Hot Topic: Is Autism Really Not a Spectrum? Responding to Uta Frith

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Neurodivergent Experience

Episode: Hot Topic — Is Autism Really Not a Spectrum? Responding to Uta Frith

Hosts: Jordan James and Simon Scott
Date: March 13, 2026

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Overview

In this passionate, unscripted “Hot Topic” episode, Jordan and Simon react in real time to a recent article—penned by renowned autism researcher Dame Uta Frith—arguing that autism is no longer a spectrum. The episode becomes a deep dive into the lived experience of the neurodivergent community, a candid critique of historical autism research, and a fiery defense of the inclusive, spectrum-based model of autism identity. The hosts dissect the implications of Frith’s position, its ramifications for diagnosis and community, and the broader societal forces shaping these debates.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Immediate Reactions to Uta Frith’s Article

• Intensity of Emotion: Simon and Jordan start the episode “burning hot” with anger and frustration at Frith’s claims, describing the article as an attack on the community they’ve worked so hard to foster.
  • Memorable Moment [03:10]: Simon describes Frith as “just gaslighting, shitting and destroying the autistic community as we know it,” emphasizing the personal cost and community impact.

2. Overview and Critique of Uta Frith’s Arguments

• Frith’s Position:
  • Frith calls autism a “neurodevelopmental disorder” defined by “problems in social communication and interaction” and “repetitive restrictive behaviors.”
  • She suggests the spectrum model has “collapsed,” advocating for at least two subgroups, separating those with intellectual disabilities diagnosed early, and those diagnosed later (often women) without intellectual impairments.
  • Frith expresses skepticism about “masking” as a scientifically valid concept.
• Hosts’ Critique:
  • Both lambast the outdated, deficit-based framing of autism, condemning the “colonial” and pathologizing language that ignores autistic achievements.
  • Quote [06:22, Simon]: “Her and Simon Baron Cohen… responsible for the bullshit that we have to deal with… We’ve been for years trying to debunk it, and successfully debunking because we’re speaking from lived experience.”
  • Highlight the hypocrisy and harm in excluding lived experience research: “All these researchers...start from a scientific bias…that autism is bad.” ([07:41])
  • Point out that defining autism exclusively by visible, high-support-need cases erases the diversity of real autistic lives.

3. Dangers of Reverting to Narrow Diagnostic Categories

• Community Impact:
  • Frith is accused of “divide and conquer”—a move Simon interprets as motivated by budget concerns (government “shill” label).
  • The dangers are real: “She wants to destroy the community. The community that made you and me brothers...has brought color to my life.” ([14:33])
  • Quote [13:26, Simon]: “She is trying to shatter our community...She is trying to save the government money.”
  • Diagnosis as Identity: The hosts advocate for self-diagnosis and identity-first language, reinforcing the importance of the spectrum model for self-understanding and solidarity.

4. The Misrepresentation and Gatekeeping of Autism

• Masking and Gender Bias:
  • Frith dismisses “masking” as lacking scientific merit, but the hosts point to decades of lived experience—especially of autistic women—as evidence.
  • Quote [27:42, Simon]: “[Frith says]... women out there who have been suffering through masking, being tired all the time...they don’t really exist because I don’t think they do. Oh, my actual—”
  • Critique the stubbornly male-centric, Eurocentric DSM diagnostic criteria, which fails to capture how autism presents in non-male, non-white populations.
• Language of Disease and Dehumanization:
  • Frith’s language referring to autism as “disease” and autistic people as “diseased” is called out as offensive and regressive.
  • Quote [31:53, Simon]: “She just called us diseased. Let me say that one more time, listeners… This just called us diseased.”

5. Countering Pathology with Strengths-Based Narratives

• Autistic Accomplishments:
  • Simon and Jordan repeatedly highlight how neurodivergent people have driven human progress—technology, music, science, and artistic innovation.
  • Urge society to see investment in neurodivergent children as investment in the future, rather than a financial drain.
  • Quote [17:12, Simon]: “When you invest in neurodivergent children, you invest in the future of this country…[we] bring diversity into everything that we touch.”
• Policy Context:
  • The hosts interpret such articles as tactics to shift public opinion and justify government attempts to restrict support and funding for neurodivergent kids.
  • “It’s a public opinion piece…attempting to try and change the rhetoric and the narrative. And it’s dangerous.” ([15:14])

6. The Risks of Scientific Ego and Stagnation

• Science vs. Lived Experience:
  • The hosts argue lived experience is dismissed at society’s peril, and call out academic protectionism.
  • Quote [39:53, Jordan]: “If at any point somebody’s research...there’s a breakthrough that takes away the clout...they will fight tooth and nail. And I feel like that’s what’s happening here.”

7. Broader Implications: Technology, Diagnosis, and Identity

• Trends in Diagnosis:
  • Briefly discuss over-diagnosis concerns in ADHD, impacted by modern screen culture, while re-affirming autism assumptions stand separate.
  • Fascinating speculation on the neurodevelopmental impact of kids’ relationships with technology and AI, and how brains might change in coming generations.
  • Quote [44:56, Simon]: “Our brains are molded all the time...and if our interactions are with a robot...what are we going to have? Neurotypicals, neurodivergence, and phone-brain people? AI-brain people?”

