I know of is that they removed Asberger's Syndrome and turned it into generic Autism.
Alex3917 · 2026-08-28 03:11:58 UTC
Yes, that was a political decision based on the fact that people with Asperger’s weren’t able to access sufficient social support. But from a medical perspective, the two have basically nothing to do with each other; Asperger’s is primarily about the connectivity between brain regions, whereas (traditional) autism is more about functionality within brain regions. Obviously there is a lot of overlap and this isn’t necessarily the mainstream scientific interpretation, but I think it’s the most parsimonious way to define these terms.
inigyou · 2026-08-28 04:42:42 UTC
This hypothesis runs into the slight problem that autism and ADHD are highly co-occurring.
SubiculumCode · 2026-08-27 20:07:30 UTC
A lot of the behaviors by which autism is diagnosed (social communication, repetitive behaviors and restricted interests) are fairly high-level behaviors, dependent on a lot of cognitive/neural machinery beneath it. There is an idea out there that convergent behaviors that allow consistent diagnosis depends on this, as the resulting behaviors might results from differences in many different underlying processes, but the result at the higher level can be measured the same.
Analogy: Two programs can produce nearly identical behavior at the UI level, but be implemented very differently. Diagnosis operates partly at the "interface" level, but what happens underneath can differ greatly.
Comments
In toto, the conclusion of the paper:
> Together, these findings define a dual-layered model of molecular convergence in ASD: convergence through shared interaction networks in the wild-type state and convergence through recurrent functional consequences of interaction rewiring in the mutant state. More broadly, this work establishes a scalable framework for systematic interrogation of the autism proteome, enables prioritization of druggable protein interfaces, and provides a rational foundation for precision therapeutic strategies aimed at restoring neurodevelopmental trajectories.
I have no grounding here. Does anyone want to have a go at teasing the meaning out?
I would guess that even if this platform has more autistic people due to being tech focused, autistic tech nerds and programmers are on the extreme end of high-functioning. Many low-functioning autistic people will never be able to have a job or live by themselves.
This is the same issue as high-functioning ADHD'ers saying "ADHD is my superpower", meanwhile people with severe ADHD do significantly worse than the general population in basically any metric, up to having a lower life expectancy.
This isnt to say its morally bad, theres nothing wrong with being autistic or having ADHD, but it is a disability. Just like someone who's deaf can live a totally happy life but still be disabled because they are not able to hear, someone with autism is disabled because they are not able to process social cues at the same speed, even if they are a great person and have a good life.
It’s such a wide concept. Essentially it boils down to how a brain processes sensory information and at what point it becomes overwhelmed.
We all have tolerances set at different gauges. It’s a disability if it’s at odds with the environment a person finds themselves in.
There's no judgement or moralizing in having a disability. Autism and ADHD like you mentioned are disabilities.
But the people who have them are not broken. Having a disability means some part of your life is more difficult. But that's very very different from you as a person are broken.
For example, if you can fix the environment and the person can now function equally to someone without a disability, then maybe it's the environment that's broken. If you can fix the social expectation and suddenly the person can function equally, then maybe the society is broken. Even if you cannot accommodate the person's needs, insinuating they are broken is not a great framing -- it creates a sense of pity rather than constructively looking at means to support them.
All the stuff you feel towards any other human?
If you see a person without legs, do you tell him he is a piece of shit because he can't run? So why harass autistic people?
The same is true of basically anyone that doesn't fit into what you typically see - there's always some people that will treat them poorly. It's unfortunate, but was probably adaptive during our evolution, and something we just have to deal with today.
If you have not yet realized it, here is a black pill for you: most people are deeply manipulative and bullying basically all the time. For example nearly all social rules that are commonly accepted in society are basically about which kinds of manipulations and bullying of other people are accepted by most people vs not.
With this in mind, the answer to your question
> So why harass autistic people?
is trivial: because it is currently socially mostly accepted.
They have to hide themselves because it's socially acceptable to harass them.
It's been proven multiple times that neurotypicals refuse to interact with autists automatically https://www.nature.com/articles/srep40700
Their experience of the world is a disorder "to be cured"
If the future is here but not evenly distributed then the dystopia is here but not everyone lives in it. Some maintain it.
What exactly are we doing here?
This is, in fact, not true.
Can you elaborate on that?
They really are. Like, you can alter the environment all you want but someone who needs glasses to see has broken eyes. Is it super common and do we have a cure? Yes and yes, but it's still, you know, not working. Disabled. Busted. Broken. Whichever word you pick isn't going to change the reality.
Yes, having a disability is hard. But the person is not broken.
What? Why not?
I'd say the opposite is true, frankly. I'm more worried about people's inability to follow simple instructions, like making a hamburger correctly.
This isnt a moral judgement, theres nothing wrong with being disabled, but it remaims a disability that many people struggle due to.
As a comparison, if you put a bonobo with chimps the bonobo will be severely disabled socially, but it won't be when compared to other bonobos.
