I blame the DSM for this. DSM 5 merged multiple diagnostics into a single "autism spectrum disorder", which means that the average case of autism became more mild overnight. This moved where the boundary for "severe" autism is in people's heads.
I disagree. I don't think average people are influenced by DSM 5 definitions as much as they are by social media or TV shows.
The people I know in the medical field are becoming frustrated by how often parents bring their children in requesting an autism diagnosis when their child doesn't even begin to meet the current DSM definitions of autism. The social media version of autism has become its own separate entity.
This has caused a second-order effect where the severe ends of the autism spectrum are getting erased from public perception. It's really sad to encounter parents who think their child is autistic (diagnosed or not) who run into children who are severely autistic, as often they'll reflexively try to draw dividing lines between the severely autistic child and their own. It's sadly common to see these parents try to insist that "something else is wrong" with the severely autistic child because it's entirely different than what they've come to view as autism through their TikTok and Facebook groups.
I was diagnosed with Asperger's. Nowadays, I say I'm autistic. I don't see how this wouldn't skew the perception of people who know me to think that autism is a more mild condition than it used to be.
I disagreed about the part that the DSM 5 is to blame.
If you were diagnosed with one thing but decide to tell people you're diagnosed with something else, that difference doesn't appear to come from the DSM.
Asbergers is not a thing anymore. It has been folded into autism, which is now a broader diagnosis than it once was.
I'm sure the powers that be had a reason to combine them; and I am no where near qualified to have an opinion on if it was good idea or not. But expanding the definition of autism to include milder forms was 100% a choice that was made.
The fact that the public perception subsequently shifted to view autism as less severely disease seems to me to likely be causally related.
If someone is able to live independently and hold a stable job without psychiatric medication then we can't reasonably claim that they have a "severe" mental health condition. This applies to autism as well as any other condition.