8. Final Thoughts and Reading Recommendations

• The hosts conclude by urging listeners to read work by other respected autistic advocates and not rely solely on scientific authorities—especially when those authorities dismiss lived experience.
  • Resources Mentioned: “The Autistic Experience: Silence Voices Finally Heard” (by Simon), works by Devon Price, Eric Garcia, Luke Bearden, Steve Silberman.
  • Quote [48:40, Jordan]: “Go and read about lived experiences…don’t just fall for the first person that’s got a name tag with a hint of credentials. You can work for 40 years and the research be wrong.”
• Humorous warning about AI’s potential to perpetuate bad information:
  • Quote [49:04, Simon]: “What if AI suddenly says this is what autism is? Oh, because it’s grabbed it from this article…”

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “She ain’t going to bring us down. She’s trying to shit all over us with her freaking cognitive dissonance and, I think, dementia, because that’s the only way I can describe it.” — Simon [03:10]
• “Diagnosis as a spectrum is critical for identity, support, and our sense of belonging. Without it, we go back to being fragmented and isolated.” — Jordan [paraphrased, throughout]
• “Self-diagnosis is valid...Do not let anybody fucking tell you what you aren’t.” — Simon [12:52]
• “Society loves gatekeeping. She’s literally gatekeeping autism.” — Simon [31:13]
• “What if AI suddenly says this is what autism is?...Telling you, AI is—don’t believe it anyway.” — Simon [49:04]
• “We actually have answers now. And she’s trying to take those answers away and be like, I know better than you.” — Simon [38:36]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [02:08–04:50] — Initial reaction to the article; setting the emotional tone
• [05:08–11:47] — Dissection of the article’s scientific claims and host pushback
• [13:26–17:53] — Debate on the spectrum; attacks on the “divide and conquer” mentality
• [25:46–29:58] — Critique of masking dismissal and gendered diagnostic flaws
• [31:13–37:11] — Language of disease, racial/gender bias in diagnostics, and gatekeeping
• [41:25–44:56] — Social policy, diagnosis trends, and technology’s impact on neurodevelopment
• [48:40–49:20] — Final recommendations, reading suggestions, and AI warnings

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Tone and Style

• The hosts are candid, often irreverent, and emotionally charged, blending humor (“goddamn tree stumps!”) with biting critique.
• They balance personal storytelling (their roles as advocates, the importance of community) with political analysis and scientific critique.
• The language is fiercely protective of the neurodivergent community; they repeatedly assert solidarity with listeners and urge self-empowerment.

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Conclusion

This episode is a blistering, highly personal rebuttal to any attempt to shrink autism back into a narrow, medicalized box. For listeners invested in neurodivergent rights or the evolving conversation around diagnosis, identity, and policy, it’s a must-listen—alternately validating and rallying, with no punches pulled.

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Transcript

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[Jordan James]

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[Jordan James]

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[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

oh hot hot hot hot hot

[Jordan James]

hot hot hot hot hot.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Hello and welcome to the Neuro Spicy. I am burning. I am, I'm hot.

[Jordan James]

Is that hunker, hunker Burning love and

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

all the wrong way so I'm so angry.

[Jordan James]

Welcome to this week's Hot Topic. You may have noticed that there was a rerun in your feed yesterday. That's because I've been away in Italy having a Multobendi time and we've come back and we were gonna just record next week's episode and an article has been fired to me by Jordan, which may as well have been lit on fire and sent by a catapult halfway across the country. And he was like, we have to talk about this. But I must admit I'm relatively quite low on spoons and a little bit overstimulated from traveling up and down Italy for the past few days. How? I know, how terrible for me. But we have to talk about this. So you're going to hear a lot of my Reactions sort of in the moment. But you're a little bit peeved, aren't you, mate?

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

All over social media, this absolute hag has been straight in, okay? Just gaslighting, shitting and destroying the autistic community as we know it. Something that I've personally been trying to build up for the past seven years of my life, with everything that I've ever been through, trying to help people, trying to build people up, trying to make people feel good about being neurodivergent, being good about being autistic. Calling myself the autistic photographer. Traveling the world, showing people how beautiful the world is with my photography, doing workshops, trying to make kids feel better about being autistic. And this bint just comes out and she's like, no, Everything you autistic people are doing, everything you advocates are doing, you specialists are doing. Including shitting on Luke Bearden. Not directly, but might as well be everything that all these wonderful people, including my gorgeous friends, I'm the Scott, have been doing for these years, trying to build up the neurodivergent community. She has in one fell swoop tried to shit. Try to. Because she ain't going to bring us down. She's trying to shit all over us with her freaking cognitive dissonance and I think dementia, because that's the only way I can describe it. It is an absolutely terrible article. She's also been on a bloody podcast spouting her crap, Utah Frith in this article, why I no longer think autism is a spectrum. Oh, really?

[Jordan James]

Okay, should we go? Okay, well, let's see where we go from here, shall we?

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

And breathe.

[Jordan James]

And breathe. Yeah. So I skim read this this morning and there's of course a couple of things that have definitely stood out to me that made me go, ooh, our Cantona. So article begins. It's posted in. It's a publication I've not actually heard of before, which is the TES magazine.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Yeah, them, by the way.

[Jordan James]

Okay, so let's, let's start, shall we? I feel more and more under pressure to really think about this problem, says Dame Utah Frith, referring to the exponential rise in the number of young people being diagnosed with autism. The article quotes somebody saying that the ASD is almost tripled between 2015 and 2025. This is EHCPs for the number of children, accounting for 40% of total increase in EHCPs. Article states it's a rise that has placed unprecedented strains on schools and led the government to include autism as a focus of an independent review into rising demand for services for mental health, ADHD and autism, which is set to be

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

reported later this year, which I'm really annoyed about.

