The importance of identification

A few weeks ago, a mother asked me if she should tell her autistic son about his autism. Then last night, another parent asked if she should pursue an autism diagnosis for her son after his paediatrician raised concerns about ‘labelling’ him. My response to the latter question seemed to resonate with a number of people, so I decided to expand it into this blog. But when I contemplated exactly what I wanted to say, the two questions seemed intrinsically linked, so I am going to try to tackle them together here.