Talk:Autism spectrum

Proposal to change or remove the infobox image

Hi all. This is something I'd normally be bold about, but because there were two previous inconclusive discussions about this (1 and 2) and because I'm not sure what else I'd put, I'm proposing this here, hopefully with a defintive consensus. I feel like the current image is far from representative enough of ASD to be there and this is for multiple reasons. All children like (and are encouraged) to stack things up; a child stacking up objects in what could be a perfectly neurotypical situation is, to me, not the best image to be the most prominent one in the article. This trait feels way too specific in an article that's about a spectrum. Besides, this trait is far from the most significant, prevalent or relevant one for autism. The image could still be used in its context. Just not in the infobox.
There seems to be a consensus that "any image is better than no image", so the problem of what image to put in its place arises. Some of the previous propositions suggested using an image with an identifiable person, apparently violating Commons' rule that "Images must not unfairly (...) demean the subject". I feel like that's reasonable. So that leaves us with more generic images. File:Autistic Mind 2.png has been suggested. Me, I'd adopt the infinity rainbow. I think both are good choices.
I'm glad to head what people have to say about this. Let's try to reach a consensus this time because, to be honest, I feel like the current image is a really inadequate one. Rkieferbaum (talk) 18:32, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I do not support the use of File:Autistic Mind 2.png, as it is nothing more than clip art. The infinity rainbow seems like a good choice if you feel we absolutely must have an image. Mind you that in articles, and in infoboxes, images are not mandatory. If there is not a good image, there is no need to have a placeholder or unsatisfactory image. I do agree that the existing image is unsatisfactory, as it is, as you say, not necessarily indicative of a pathology. Kimen8 (talk) 19:50, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

The File:Autistic Mind 2.png is not really useful in representing the condition. I agree that current image of a child stacking up stuff is not a good representation of autism (it is also potentially misleading and stereotyping).

It is very hard to find real-life or graphic representation for autism, unlike other conditions like bipolar disorder or anxiety disorder for example. But we could have a graphical representation of autism that lists core deficits seen in autism with varying "intensities" or "shades" (this is why the rainbow is commonly used).

So the idea is this, as per DSM-5, individuals with autism have difficulties in two main domains:

• A: Social communication and interaction difficulties
  • A1: Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity
  • A2: Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction
  • A3: Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships
• B: Restricted, Repetitive Patterns of Behavior, Interests, or Activities
  • B1: Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech (example "lining up toys", echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases)
  • B2: Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior
  • B3: Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus
  • B4: Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment

To be diagnosed with ASD, the individual must exhibit both A and B, but they can have varying difficulties in the subset of criteria A1, A2, A3, and B1, B2, B3, B4.

For example, one person with autism may have severe social difficulties (let's say 0.8 on scale of 1 for A1, and 0.5 in A2, but may have 0 in A3) and for B, may have severe repetitive motions (say 0.8 for B1), sameness (0.7 on B2), but may or may not have other two criteria. Regardless, if they anyway meet A and B, it is generally sufficient.

So we can have each color for the two main domains with shades (representing intensities) and each color for the individual criteria within A and B, I think this is probably a better representation autism. A image that comes close to this representation that I could find on the internet are this and this. I'm not good in graphic design so someone else could create something similar and upload to commons. --WikiLinuz (talk) 22:51, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I really like the second image you suggested, it's way better than the first suggested image. To the user that suggested these images, may I have permission to upload and add the image? Or are you more comfortable uploading it yourself? Tonkarooson (talk) *new editor* 03:23, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

@Tonkarooson: hi there! Those images aren't free so ideally we wouldn't use them, specifically. @WikiLinuz: suggests that someone familiar with graphic design creates something inspired by them. I'd be happy to but I haven't had the time, lately. I do like the suggestion, though. Rkieferbaum (talk) 20:32, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Ah I see, so what kind of picture would be better sourced for Wikipedia? Tonkarooson (talk) *new editor* 22:53, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

A picture under free license, see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Choosing_a_license --WikiLinuz (talk) 23:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I mean no offense but the rainbow infinity symbol has nothing to do with autism. Only the hate group Autism speaks. I am autistic. I’ve never spoken to or met another autistic person who likes that symbol nor do I understand how it remotely relates to a mental disorder 2601:901:8180:5B80:D14E:D324:9DED:59C9 (talk) 20:46, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

The group Autism speaks is not associated with the rainbow infinity - perhaps you're thinking of the puzzle piece? Furthermore, making an assertion and backing it up with "I'm autistic" isn't helpful here, as many of the editors involved in this discussion are autistic themselves. With Love from Cassie Schebel (talk) 21:16, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

List of Newsgroups Grouped By 'Autism Centricity'

Proposal: Add a section to "ASD in the media" that shows all historic and defunct organizations that cover autism and the many metrics that they can be 'graded' by.