[Jordan James]

This isn't news to us. Nope. So that review is welcomed by Frith, who is emeritus professor in Cognitive development of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University College of London and the person who pioneered much of the research that underpins our current understanding of autism. Now I will stop there. That instantly makes me have a little bit of a red flag because a lot of our understanding of the neurotypical understanding of autism is definitely not correct.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Oh, it's wrong. I mean we, we. We've done episodes on how wrong they are their stereotypes and blowing them out their water. It's the myths of autism. She's the one that comes up with this bullshit. Her and sack of Baron. Not such a Baron Cohen. That would be an actor. His cousin Simon Baron Cohan also responsible for. Of the bullshit that we have to deal with that we have, like I said, been for years trying to debunk and not trying to successfully debunking because we're speaking from lived experience. For anyone listening, go and read my book. Go and read the book, the Autistic Experience that in that book. Go and read anything by Dr. Luke Bearden. Look at anything. Go and read stuff. Neuro Tribes for Rest in Peace Steve Silverman Neuro Tribes My God, there is so many great books out there that there's just this. It.

[Jordan James]

Anyway, so they've sat down and have a. And had an interview with this game. Talk to her, I bet. Oh yeah. Anyway, so the first question that they asked is what is autism and how has it been traditionally defined? To which they responded with it's a neurodevelopmental disorder, which is to say that there is some pathology in the brain existing from birth. Some people object to the word disorder, but that's what I would call it.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Of course she bloody would.

[Jordan James]

It's lifelong and the main features have to do with distinct problems in social communication and interaction. There is also an additional problem with what's called repetitive restrictive behaviors. This can present as narrow interests or sensory issues. Neither of these characteristics have been researched sufficiently. My lifetime's work has been to try to explain how you could have these particular difficulties.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Why? I'm just going to interrupt. Why are they difficulties? Why are they difficulties? They literally have changed the world. Is this woman absolutely insane? Does she just not look at the history? Because this is. This is this woman's problem right from the start. Is it? And, and I wrote this in my Article that I put on my Facebook page, if you want to check that out. There's a lot of. A lot of anger is that they. All these researchers, all these people researching, all come from a scientific bias. It is a. It is a bi. You cannot start with a bias. And that bias is that autism is bad, is that neurodivergence is bad and that synaptic pruning. The difference we go through, which is never mentioned in this article, which shows you that she is. Because she knows that it will prove her wrong. She knows that the. The. The synaptic pathways being pruned differently will prove her wrong because it does show the connection between us and more severely disabled autistic people. It does show that it's a fact. Is. Is. You can't start from autism is bad. You can't start from that. That, that. That. That. That. That is. Was it conscious bias or predetermined bias? Yeah.

[Jordan James]

Which puts all scientific researchers defunct. You cannot start with a predetermined bias.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

You can start with a high hypothesis, but you can't. You can't work with that hypothesis if it doesn't show. And it doesn't show. It only shows with some kids. And that's why she wants this. The article will obviously go into it, but the idea is that she wants severely disabled, intellectually disabled autistic people just for them to be autistic, because that suits her rhetoric, that suits her research that matches her hypothesis.

[Jordan James]

A scientist that goes, we need to change the results, that it fits my thesis better. Of course. This is going to go well, isn't it? Yeah. So they've continued. 20 years ago, behavior geneticists came to the conclusion that the symptoms to do with repetitive behavior of a different genetic origin from the ones relating to social communication difficulties. So that is interesting to her because I wonder how much the whole concept of autism will continue to hang together if we do find a genetic base, a different genetic basis for these two halves. But this is all still in flux over the years. The basic definition of autism that I've given you, which is already makes me just go, she's lifelong and neurodevelopmental. And that there are communication difficulties and restricted behavior has remained the same. It is generally accepted, but the interpretation of that definition is a different matter because we have made it more inclusive.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

I mean. Yeah, exactly what I said. It's just this idea that repetitive behaviors and that it's bad, restrictive behaviors is bad, everything's bad. And it's like, yeah, okay, so it's really interesting that I'm holding a phone in my hand, invented by neurodivergent people that I'm able to use this computer in front of me that's invented by neurodivergent people. Neurodiversion. People discovered sound, discovered, you know, waves of light, you know, all sorts of stuff. Everything we have in the world, and I put this in in my article, is for good and often for bad. We have changed the world, whether you like it or not. And to just dismiss that we're autistic, that to dismiss that these behaviors are bad and because they're not always bad, then somehow that doesn't suit her rhetoric.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, it's very like colonial sort of language, isn't it? It's. We're going to talk about them, I know them, we need to change them. Yeah, it's not, it's not good.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

