Autism has got nothing to do with intelligence. You can be autistic and still be intelligent. My two eldest kids are both high functioning autistic and both have straight A's in school and in all the advanced placement programs. Typically autism is linked with rigidity of thinking though. So for example, if you think Pogba is good, and then watch him play, and he's crap, you think he must be good and some other reason caused him to appear to be crap. Autistic people have a hard time changing opinion. They also have a hard time dealing with change and breaking schedule. If they always eat lunch at 1pm and then one day you give it to them at noon it can be upsetting to them. That said, the rigidity of thinking can be linked with really high achievement in what they set their mind towards. A lot of the world's most brilliant scientists are autistic. Autistic people tend to get their mind focused on one thing and stick with it, often with amazing dedication. Autistic people tend not to have great understanding of other people, understanding their emotions, etc. That's not to mean they're jackasses, most I've met overcompensate and go way out of their way to try and make you happy because they can't interpret when they've "done enough". Autistic people tend to get obsessed with weird things and have fixations on a narrow range of thoughts. Some autism can be really severe, my nephew is... I think 12 now, still can't speak. It's not a lack of intelligence, he understands what you say and shows signs of being quite bright, but for whatever reason he's never tried speaking himself. Most though, if you know anyone really stubborn who is perhaps brilliant at one thing and has a mind focused just on one thing and seems like it's difficult for them to see other sides to a problem... Chances are they're autistic. Autistic people are quite often very intelligent, just narrowly focused.
but the "pure" medical diagnosis in itself will / may cover a very wide range of symptoms / results though i accept in the case of MH issues it can be useful as there isn't necessarily an obvious sign so at least it gives an indication of issues the person may have . I'm more au fait with physical disability though so perhaps should stick to chatting about that tbh .
Here's another way of thinking about it. Imagine you have an 8core processor on your PC, you can run email, browse the web, and zip up photos all at the same time. Someone with autism has the same PC but the 8 cores are fused into one and the PC can only put all.ita processing power into doing one thing at a time. It's either browsing the web, or reading email, not both at the same time.
Mental health debates generally end up going the same way every time. I’ve been through my own and lost family members to mental health conditions but my own thoughts are that you are faced with choices in life and it’s not always somebody else’s responsibility to help you. That’s the part that annoys me, moan like **** about the NHS shortages, blame Tory gov’t, blame lack of money, blame poor this and that but never blame the choices you’ve made. How many drugs you taken? How often do you do any exercise? What food is on your plate most days? Is it any wonder that in this day and age where obesity/heart disease is the biggest killer, that cases of mental health are at record highs? People have to take control if they’re able to, and stop looking for excuses then maybe we could see the wood for the trees and perhaps help the most vulnerable.
Sorry if this intimidates you Asbo. Just remember to wear trousers and eat with a knife and fork, and you'll be okay.