3 ms·
The 'spectrum' has always been an outrageously bad metaphor (with autism and elsewhere in psychology), and this article's approach to 'correcting' that by furth
by pxc 5y ago
The 'spectrum' has always been an outrageously bad metaphor (with autism and elsewhere in psychology), and this article's approach to 'correcting' that by further extending the metaphor just perpetuates another (even more convoluted and ridiculous) iteration of the confusion.
The use of the color spectrum is especially unhelpful, since the qualitative features of the color spectrum are totally unrelated to what makes it a spectrum, and so the 'distinction' the article tries to draw between a spectrum and a gradient is totally specious. What makes the color spectrum a spectrum is precisely that it's formed by variation along a single dimension (wavelength or frequency, whatever)— the exact structure the article describes as belonging to a gradient as 'opposed' to a spectrum.
The diagrams with parts of the color spectrum blacked out are pure cringe. Why are you making this broken, disanalogous metaphor worse instead of throwing it away??
It's not hard to describe the actual structure of what are (inaptly) called 'spectrum disorders' in contemporary psychology. They are disorders characterized by clusters of related traits, behaviors, and experiences which (variously in terms of severity, frequency, intensity, or something) can each vary in degree.
Please stop trying to 'fix' the spectrum metaphor. Just kill it.
- drewcoo 5y agoSpectrum is just imagery for a continuum, which autism is. Would you prefer diapason[1], as in the full range of a thing's sound? [1] Through bad spelling (and not synesthesia) I typed "diapasm" first, but it seemed wrong. Turns out it's smelly and not soundy.
- pxc 5y agoImo, 'continuum' still fails to clearly connote the characteristic of having multiple dimensions of variation rather than just one, even though in some contexts (like in the phrase 'space-time continuum') it is used to name something more structurally analogous to 'spectrum disorders' than spectrums.
- maximus-decimus 5y agoThe whole article is about how it's not a continuum but a set of discrete unrelated traits.
- pxc 5y agoAnd it chooses language that undermines or at least clashes with its point, e.g., > Red isn’t “more spectrum” than green or blue. Apples aren’t “more fruit” than oranges. That’s not how it works. Red 'is' in fact 'more wavelength' than green or blue. That's exactly how it works. The confusion the author bemoans comes from people actually knowing what characterizes a spectrum in general and taking that to apply when they hear the phrase 'autism spectrum'. The phrase itself is misleading.