It's the ultimate cognitive dissonance.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, it is, yeah. So the next question that the interviewer asked is, do you mean that the definition has come to include more people? And they have responded, yes, nothing is a neat category and we want to include the not so typical cases. And so we widened the criteria and the idea came about that autism isn't just a single category, it's a spectrum. But that's very difficult because what's notable about being part of a huge spectrum that we all belong to is we're all neurodiverse. We can accept this because all our brains are different, but it makes a medical diagnosis completely meaningless. Oh, just now this is what as self diagnosis is valid. Oh, you do not need a doctor to tell you that you are autistic. If you have autistic traits and you feel a part of this community and you believe you are a part of a neuro tribe, do not let anybody fucking tell you what you aren't. Self diagnosis is valid. I will continue with the purely categorical approach. You have a very rare number of cases that were quite precisely defined and then lots of people who just missed that it was felt this wasn't quite right, which is how we came to a spectrum based approach. But that still wasn't enough. Because of various cultural factors, the spectrum has gone on more and more accommodating and I think now it has come to its collapse. This is something that I don't think has been quite recognized because people still hang on to the idea that there is something that unites all the people who are diagnosed as autistic. I don't believe that anymore.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Goodness me, she, she is trying to shatter our community. It's, it's divide and conquer it. And it's. It's 100%. In. In my opinion, it's 100%. It is based on the fact that she is trying to save the government money. She is a. A government.

[Jordan James]

That's a shill.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Shill. Sorry, Not. Not a hill. Shill.

[Sponsor/Advertiser]

She.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

She is 100% just, just trying to be like, okay, too many people are getting diagnosed. That's costing the government too much money. Too many. Too many kids are being helped in schools. Too many, you know, and it's putting pressure, and the kids that really need the help, they're not getting the help. And it's like, oh, my God. So not only is she trying to take apart the community that we have so desperately tried to create because we are so desperately lonely most of our fucking lives. And this woman wants to destroy the community. The community that made you and me brothers, that made my. My life change for the better, that has brought friendships and family, brought color to my life.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, it changed my life.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Exactly. We have changed each other's lives. We have changed other people's lives. Other people have changed our lives, all because of this community. And she's like, now we don't, we don't want that anymore.

[Jordan James]

Have you just tried suffering?

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Yeah. Have you just tried being alone and miserable because you're not autistic enough? And it's, it's, it's just disgusting. But I just know there's people out there going to be like, yeah, this is great. This is wonderful. Well, fuck you too.

[Jordan James]

Well, the thing is, is what I find a lot of the time is people to get policy through Parliament will not work on the policy. They'll work on the public opinion.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Oh, hell yeah.

[Jordan James]

And this is what this is. It's a public opinion piece. It's attempting to try and change the rhetoric and the narrative. And it's dangerous.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

It's very, very dangerous wanting to blame migrants for all the problems in the country. It's those people's fault. And all those people just like, well, I'm just trying to get a better life. But, you know, fuck me, right?

[Jordan James]

Yeah, it's. It's amazing what happens when you destabilize governments and remove people from their land. And they will, they will come here because we tell them how great and safe it is.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

I mean, she literally wants to take help away from children because it costs

[Jordan James]

too much money, apparently.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

That's literally a monster.

[Jordan James]

We don't know how you're a monster. So we're going to change the way in how we believe they should be helped.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Yes. Do you want to, do you want to know? At least, at least we could live our lives being like, whoa. We, we dedicate ourselves to doing this podcast in, to help more children, to help people feel better and to advocate for more money being given to kids. Because when you invest in neurodivergent children, you invest in the future of this country. That's what you're investing in. You're investing in people who in the future are going to maybe run companies, hire more people, give more people jobs. Because the innovation, the, the invention, the, the, the scientific brain that we have, the, the artistic brains that we, we have because we feel and see and act and experience the world differently and that we bring diversity into everything that we touch. That is what you're investing in. But they just see what to use investment, they just see it as a drain on the resources because they don't want to invest in their children. Invest in the fucking children. Invest in Neurodivergent children as well as neurotypicals can change the world. But don't for one second think neurodivergent people are a drain on society. They're an investment, you spanners.

[Jordan James]

One of the things that really sort of new insults. They're all new. Like, I try and keep them as PG as you can, but also make them very interesting and eclectic. But what are the bloody tree stumps? God damn tree stumps. One of the things that gets me with this though, is if people realized how much infrastructure to modern technology we as a community of people, as a neurotype, have brought to the world, they would realize that we are literally like an economic boom waiting to happen if they just invested into it. That's the bit that baffles me. I'm just like, get us in the workforce, accommodate for us and watch us fly. That's the bit that just melts my brain.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

It's not new information. As much as I don't particularly like Simon Baron Kahan, he.

[Jordan James]

I've watched every time you say that, my brain just goes autism. Very nice.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

I've. I've watched him do talks where he does talk about the fact that neurodivergent autistic people in cave times probably were the ones that invented fire.

[Jordan James]

And the wheel.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

And the wheel. Like, he does say that. He says that this, this part of evolution because. Because, to be fair, the first time I thought of it as part of evolution was because of him and because of other books of his colleagues that I'd read And because I was reading about evolution and then neurodivergence came up in my research of evolution and I was like, oh. So I didn't connect the two until the, like it was obvious to me through the research. You know, I didn't just. Oh, I'll just. I fancy that. That's an interesting.

[Jordan James]

Now you were pattern matching.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Because it's, it. Because it's fecking obvious and just. I know. Gaslighting.

