2 ms·

But the reason it's called a spectrum is that there's no easy/non-arbitrary place to put a line between these "things that you wish had different names." Sure,

But the reason it's called a spectrum is that there's no easy/non-arbitrary place to put a line between these "things that you wish had different names." Sure, it's easy to see the difference between a very mildly autistic person and a non-verbal, highly interesting impaired person who can't possibly live alone. But when you fill in the population of all the people between them, it becomes clear that there's no natural place to draw a line.

aetherson 7y ago
(Sorry, missed a phone autocorrect. It was supposed to read "highly intellectually impaired person")
Balgair 7y ago
Which is why there is a push to get rid of the 'disorder' wording in Autism Spectrum Disorder in the popular zeitgeist. If all humans can be placed somewhere on the continuous spectrum of autism, then that's just a measure of humans. Just like how height or weight are continuous but normally distributed measures, autism is beginning to be seen as a normally distributed measure (more research required though). Granted, how autism is measured is not at all the same as how something like height is measured. As we continue to advance with social media, digital tracking, etc, we may find a window into how to measure autism empirically, but who knows. If/when that occurs, then yes, you could at least talk about standard deviations and start drawing borders between highly/mildly/average/low/lowest autism that a person has. But, again, we're a long ways away from this.