Hello, my name is Paul Isaacs I have been an autism speaker, trainer, consultant and author. I have been in the autism “world” for around 12 years. I was diagnosed with autism and obsessive compulsive disorder in 2010 at the age of 24 and visual perceptual disorders and learning difficulties in 2012.

Prior to my diagnosis, I went to an educational psychiatrist in 1993 and child and adolescent mental health services in 1996 for depression. The specialist heavily implied that I had potential learning difficulties, speech problems and (dangerously) stated at the end of the report that my parents’ mental states were having an impact on me.

I went through adult mental health services in my early twenties in 2007 where I received a diagnosis of borderline and schziotypal personality disorders, auditory hallucinations and psychosis.

Going back further to 1986 when I was born, it was very traumatic for both mother and I. She had a placental abruption which caused brain injury and I was born premature. In the first six months of my life, I appeared deaf and blind, had speech and language delays as well as motor coordination delays. My Mother noted differences (which caused concern) from 18 months onwards.

Her observations of me as a baby were that I was sleepy, tired and quiet and in many ways I seemed happy and content. However, she also observed incidents of head banging (in which I was smiling), and I was also very hyperactive as a toddler.

The importance of this introduction is to set the foundation and to give more context. For if I had been diagnosed as child, it would have been of (now dated terms) “classic”, “kanner’s or “severe” autism. My understanding of this – at least from my information processing trajectory – was that I had higher challenges such as being meaning deaf, meaning blind, object blind and context blind – leading to me to be tactile associative in my modulation and understanding of world.

My blueprints of understanding the external world were through my hands: through kinesthetic association my Mother was “hair” (the texture) and I sculpted my Father’s face – this system helped me bond with them.

This also had an impact on my language at pre-school – I was around 80% meaning-deaf and couldn’t merge interpretive meaning into a framework verbally with picture associations. My expressive language was delayed and I lived in what the late Donna Williams coined the system of “sensing”, in which my language was governed by “feel/emotive speak” echolalia and echopraxia, in which I would forward and rewind video tapes over and over, hearing the phonics.

When functional speech came in later infancy at around 7/8 years old, exposure anxiety took hold and my words would tumble internally and externally (due to residual oral apraxia). My attempts at fluid interpretive fluency was like walking through a sticky bog, the attention that this garnered from peers and even more so teachers, led my nervous system to react compulsively, and bouts of selective mutism were persistent in blocking the sensation of being attacked.

Diagnosis – Aiming For The Middle

When I think of a diagnosis of autism, firstly I think we must aim for something objective, meaningful and relevant to the person in question. In other words we must open up the diagnosis so it can become more three dimensional – breaking down the different pieces of their autism in to specific manageable pieces. This could involve offering strategies that will aid, assist and empower the person in the real world because that is were people reside.

I personally do not see autism as an “identity”. I have many reasons for this but here is the most tangible and basic – all people are made of more than one word. Humans are three dimensional, patchwork quilts in which there are many interlinking pieces that make up that person with different origins points abound.

We have to see the person first, for if over investment is melded into an ego-syntonic framework (condition is all of self) then one loses balance. Then what room can be made for other experiences? Now, I would like to point out at this point that I am neither a militant cultrulist or curist as both have very imbalanced ideologies of what autism is and neither parties, for very different reasoning, see the person.

This is why I am for the middle path in which you can take both the medical and social model and merge them together to create an holistic and person-centred empowerment model – this is based on Donna Williams’ fruit salad model of autism.

If we dare to challenge ourselves and question our experiences, we can share this information with clarity and objectivity, surpassing stereotypes and helping people feel valued and cared for.

Paul Isaacs

Autism speaker, trainer, consultant and author 2022