"Mild" and "severe" autism

Reports, relatives and sometimes clinicians describe autism Autism Autism is a difference in how the brain develops. It shapes how an autistic child sees and experiences the world, how they communicate, and how they respond to things like noise, light and touch. Read the full definition of Autism as mild or severe. It is a natural thing to reach for when you are trying to explain how much your child is struggling.

The trouble is that it does not hold up. Autistic people are not arranged along a line. A child may be very capable in one area and find another area genuinely impossible, and the same child can manage a whole school day and then fall apart at four o'clock. The National Autistic Society describes severity labels as inaccurate and offensive, because they miss how needs vary between areas of life and fluctuate with the situation.

There is a version of this that is real. Diagnostic manuals do record how much support someone needs, and a report may mention support levels. That is a statement Statement of SEN in Northern Ireland The legal paper in Northern Ireland that sets out a child's help at school. England ended statements, but they still run in Northern Ireland. Read the full definition of Statement of SEN in Northern Ireland about support, at a point in time, not a ranking of the child.

So when you need to explain your child to a school or a doctor, describing the situation usually gets you further: what happened, where, how often, and what made it better or worse.