4 ms·
Autism can't be described along a single dimension like temperature can be. Some people with autism are sensory-seeking, some are sensory-avoiding, some are a m
by BadCookie 9y ago
Autism can't be described along a single dimension like temperature can be. Some people with autism are sensory-seeking, some are sensory-avoiding, some are a mix of both. Some act almost immune to pain, while others definitely aren't. Some have no sense of danger, while others are overly cautious and afraid. Some are violent, but most aren't. Some never speak, but most do. Some run wild, while others are rule-followers almost to a fault. My son is newly-diagnosed, and I am constantly surprised by how little he has in common with other kids who share his diagnosis. Do all of these kids actually have the same condition? I don't think we really know the answer to that question yet.
- kolinko 9y agoIt's definitely not the same condition - like in most cases in psychiatry. Unlike in medicine, when you can often classify problems by their pinpointed sources (e.g. a virus/bacteria), in psychiatry it's usually a set of genes and other factors that comes into play, and various subsystems that broke down giving a certain outcome. We group psychiatric disorders the way we do it, because the science for distinguishing the sources of disorders isn't good enough yet to have a better system. It's similar to the taxonomy of plant&animal species before the advent of genetics. We had to group them by the way they looked, not by their real relationships.