The fact that autists can communicate with each other does not fit typical models of disability. A blind person should be blind to another blind person.
The person has a disability. Part of the person may be broken, but the person isn't broken. I'm autistic. My sensory processing wiring is different and arguably broken. But I am not. I'm disabled. I can overcome the broken parts that result in my disability with support.
But I agree broken is not the right word for those poor folks because they were never functional to begin with!
Being blind is a problem. It's not a moral judgment, you aren't less of a person, but you aren't going to be driving any time soon.
These people are not operating within the nominal range of human behavior that might be classified as "functional."
Only 20-30% of adult Autistics can even hold a job. Not a 'good' job, mind you, ANY job.
In Uk they made studies about this: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/up-to-90-of-middle-aged-and-older...
Skimming a couple (due to time constraints) of the sources mentioned in the study, one source [1] mention that "3 in 10 autistic people of working age are in employment", and the other [2] that "approximately 50% fail to achieve independence in their living status, employment, and close relationships"
It doesn't seem to support the claim that "90% of autistics are undiagnosed and work".
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-buckland-revi... [2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-020-04763-2
Or gonad undies.
Still, my point stands. Most people who have it badly enough to get diagnosed can't hold jobs. Autism isn't some quirky personality trait that makes you a special cool kid on Tik-tok. It's a government recognized disability.
Me too, but you and are very lucky.
In my case I have uneven capabilities, but my worst functions are still average and my best are very high. It's far more common for the best capabilities to be average and the worst to be far below. It's like one of those character creation screens in a game where you get to distribute skill points and someone hit 'random'. I got lucky and there were plenty of points to distribute randomly. Most seem to have had fewer to start with.
> I think your stats are out of date.
I looked it up before I made that post yesterday. It's pretty current, unfortunately. There is a ton of variation regionally, and there are different definitions, etc... Like all statistics it's more complicated than the headline, but the TLDR is that globally the diagnosed adult population averages around that number and it's literally one of the worst forms of disability to have as far as employment goes.
See:
* https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-025-07139-6
* https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-026-07467-1
* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11861060/
* https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-buckland-revi...
But the parent post is also wrong. Statistics vary, but employment among autistic people is as high as 58% in the US (which shouldnt be surprising, given that many autistic folks have no diminishment of iq).
So, definitely huge unemployment rate, but not so dire are the gp suggests.
It says that in the USA (numbers are much worse internationally) :
* 58% had EVER held a paid job since leaving high school.
* About 42% had never worked for pay.
* Nearly 80% of those who worked were working part-time.
* Only about 21% had worked full-time in their current/most recent job.
* 19% had ever lived away from home independently
[0] https://drexel.edu/autisminstitute/news-events/news/2015/Apr...
His mother nearly bankrupted herself paying for private school for kids on the spectrum. His parents sued the local school system because they didn't have any teachers who had any skill with autistic children. couldn't protect him from bullying and couldn't or wouldn't follow the IEP. (Note: this is one of those events that ruin retirement plans). The state claims to have resources for my partner and her child, but when they try to get help, the state says it didn't realize she would need that much help.
Then there is the never-ending struggle to get appropriate psychiatric and psychological help for him, and if you think it's hard to find a psychiatrist for ordinary mental illnesses, finding someone who knows how to deal with kids on the spectrum is almost impossible.
His disability has had a negative impact on my relationship with his mother. As she has to make room for her child's emotional outbursts, I make room for my partner's angst about having a child who will never function on his own. There is a big loss of day-to-day intimacy because you never know when you will have to put up an emotional barrier against his behavior.
yea, in my eyes, that counts as broken
I suspect some who say they like autistic traits, mean "level 1" on the ASD.
May I ask if this child is level 2 or level 3 ASD? I'm imagining it is quite a different reality with level 1 vs level 2/3.
https://www.autismspeaks.org/levels-of-autism
My kid is truly high functioning. Only professionals tag her immediately. For everyone else it takes some long term intimate interaction to realize something is wrong. Any autistic adult who says this is great is coping. I have talked to too many high functioning autistic women and there only seem to be two camp: lots of mental health issues with possible commitments or intense treatment that their parents poured so much money into. And never of those is okay or what I'd wish on a kid. I didn't even know it was possible for a 7 year old to be suicidal without a major life event and apparently this is just a thing with some high functioning autistic kids. This is not okay.
If it's any consolation, childhood years can be very tough around that age for autistic kids, but many of us find significant communities once we get online and around other autistic people our own age. Many of us go on to be very successful and happy adults once we find our niche.
Level 2 is "requires substantial support". This is where there are significant obvious impairments to daily life. You may not see emotional reciprocity, and peer relationships may be difficult. Sensory sensitivities may be more pronounced.
