Hopefully this gets posted: HN often rate limits my posts. In short, yes. Autism may one day be meaningfully classified as different conditions that share some

Hopefully this gets posted: HN often rate limits my posts. In short, yes. Autism may one day be meaningfully classified as different conditions that share some similar symptoms, but have different causes, outcomes, etc. The common symptoms of autism tend to be seen in high-level cognitive functions, that depend on a lot of subsytems, if you will. Car analogy: A car may exhibit the same symptom (won't start), but the cause can be different (out of gas or a dead battery). But this analogy can easily be misconstrued to mean that autism is about being broken. Emphatically, it is NOT. This brings me to a final comment of your post: Autism is not a disease. Much of the autism spectrum represents valuable neurodiversity that does not impact their quality of life, and actually provides a net benefit to themselves and to society by allowing diverse thinking styles and perspectives. However, I will venture to say that some aspects of the spectrum do need to be addressed like a disorder: severe intellectual disability, severe anxiety, these can be really impactful on QoL.