Upfront with Katie Hannon

I didn't say anything about the mother.

My point is the right to discuss the matter which you seem to be against entirely. Not much learning from that approach.

You said that in response to my post about that mother.

The conversations about overdiagnoses only distracts from the governments failures to provide for people with disabilities, especially children.

It is a 'debate' about a community merely existing. That is shameful.

How exactly does it distract?

Because the question is 'why is there so many of them?' instead of actively discussing the utter shambles the disabilities services are.

Oh believe me hun, you don't need to tell me what 'autism' looks like.

You have zero qualifications yet here you are discussing whether somebody else does or doesn't have it.

Disgraceful comment. How dare you.

Imagine I went up to you and your husband when your nephew was with you, while your nephew was having a bad sensory moment and getting very upset, and I told you that your nephew needs a slap. How would you feel?

That's exactly what you're doing here. You know f*ck all about Adam Harris' life and yet you're questioning his diagnosis.

Shame on you.

You can't just say you disagree with her opinion, you have to go full bishop on her.

Yes, I will, because someone questioning the autism diagnosis of someone based on their ability to speak is a f*cking shameful comment and I have no problem calling that out.

You're brave.

You're labelling disabilities on what you can see and not what is experienced by families all across the country.

The kids who are suffering because the government has failed to take ANY action on resolving the issues. Now you have RTE going 'look over there' and distracting you. Now you're pointing your ire at other children.

Shame on you blaming other children for the failures of the State.

No I want genuine families helped. That's not whats happening at the moment though. We have kids who a little bit quiet or a little too loud being diagnosed as autistic when the reality is that's their personality and there is nothing wrong with them. Ask any teacher and they will confirm they have children in their classes with questionable diagnosis using valuable resources.

It needs to be addressed

What do you mean "nothing wrong with them"?

Serious smell of ignorance off that post. Go away and do a little bit of reading for yourself and don't be another one of those a***holes making parents of autistic kids feel even worse than they already do. Autism isn't a learned behaviour. Bad parenting doesn't create autism. It's fairly tough going trying to deal with the difficulties faced by children who aren't "severely" autistic as you put it. When it isn't immediately obvious that a child is autistic, there is no allowances made for their difficulties in society. They can't walk around with a sign on them saying "I'm autistic but I don't look it". They are treated far far worse than any obviously autistic child. They are expected to be able to cope just like any other child and when they can't, they are punished for it. Imagine punishing a child for not being ablw to do something they are not capable of. That's what happens in schools and elsewhere in society for these kids.

Not so long ago it was people like you that would have agreed with punishing kids who wrote with their left hand. We look back on that now and think, how could they have been so stupid and ignorant to punish someone for that. Well right now, because of complete and utter ignoramuses like you, there are children suffering because they aren't obviously autistic to look at, as you put it.

Easy to throw around the complete scutter you wrote when you haven't had to live it.

I believe kids with genuine issues should be helped. Unfortunately there are alot of parents getting dubious diagnosis and saying their kids are on the spectrum. You clearly don't believe this is happening though so it's pointless arguing with you.

Krds vwith real issues are not getting the help they need because services are being used by kids who don't really need the help.

Do you realise fake practioners are offering diagnosis,? It's a gravy train for some service providers and some parents. Now even certain celebraties are cashing in on it with their sudden autism diagnosis.

Whats the goal? - a society where every person is a clone of each other and behave exactly the same. I believe different personalities should be embraced not labelled as defective. In years to come we will have lots of messed up people because they were labelled as incorrectly autistic and life didn't work out well for them because of that label.

I don't mean to cause upset for you. I don't disagree with you that living an autistic life or with an autistic person is tough. I know this only too well. There are also many out there who are not autistic imo - that's my point

Honestly you are the only person on here showing ignorance. Do you honestly, honestly believe that autism diagnosis is not being used to jump up the housing list or claim carers allowance, or excuse bad parenting for a certain group of people? Really are you that naive?

Its an insult to people who really do need help.