> Imagine if we treated things like schizophrenia the same way we do autism. We better stick every single religious individual that claims to be able to communicate with or hear the voice of god on antipsychotics and scheduled 'treatment', as they're clearly on the scale.
You seem to be under the impression that all autism, regardless of location on the spectrum, is treated the same way (and that way invariably involves heavy medication).
Between this and your "I knew a kid once" original post, I get the strong impression that you know very little about autism or autistic people, and are forming strong opinions based on little more than rumor and anecdote.
I would recommend reading the names attached to posts before attributing ownership to them.
In the most expansive 'recent' study I am aware of, 64% [1] of children diagnosed with autism end up taking at least 1 psychotropic medication over the sample period, which was ~3 years. Substantial numbers ended up taking multiple, different, psychotropics. This is speaking specifically of children. In older subjects medicating rates are higher, and all rates have been increasing sharply over time.
People with autism are, indeed, often treated with any of a variety of different-purpose drugs, depending on their specific symptoms. If an autistic person suffers from e.g. severe anxiety, or violent outbursts, as a result of their condition, they are treated much the same as a non-autistic person with the same symptoms. Per your study, more than a third of autistic children aren't treated with drugs at all. People, as you say, are different.
If you want to make the argument that some of those symptoms (whether autistic or not) would be better treated with counseling than medication, that's reasonable. But I don't see how you can look at that data and conclude that all autistic people are treated exactly the same.
You seem to be under the impression that all autism, regardless of location on the spectrum, is treated the same way (and that way invariably involves heavy medication).
Between this and your "I knew a kid once" original post, I get the strong impression that you know very little about autism or autistic people, and are forming strong opinions based on little more than rumor and anecdote.