[Jordan James]

Anyway, we'll get to the last question before we, we move on because the. I've just scrolled down and the, the question after this one's a freaking doozy. What would be a more accurate way to think about autism, if not a spectrum? And they responded, I think at least we have to have two big subgroups. I read that as super groups and I was thinking of like bands that like have different members. The people who are diagnosed in early childhood, usually between the age of three or five, totally missing the second window of synaptic pruning. There's depending on things like their intellectual abilities and language. And another group diagnosed much later which just completely eradicates people that have developmental processing. This population is different. They're diagnosed much later. It is made up of a lot of adolescents and among them a lot of young women, which just shows the lack of research. These are people without intellectual impairment who are perfectly able to communicate verbally and non verbally who might feel highly anxious in social situations. They are perhaps characterized mainly by a sort of hypersensitivity. So we're already getting into sort of here. That group is increasing at a rate that is just frightening. While the rate of the first group is only moderately increasing. And in autistic children with intellectual disability there has not been any real increase. That groom's group seems quite stable.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Well, I just, I, I want to bring this up. Okay. So one frightening. Fuck you. The only thing frightening is, is the, the amount of money they're going to have to spend on us. But also most of the ones that diagnose later on don't get any money for it. So that's not frightening.

[Jordan James]

If anything, I've paid for it.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

I don't get paid. So I've actually been paying out myself for my own disabilities as well as most people who don't get PIP have to. But the idea that there's not been any real increase in the other group is just, well, obviously, which means that there's not more autism. If you widen the category of what neurodivergence is, it's going to reach A further net. So it's like, oh, in this very small pond where I've only got a few fish, I catch all the fish. And that hasn't increased. But since I'm putting my net further out, I'm catching more fish. But then, of course, there's more fish out there because there is more neurodivergent. There is more autistic people like you and me of this different subgroup than there is of the original alleged subgroup. Yeah, it. It's. It's. It's not hard to figure that out. And why is it. Why is it frightening? What was frightening about discovering and helping people?

[Jordan James]

A lot of the energy that I'm getting from this particular lady is like, you know, it's Marie Antoinette. Oh, people are starving outside. Then give them cake. That's genuinely the energy that I'm getting from this is like, well, have you just tried suffering? Right, so the. Finish this section here and we'll go to a little break after this because I need to cool off. Says, I think people in the second group, which is, you know, not the early diagnosed, the later diagnosed group, really do have problems. I would definitely not say they are making it up, but I would say that these problems that can perhaps be treated much better than under the label of autism. I would fight for that label to be limited to. To the first group.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Right, right. So in one hand, she's like, you're not making it up. And in the other hand, she's like, you're making it up. Yeah, we're just. We're just going about our lives. Just. We. We don't need any help. We're all good.

[Jordan James]

This is crazy. This.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

I like. I honestly, it's like a wrestling hill that is just like. I want everyone to actually hate me. Yeah, I. I think that she's got some sort of brain disease or something,

[Jordan James]

because I genuinely feel like this was like when stone cold shook Mr. McMahon's hand. I was like, wow, we've reached that point, have we? We've run out of ideas. So we'll turn. Yeah, well, he's freaking heel turn. This article is crazy, mate. It is absolutely crazy. And the really frustrating thing is, is as a somebody with a journalistic background, the questions are so loaded.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Oh, yeah, of course they are.

[Jordan James]

Like, four shells. Like this. Like John Wick. Four shells in the chamber. Like shots fired.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Like, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but someone's getting backhanders from the government. I. I always think. I think everything's corrupt, my friend. I think everything's. I think the roundabout built at the end of my road is because someone got a backhander, but there you go.

[Jordan James]

Well, that's politics. It's not what you can do for the people, it's what you can do for the people that pay well. We will take a short break here and we'll take some words for some of our sponsors and some of the wonderful people out there. We will be right back with your Hot Topic. We need to cool off

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[Jordan James]

Hello. Welcome back to the neurodivergent Experience. This is your Hot topic. Sponsored by Tegrady. We got that Tegrity.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

We we got the tig. There's a few people that I know that don't add integrity.

[Jordan James]

Come here on the Neuro Divergent Experience. Two for one. We should buy one, get one free.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Integrity Tuesday how we keep our integrity

[Jordan James]

welcome back to the Tegrity Farm Tigride Town for the Tigrid people.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Anyway, I've had to have an ice bath just to cool off. It didn't work. All the ice is melted and I'm still feeling hot.

[Jordan James]

I looked at my methylphenidate and I was like, maybe another won't hurt. Yeah, it would. Okay, well let's continue with gaslighting. This. This is mental. Right, here's the next question. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, could an explanation for later diagnosis be that some people, particularly girls, are able to successful mask their symptoms? I hope you're sitting down. Their response, the masking idea has no scientific basis. Yet everybody, including the research and the clinicians, has been enamored with this idea.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Oh, everyone but her.

[Jordan James]

Everyone. It's understandable because they listen to the lived experiences of people who say they've been masking that they spend their time imitating what neurotypical people do, and they're exhausted every day because of this. So the harm is not the masking, but the exhaustion afterwards. I can't understand that because exhaustion could arise from lots of causes. I expect we could say we are all masking all the time, trying to adopt to our society's norms. So this. So from this point of view, I'm very critical of this idea. That's correct, Wendy. We all wear masks, metaphorically speaking.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Oh, my God. It's like. It's like you can't think. It's. She can't be worse than this. And then she just goes, by the way, women out there who have been suffering through masking, being tired all the time, having burnout, having lived experiences, having been gaslit by doctors, by men mostly, let's be honest, you know, all those problems that you've had, well, they don't really exist because I don't think that they do. Oh, my actual.

[Jordan James]

It's like X rays got invented and they go, there's been a really big increase in broken bones.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Do you know what this feels like? It's like the first woman that gave birth went, my God, that's the most painful thing ever. And everyone who didn't go through it went, eh, you're just being over the top. It can't be that bad.

