MHM Magazine

Issue 5 | 2022 | MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS | 21 MHM The Billion Dollar Code is a TV series based on the true story of a few pioneering computer engineers in 1990 Berlin. The team push the limits of technology at the time to develop a programme called TerraVision – something like what we know today as Google Earth. But the programme fails to take off commercially, because its code is too advanced for the hardware of its time. This is the challenge currently faced by autism researchers, clinicians and educators. We are developing a new language to understand neurodiversity, but it doesn’t match the “hardware” or operationalised healthcare systems available to us. Our existing diagnostic tools, training programmes and textbooks are still catching up - and nobody is going to step in to buy us a new computer. Autism and neurodiversity are so complex and misunderstood that changes in this field may not be coming from the top. But each of us, as pieces of hardware in the system, can change howwe operate within it. It might just take a little bit of rewiring. Neurodiversity: an evolving landscape Neurodiversity is an umbrella term for any underlying neurobiology that deviates from the neurotypical “norm”. This includes autism, ADHD, developmental or language disorders, dyslexia and dyscalculia, intellectual disabilities, Tourette’s syndrome and others. Autism is a highly heritable developmental condition defined in the DSM-5 by deficits in social communication, fixated interests and repetitive behaviours. Previously, autismwas thought of as a linear spectrum demarcated by “ levels of functioning ”. We now know that autism is better understood as a multidimensional circular spectrum defined by different support needs . This spectrum covers a vast range of presentations and comorbidities – and these look different across different genders, life-stages , and socio-cultural contexts . Amber Mahony, Counselling Psychologist & Caitlyn Mahony, PhD Candidate, (supervised by Dr Colleen O’ Ryan) at the Molecular Autism Research Group, University of Cape Town WHY AN AUTISM DIAGNOSIS COULD MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE