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S-P-E-C-T-R-U-M

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A lot of people, when they read/hear "autism spectrum", think of a line: on the left side, there is the low-functioning end, and on the right side, there is the high-functioning end.

I don't see it this way. There are so many different skills and deficits common to autistics, and no profile will fit us all. It is often simplified to stereotypes of HFA being computer whizzes and LFA rocking in a corner all day.

Rather, I see it as a big swirling pool of various wavelengths, autistic, NT, and everybody else combined. You can be at one place for a time in your life, then drift into another place in the pool. No matter how many different places you occupy in your lifetime, they are YOUR places. Nobody else's.

Think about it: Everyone has skill deficits, and everyone has had severe skill deficits, though most people experience those needs only when young and when old. It makes sense that we are continually moving in this metaphoric pool of ability and disability, of personality and perseveration, of growth and different growth.

I have only listed a couple of the more commonly thought of characteristics of autistic people: savants in art and science (with reference to artists and Nobel Prize Winners -- there's at least one dx'd, not counting Einstein). There is a computer scientist, and a nonverbal autistic, then another, different nonverbal autistic. Not that you can't be nonverbal and artistic.

This image is just a symbol, frought with all the limitations of symbols, and it should not be taken as a literal depiction. I am merely trying to show that there are other ways to view a spectrum than a linear progression to which we often attach value judgements associated with our use of the language.

I wish I had included more descriptors, such as multiple personalities and ADHD, but had a hard time finding room and making it look neat.
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Comments4
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DarkOnister's avatar
I think people who consider it a line are just stereotyping?

I was told that it was more like an umbrella that has been opened out.