[Jordan James]

Have you tried suffering?

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

I'm almost speechless. I'm just.

[Jordan James]

I can't believe that we finally did it. How many? Over 100 episodes in, and Jordan James is speechless.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

It's just again, once again, please, please anyone that's like, maybe she's right or anyone that just wants to know more, read the autistic experience. Silence Voices Finally Heard. And it's called Silence Voices Finally Heard. I picked that name because we have been silenced by people like this, by idiots like this all our lives, People talking over us, and it's. There's nothing about us without us. Now, I'm not saying that every autistic person out there who has an opinion is right. But when an entire group, an entire community gets behind an idea, you can't dismiss it. It's called research. Research is asking many, many, many thousands and thousands, thousands of autistic people, thousands of autistic women, what is your experience? And they all say the same thing. And this woman's like, nah, I'm right, you're wrong. The narcissism, the narcissism, it's insane. This is Donald Trump level narcissism. It's crazy.

[Jordan James]

I'm not even gonna bother going down there. Here we go. So it continues. Are you ready? No. No. There have always been girls with autism. The ratio was assumed to be 4 to 1, and most recently 3 to 1 in children diagnosed before age 10. This ratio has remained the same over decades.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

And the reason it's remained the same for kids that young when they get diagnosed that young is because the DSM 5 hasn't been updated to include more things for girls. It still hasn't been updated. I've been doing this for seven years. Seven years ago, I was told it needs to be updated seven years ago. And seven years later, with all the information about young neurodivergent women that has come out, they still won't change the DSM 5. It should be the DSM 6 and it should include more things about being a girl. But it's still based on, by the way, it's not just sexist, it's racist. It's still based on white boys. Yeah, it's still based on white boys.

[Jordan James]

Yeah. It's colonially. It's literal. Just colonial language. This, it always reminds me of, like when you see the ancient alien programs and they go, oh, the people of this country could definitely not have made something so sophisticated. It has to have been aliens.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

She's gatekeeping. Autism.

[Jordan James]

This is mental.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

She's gatekeeping.

[Jordan James]

Here we go. I shall continue. I just want to always reiterate when I'm talking, I'm reading quotes here. This is not my opinions at all, but just put it. Yeah. So the dame said. The dame. Is there a cultural bias against identifying girls and women's as autistic? Have they been unjustly overlooked? I don't think so. We know, for example, that psychopathy is overwhelmingly male. We ask why psychopathic girls have been overlooked. I haven't seen anything like that. There are just diseases that are more common in males and diseases that are more common in females.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Okay, I literally have steam coming out of my ear. She just called us diseased Let me say that one more time, listeners, our faithful supporters. This just called us diseased. The.

[Jordan James]

His brain's gone. I am very intrigued to see who. I'm now very intrigued to see who this person is and what their research is based upon.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

I think that a lot of. I think that a lot of her research is based on Asperger's research.

[Jordan James]

Wow. Yeah. No, I'm definitely gonna have to do a deep dive into this person and go watch what she beef. What is she beef? It wouldn't surprise me if they're autistic. And this is just the most incredible element of friendly fire I've ever seen in my entire life. But I shall continue with said article. Another way that the category of autism has changed is that Asperger's syndrome is. No. Is now no longer used as a diagnostic term. What effect has that had on how we understand autism? Here we go. Asperger's syndrome was introduced as an official diagnostic term in the 90s as a way of including people who would not fit the original autism description. Was it introduced in the 90s? That feels like it was a lot earlier than that. These were people who had fluent language, sometimes a high iq, and yet still had very typical symptoms of autism. This was a small group, but once the label was introduced, parents who wanted their children diagnosed were almost all pushing for a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome. The label had acquired great cachet, perhaps because it was associated with certain figures from history and some famous scientists. Perhaps the label held hope that even if a child needed significant support, they might have hidden superpowers that could enable them to do well in certain niche occupations. This category was becoming desirable for the wrong reasons, and it was eventually abandoned. In the latest diagnostic manual, I think the consensus was, we have the spectrum, so why do we want anything else? That was an interesting decision because it assumed a person could meet the diagnostic criteria for autism, whether or not they had language difficulties or intellectual difficulties. However, it was assumed that one could specify the levels of support needs. But what actually happened is that, sadly, the spectrum was stretched over and over into including people who would never have met the criteria of Asperger's syndrome. The spectrum has collapsed, but we might still find meaningful subgroups, each with its own label. That's my view, but I know that other people will be totally against this by.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

There's a picture in. In. In this article. The smuggiest look on her face. Just this. Just.

[Jordan James]

The editor's done a good job of riling people up.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

I will give them that to be fair, no one's probably ever heard of this crap magazine. I certainly haven't. And now everyone's heard of it, but I don't think they're gonna get the support they thought they were.

[Jordan James]

Here you go, mate. I've just found a little article here. Her students that she has mentored under the. Some of the names are Simon Baron Cohen, Maggie Snowling, Tony Atwood, Francesca Hape,

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Tony Atwood's and another very divisive figure. I'm not a fan at all.

[Jordan James]

It's interesting how they're in her, like, family tree of mentorship. That's.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Well, I literally, I'd literally say so I'm back. Is that it? It just hurt. The way she's talking reminds me of the way that he would talk and in his earlier papers, which I've read and did not like at all, he did a lot of damage. He was the one that came up with the idea that we don't have empathy. So. Ah, yeah, right.