Level 3 is where people may be nonverbal or not always verbal. They may need significantly different communication systems like pictures. Aggressive outbursts, repetitive and narrow interests, self harm like head banging, shutdowns or meltdowns from moderate to mild stimulae are not uncommon. They will likely need supervision and may need support to consistently complete basic daily tasks like eating, toileting, etc.
I'm diagnosed level 2. What you are describing does not at all sound like level 1. Perhaps you've flipped the scale and meant somewhere between 2 and 3?
Do you have any biological children? This child is not yours, you made that sufficiently clear.
GP, you don’t have to do it.
I’d much rather be alone forever than treat another human being as a mere obstacle to my happiness.
Separating would be significantly destructive / damaging on both a personal and financial levels.
That said, I entered this relationship without fully understanding the impact of an autistic child. I would not condemn anyone who refused to be in a relationship if the other person had an autistic child.
Let me correct that for you,
> I would not condemn anyone who refused to be in a relationship if the other person had a child.
Being a step parent is one of the most difficult things a person can do.
If you can’t or don’t want to do it that’s fine.
From my admittedly limited experience, the parent and child have relationship that will keep you on the outside even if the family has made a conscious choice to include you as a step parent. I have made a conscious choice to be okay with being on the outside.
My deepest relationship and commitment is with my partner. Everything else is secondary... except maybe watering the plants in the garden during a drought.
You have 2 options.
Stop making so many harmful assumptions about your partners child. Theirs a good chance he’s just weird and he’ll grow out of it, but you’re not exactly helping here.
Hell, to be honest I was weird as shit as a kid until my dad kicked me out and then I matured real quick.
If I had to guess my issue is that I’m essentially half asleep most of the time unless I have a Red Bull or 2.
Or you can always just leave.
Right now your post reads like ; “This annoying kid is messing up my relationship with his mom, I’m the victim here”
I’d venture to say all kids are annoying and if you can’t deal with that date someone without kids.
No, I do not have any children of my own. I am thankful for that because my ex-wife apparently was also autistic but not diagnosed until after divorce. On my maternal side of the family all of us kids inherited some form of severe depression through my brother was schizoaffective. I survived, found good treatment that left me feeling like myself with a clear mind. My brother on the other hand was tortured by his demons and ended up taking his life a couple of years ago.
Not having kids was a conscious decision because I didn't want to take a chance of spreading the family curse to the next generation
It hopefully gives hints which will be tested,better understood, and show actual mechanisms in humans. But probably not for years.
Patient: What's the good news?
Dr: We have a two step treatment to improve your social-emotional life.
Patient: What's the bad news?
Dr: The first step is, we have to turn you into a frog...
Instead, evidence has been growing that epistasis, the nonlinear interaction between genes and other genomic regions, predominates in explanations of most phenotypes.
What this paper does is show where upstream of the genome various combinations of mutations can interact to cause damage during development, thus leading to the phenotype. Rather than correcting a particular mutation, or targeting drugs to their protein products, we may find downstream protein-protein interactions that are strong drivers of the phenotype, and hopefully find ways to prevent/reverse these effects.
General problem statement: Many different genetic variants are associated with autism, some strongly, most very weakly. Many have suspected that this plethora of genetic variants might converge onto a smaller set of biological pathways affecting neurodevelopment in ways that results in an autism phenotype or phenotypes. This has been our hope, because the alternative scares the hell out of a scientist. The saying goes that if you met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism...meaning there is a ton of heterogeneity within the autism spectrum, even if a certain set of core autism symptoms are displayed. So there was a existential crisis that there is no "autism", just a billion autisms, where your sample size is always N=1. By demonstrating evidence that many variants converge on the same biological pathways, there is hope that understanding autism is tractable.
https://www.factcheck.org/2026/08/trump-and-rfk-jr-repeat-fa...
I'd expect one of the things that makes this difficult, too, is that there's a missing component of the "machine" - the genetics affect the pathways, which affect (maybe?) things like signal propagation or network regulation in the brain, but the actual effect of that is on the patient's experience of consciousness, and it's difficult for someone to get more than N=1 of those via commonly accepted legal methods - otherwise, we're all just looking at the outside of the box and saying "huh, this box acts differently than that box, weird."
We already do treat it as the latter. The medical definition of autism is basically just any neurodevelopmental disorder that isn’t ADHD.
"we do, autism is everything that isn't ADHD"
...what? I must be stroking out, but I have no idea what point you're making here...?
That's not really true. Not to mention the very TFA, and the research that led to papers like it, is based on the opposite.
But that's it. It helps with research, that's it. You still need doctors, typically multiple different doctors of different specialties, if you want correct treatment. The AI is a good starting point, so you can start asking your doctor the right questions, but it's never the ending point. At least, in my opinion. I'm sure it depends on the condition, and how much it follows a template.
Analogy: Two programs can produce nearly identical behavior at the UI level, but be implemented very differently. Diagnosis operates partly at the "interface" level, but what happens underneath can differ greatly.