yes, I worked with over 600 people on the spectrum in over a decade as an autistic autism consultant.
Most of those were kids, and most in special needs schools
and I’d say maybe 1/4 of all those I was consulted for,
were reported as strikingly different in their functioning at home versus at school
and exactly as you say sometimes ‘high’ functioning at home
and ‘low’ at school
or vice versa.
Some also varied between parents, being one type of autie with one parent
and another with the other parent.
and people don’t study this because it seriously challenges so many existing ‘respected’ theories and assumptions.
but it also questions whether the semblance of ‘functioning’ is where one is truly developmentally/cognitively/linguistically at, or where scripting and mirroring come in, where people use facades to cover their real levels, where motivation or learned dependency come in….
and that makes THESE auties so dynamic, so much more complex than the 2D outlines of them
its also a funding thing
many times I found the kids reports were made emphasising their disabilities
in order to secure more support and funding
and then the school would stand by the report, expect only within the realms of it
and often the child could function way outside the report
under particular social emotional circumstances
and yet be totally limited under others.

Known for that, even at the time, among people who actually studied autism enough, but not enough people even did, or do. I’ve seen references to it dating back to the seventies or eighties at least, if not earlier. One very common one is for autistic people to behave one way around family, another way at school, and still another way in clinical examinations — and interestingly enough that one can go either way (with any one of those seeming the “most able” and “least able” in different people).

Of course, one thing I’ve noticed, is that even among those who study autism, they seem to draw some very odd conclusions about what they do see. It’s like they see what’s there, but they don’t understand it, so they throw half of what they see out of their heads entirely, and then make up strange theories about the rest. And the strange theories are most of what pass for knowledge and expertise. Then another person comes along, and builds theories on top of the old theories, calling the old theories ‘facts’ even if they’re totally off the mark.

So in their reasoning, I should present the same when involved with those who have studied the same topic I had for 4 years (sociology) as when involved with an interviewer I’d never met, in a building and place and structure I’d never encountered, on a topic I’d never spoken verbally on and which was far more highly personal that sociology scripts I’d had 4 years and scanned volumes of books to accumulate).

Or sitting watching a teacher present about how to read children’s stories to children, should bring out exactly the same responses as a room of moving, touching dancing bodies with faces and hands moving at me and past me at a relentless pace.

So the interview is actually an historical artifact, a representation of the typical ignorance about autism present of 1996.

Sometimes it literally looked like they were saying, “Oh, look at all her bad social skills/comprehension problems/etc, they prove she’s not autistic.”

Which is really strange.

The same criticism was leveled by the fellow student who’d once had a coffee with me. Well, after 4 years of studying Sociology, and a year in the classroom of this acquaintance, I had plenty of Sociology scripting to play out and was already accustomed enough to his movements and speech patterns to not be inhibted. But he refers to me being hypomanic, which was common when overstimulated and happens in many socially phobic people. But he has compared this with me really struggling with acute exposure anxiety with a journalist asking me personal questions about my inner world and child abuse, where clearly I was struggling to process her language and dare to use my own.

Then the lecturer, Eipper, really seizes on all this because in the 10 x 30 min office appointments I was obliged to have alone with him in his office, I was flighty, sometimes giggly, often diverting from one tangent to another in quick succession to avoid his interest in me, which is spelt out a litle obviously in Nobody Nowhere and hence went down like a lead balloon with him. Anyway, the fact I was different with this FEMALE journalist in an interview than when obliged by my course criteria to be alone with him in his office or fail my honours year (it was a condition one must spend 10 x 30 min appointments with one’s thesis supervisor) anyway, you can see the situation.

But who wants to hear any of that, not when one can imagine a juicy controversy and the journalist refers to the interviewees as ‘bravely speaking out’. What on earth were their imagined sanctions?

Reminds me of a lot of people who see one little boy who cannot speak, or make eye contact, and who bangs his head and say I, an 18-year-old, or other Aspies, cannot possibly be autistic.

No research or further experience needed.

That’s another thing people don’t realize. People tend not to maintain the same symptoms for the same severity forever. Most attention paid to autism is paid on young children, but very little on other ages, and I think this is part of the confusion for people who do not have much experience with anyone with autism.

Pain in the ass. People need to stray from their little boxes very badly.

a) that the interviewer, Kathy Golan, never met me
b) that the ‘expert’, Dr Volkmar ,had never met me
c) that Dr Bartak who diagnosed me had the same number of years experience with autism as Dr Volkmar
d) that the lecturer, Chris Eipper interviewed was a sociologist with no qualifications in child development or autism
e) that Ms. Nan Caterina once featured in the interview but has been edited out (see archived editions) because she in fact had never been my teacher.
f) that Marcia Devlin, the student featured who claimed to have been in my class all year had in fact been in the other of the two classes that year and the only shared class time with her was a 1 hr a week English class where the two groups joined.
g) that both Chris Eipper and Marcia Devlin feature negatively in the books Nobody Nowhere and Somebody Somewhere and they have not mentioned this at all in the interview.
h) That Lawrie Bartak was not actually present in the Kathy Golan interview and that the recording of him featured there is in fact edited in from a different ABC interview with another journalist some years before.