[Jordan James]

There's a lot of dehumanization language in here, isn't there?

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Yeah, I think it could be friendly fire. I, I, I, I think that it's, it's very, very possible.

[Jordan James]

Have you noticed this, I just have to ask, have you noticed this? How often a lot of these people are enamored with the Asperger's syndrome diagnosis? Because so many people are afraid of the autism diagnosis. And a lot of the time, and I believe, you know, if you even look at, like, the crossover between ABA and how it treats homosexuality and neurodivergence, that's what this reminds me of. It reminds me of people that are closeted homosexuals, that are incredibly homophobic. Yeah, that's what this reminds me of.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Yeah. Oh, no, I, I, I completely agree. It's, it's because she's in that subcategory in her own mind that we are in. She's like, well, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not autistic. So if I'm not autistic, then other people who are like me, which is probably us, are also not autistic. That's, it is definitely that.

[Jordan James]

It shows how dangerous the ego is, doesn't it? How much, how much of a ripple effect one person's ego in a position of power can have on, on society. It's really dangerous.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

It, it's, it's horrific, it's damaging. There's gonna be a lot of autism mums. And I'm not talking about autistic mums. Autism mums. That, that group of women who like to define their entire existence by their child's disabilities. It's, oh, they're going to probably love this shit. They're going to love this because we did a hot topic before on a group in America that wanted autism, or what is it, severe autism that they love to smack in there to be its own subcategory of autism. It's, it's all about dividing us. It's all about ostracizing us into little groups into little neat piles. So the neurotypicals can, can be like, well, we can put these ones over here and we can put those ones over there.

[Jordan James]

She's kind of an autistic thing to put people categories and have top 10 lists and top fives. Do you know what I mean?

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

I, I, I would, I would. See, this is what annoys me about because the interview is obviously asking a questions. I, I would just, I'd grill her and I'd be like, exactly. How do you think taking away my autism diagnosis will help me? How will that help me? If I don't want to tell people I'm autistic because somehow it's a social disability that I don't want to shout from the rafters, that I don't want to give out that information, then that's down to me to just not do it. But at least I know who I am now. At least I have an explanation. If there's one thing I know about neurodivergent people is that we love an explanation. We want to know why something does what it does. It's why we have such amazing brains that can innovate and create and see things, is because we want to see the details, my friend. We want to see the details. And this is why it's so important to understand ourselves, is because we've gone through our entire life asking that question of why don't people like me? Why do people treat me like that? Why am I like this? Why can't I do that? It's why, why, why, why, why? And we actually have answers now. And she's trying to take those answers away and be like, I know better than you. You don't know shit. You don't know shit.

[Jordan James]

Because it doesn't suit their narrative. This is the really difficult thing that I find with, like, a lot of. I cannot speak on behalf of the scientific community. My master's degree is not in science. It's in radio journalism and sound storytelling. I do not have the knowledge to rebut people that have had, you know, scientific working minds or whatever. But what I do notice is if at any point somebody's research that they've worked on for 30 years, there's a breakthrough that takes away the clout of their research and completely debunks it, they will fight tooth and nail. And I feel like that's what's happening here. It's somebody that has. And obviously this being from the TES magazine, which is. I literally just had the link up here. I think it's the Times Educational supplement. So this is coming from the Times, which is predominantly a quite right wing paper. So we've got a couple more questions here that have been asked which, you know, they've said, how well do we understand the causes of autism? They've then asked, what does all this mean for how teachers support pupils? Where would you like to go with this shit show, my friend?

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Do you know what? People can read the article because I'm burnt out from it, because I already know why it exists. I know it's because they're trying to take away support for us, for, for, for the community. They're. They're trying to save money. That's all this is, that is all this is. It all comes down to the green, my friend. Or in nowadays the plastic.

[Jordan James]

It's a smear piece.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

It's, it is, it is there to justify what the government are doing, which is nefarious as fuck. Now I, I will go as far as saying that it is a possibility that there are a lot of people with ADHD that might not have ADHD that possibly are being diagnosed as ADHD because of the way that we have been so massively distracted over the last 10 years by our phones. And I would, I would think are, do some people become ADHD or have ADHD symptoms? Because I'm not saying that then they don't have ADHD symptoms. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying is, are they born ADHD or do they, are people actually becoming with ADHD symptoms because of the amount of distractions that we have nowadays? But I'm not, I'm not saying that that is actually the case. I'm saying that's something that might need to be looked at. That's something that I would like to see investigated as to, you know, does everyone who is diagnosed ADHD actually have ADHD or is it phone adhd? But that's not autism, dude. It's, it's completely different.

[Jordan James]

This is something that I've been thinking about for a little While which is the amount of very, very young children I see with screens. It's very often I will go to a restaurant or a supermarket or even the cinema and I will see what I imagine a child of maybe the age of 2 with 2 years old

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

screens attached to them. Yeah.

