Iâm gonna be honest. I understand where people are coming from wanting Shane to have been diagnosed with autism as a kid and knowing and understanding his autism, but realistically, he just wouldnât have had that diagnosis.
Back in the 90s, the DSM (4) was different from the one used today (DSM 5) and the criteria for autism back then was a lot closer to what would be considered today as autism with high support needs. Which, objectively, Shane is not. Iâm not saying he doesnât have support needs at all, heâs rich so a lot of the daily supports he would potentially need are already taken care of for him, but he is by no means high support needs.
Even Aspergerâs (which isnât used anymore for a variety of reasons, including the Nazi it was named after) wouldnât have likely been a diagnosis for him though he might have fit the criteria for it.
Realistically, a little boy of colour who likes sports who has relatively low support needs who is socially awkward but is also verbal is not going to be the one who gets viewed as autistic.
I also think, and this is more my personal subjective opinion than anything else, that Yuna and David probably didnât really notice this as anything strange. Autism is hereditary and he likely inherited it from both of his parents (the Hollander goodbye and Yuna going straight into problem solving mode come to mind). This is how they live and how they are and thereâs nothing strange about it to them. Especially since his special interest is sports (this is like the boy equivalent of a girl having a special interest in fashion) itâs a ânormalâ and âcommonâ thing to focus on and be interested in. (I can go into the gendering side of this in a bit more depth later)
The other thing, is that even if Yuna and David were thinking that something was up, I just donât think theyâd get Shane assessed, let alone diagnosed.
Im about 10 years younger than Shane, and, even when I was younger a diagnosis like this was seen as an awful thing. Having a diagnosis was viewed as something wrong.
Even though multiple teachers and even my family doctor recommended to get me tested as a kid, my parents didnât ever take me to get assessed because there was ânothing wrong with meâ, I âstruggled with making friendsâ and I just had a lot of âenergyâ and was really âpassionate about mermaidsâ. It wasnât malicious, but there is that negative connotation that was for a long time (and even still is today, in certain sectors).
Shane was âfunctioningâ and objectively became successful so why give him an additional thing to think about? An additional thing to declare to the teams that sign him and need his medical information? Why make life harder for him, especially since heâs already disadvantaged socially by not being fully white.
That said, I do think that itâs possible for him to get diagnosed later on down the line. Especially with the Irina foundation, potentially if they chose to have a child with his sperm where they decide to get him assessed by recommendation from the school, etcâŚ
I also think Ilya would be supportive of him no matter what.
At the end of the day, fic is fic, people can headcanon and write what they want (and I think that that is beautiful) but I just figured I wanted to share my POV lol.