[Jordan James]

How is the brain gonna have a reaction of synaptic pruning? How is the white matter in your brain going to develop? If you are having relationships with screens at 1 years old, 2 years old you are going to be very distracted, you are going to be extremely under regulated and you're gonna have a very fast like working brain. As an example, I was on the plane back from Milan the other day and I was sat in a chair in the aisle seat obviously because I need to run and there was a kid sat next to me on the left and he did not look up from his phone once in the two hour flight. He was locked the in like hyper focus locked in. But what he was scrolling through really surprised me to the point of he was seeing Trump, Hegseth, Farage, Iran, Israel, like and I was like this Kidman's about 8 years old, 9 years old and that's what he's seeing and he's going boom, boom, boom, boom boom boom boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom boom. Just scrolling through it all. And I was absolutely baffled and I thought how, we cannot predict, how can we predict how these kids brains are going to develop now? We don't know. It's like when people were smoking in the 50s or people were doing cocaine in the 80s we were like we don't know the results this is going to have on the human brain until we've got 30, 40 years of research. We don't know we are in entering the great unknown. We don't know this whole relationship with phones is really messing up the data. So I completely agree with you. It's so hard to see where it's going. Have you got an underdeveloped brain and you're struggling with social skills because the deepest relationship you've ever had is with your phone or is it because you were born neurodivergent but, but now we've

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

got people who are having relationships with AI's eyes are taking away the, the, the need to think because I will just think for you. Chat. GPT is a very good tool to be used but people are now just relying on it, having relationships with it. That is it's in the future. How is that going to affect our brains? What are we going to have Neurotypicals neurodivergence and phone Brain people. AI brain people. Our brains are molded all the time by the, by the environment, by, by our interactions. And if our interactions are with a robot, which is what your phone is, it's just a robot. Now it's an actual robot because it actually talks back to you and gives you everything. I mean, I'll give you an example. Sylvia wanted to create a program in order to build up certain muscles in her body.

[Jordan James]

Yep.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Rather than doing the research, she just wrote it into Chat gbt. I was like, oh, and we're there now, are we? It's not. And I was really surprised by it.

[Jordan James]

I mean, I will very quickly do that. Sometimes I will do that because it gets the median. And it also helps me with my dyslexia. It helps, like, form my notes. But I wouldn't go on Chat GPT and go, I'm having problems with my relationship. What should I do?

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

I don't know. I've always been that person that wants to create. So if I was like, oh, okay, I want, I want to build up my chest or something, or I want to build up my traps and I will go and do lots and lots of research. I'm just going to put it into computer and ask a question and let that computer tell me what to do. Yeah, I want to be. But then maybe that's my PDA actually being good for me. Maybe my PDA is actually working in the way that it's a positive thing because it's like, well, no, I'm not going to use GBT to tell me what to do because no one's going to tell me what to do. I'll decide what to do. Chat GBT basically is like your Mrs. Giving you advice that you just don't want to follow because his misses Gave it to you. And, and I'm, I do have, I have that. Like, I'm aggressively against people just telling me anything. Like, I will figure this out by myself. I like people giving me advice and I'm happy to take to, to take it in, but doesn't mean I'm going to take the advice, but I will take my own advice if then I go and do all the research. That's how the neurodivergent brain differs because we look at the details. And I think that GBT is, and I in general is taking away our ability to do the work ourselves. And if you take away that ability to do the work ourselves, you are literally making your brain lazy and a lazy brain. And this is what really frightens me personally is one of the things that can lead to dementia, which really scares me.

[Jordan James]

Yeah.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

So I keep my brain active as often as I can because I have dementia in my family. So my dad died because of his dementia. He, his. I saw him just collapse. His brain collapse like Utah fifth brain just collapsed. I. I saw it in real time. And what I'm saying is Ute fifth should have been playing more video games and having less dementia because she's obviously lost her father freaking mind. But I won't lose my mind. So I'm not going to let AI do the work for me. I'm going to do the work myself simply because I need to keep my brain active. I don't want to be a zombie. And that's the future. That's my worry.

[Jordan James]

So off the back of this, for anybody that's listening, please go and read the autistic experience. Silent voice is finally heard. Go and read the work by Devon Price or Eric Garcia or Luke Bearden or Steve Silberman. Read about lived experiences, read about different types of people and do the research yourself. Don't just fall for the first person that's got, you know, a name tag with a hint of credentials because you can work for 40 years and the research be wrong.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

What if AI suddenly says this is what autism is? Oh, because it's grabbed it from this article.

[Jordan James]

Oh, it takes the basic out. Oh, no.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

See, telling you AI is don't believe it anyway.

[Jordan James]

Where's John Connor when you need him? Bye everybody.

[Co-host (likely neurodivergent advocate)]

Nightly. Bye.

[Jordan James]

Thanks for tuning in to the neurodivergent Experience. We hope today's episode sparks something for you. Whether it's a new idea, a bit of validation, or just a moment of connection. Remember, new episodes are every week, so be sure to join us for the next one for more than conversations and insights into the neurodivergent Experience. If you've enjoyed this podcast, help us grow. You can do that by rating and reviewing this show. Your support makes a huge difference in helping us reach more people who could benefit from these conversations. You can connect with us on social media, find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. Just search for the neurodivergent experience. Thank you again for listening and until next time, take care of yourself. You're not alone in this journey.

[Podcast Promo Voice]

What does it mean to live a rich life? It means brave first leaps, tearful goodbyes and everything in between. With over 100 years experience navigating the ups and downs of the market and of life, your Edward Jones financial advisor will be there to help you move ahead with confidence. Because with all you've done to find your rich, we'll do all we can to help you keep enjoying it. Edward Jones Member, SIPC

[Jordan James]

ACAST powers the world's best podcasts Here's a show that we recommend.

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[Jordan James]

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.