Why? : Newsgroups that focus on covering ASD (or that spend a fraction of their time, money, and coverage on the topic of ASD) are a part of the media that we consume. Therefore, a page that is focused on "ASD in the media" is obliged to include a list documenting some of these organizations in some level of detail.

Definitions

'Austism Centricity': how focused a news organization is on the topic of ASD (for simplicity's sake, we could just include organizations that claim to focus on ASD or organizations that have a massive amount of content on ASD (comparative to the content they have on other topics) and have (or have had) a name that intentionally references some part of ASD (See spectrumnews.org as an example).

Newsgroup: any group that assumes/claims a role in the distribution of (factual) information (although it might be interesting to include and the amount of attention paid to ASD by satirical news networks)

Other Potential Solutions

- A wikipedia page/list of all groups that claim to 'dispense news', sorted by their primary foci and every other metric that we care to sort by.

- Another page that would categorize newsgroups by their coverage of and focus on ASD.

Thanks for reading this. This is my first time joining a talk channel on Wikipedia besides 2 minor edits I made on two other articles that I wanted to appends reasons for those edits to. I hope that this suggestion is decent and actionable, and that this did not read terribly. My reason for suggesting this was that I found this group called spectrumnews.org and their about page seemed pretty terrible. Naturally, I looked to Wikipedia for answers and was met with nothing but a linkless mention to this group in a disambiguation page for spectrum news.

If anything I wrote here was downright terrible, please feel free to let me know. If this falls into the category of original research, please let me know. Sorry if this was a bad 'idea commit'. In the case that this is a bad 'idea commit', please know that I did not intent for it to be so. Robitium (talk) 17:09, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

I skimmed this a little bit but it seems (great) (wonderful), I would most likely wouldn't add much since there is this already here, as well is this here and some other articles that are similar. So I would add that "main article here" thing. But I'll leave it to more experienced editors than me about this. Tonkarooson (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Should “neurodevelopmental disorder and disability” be added?

Many sources, including the CDC and the National Autistic Society (UK), state it as such. It is also a disability from a medical and legal standpoint. PicoMath (talk) 00:59, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Draft:Special interest (autism)

It's been started by a new editor. Notifying in case you'd be interested in providing feedback or helping out. Best, — Usedtobecool ☎️ 03:14, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

There has to be greater diversity of gender, ethnicity and age ranges in the pictures

Autism is not a diagnosis explicit to children; children grow up into adults and many children are also unidentified until well into adulthood. All the pictures except one are pictures of young boys below the age of 3 years old; all but one picture is of a white person. Furthermore, none of the pictures show groups of autistics together or provide examples of autism activism in practice. While Temple Grandin is a known public speaker on autism, and it's great that she at least counters the overall image the article implies to be a diagnosis for young white boys, she's also a very stereotypical example that not everyone can or will relate to. There are better examples of famous autistic people than Temple Grandin that also convey the broader range of autism as a spectrum among people.

I would also advocate to change or remove the box of how to identify autism, because it seems to be explicitly written on how to identify it in children i.e. lining up toys, not engaging in pretend play, despite other portions of the article trying to remain age neutral.

Also, this article is too damn long in general and should be broken up or reorganized. Finally, remove the Autism Speaks logotype as an example of an autistic representation logo, since the organization is highly controversial and it's better to dedicate a separate article to explain what they are. Entr0pic08 (talk) 18:26, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to change it. We encourage you to be bold in updating pages, because wikis like ours develop faster when everybody edits. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. You can always preview your edits before you publish them or test them out in the sandbox. If you need additional help, check out our getting started page or ask the friendly folks at the Teahouse. -- NotCharizard ^🗨 23:56, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Failed edit

I'm trying to publish an edit but it's not working with an error message saying, "Unable to determine wikitext upload result." What is this and what does it mean? Tonkarooson (talk) *new editor* 00:55, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I got the edit but not the reference Tonkarooson (talk) *new editor* 05:30, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Request to change the word "symptoms" to "traits" in infobox

Autism Spectrum Disorder is not a disease or illness and I feel like this should be changed in any way possible. I think adding a new template (if that can happen) named "traits" would be better for medical diagnosis that are similar to Autism. Tonkarooson (talk) *new editor* 03:34, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I've removed the word "disorder" from the infobox title, so it matches the article title.

Per the link from the word "Symptoms" in the infobox ({{Infobox medical condition}}), with my emphasis here:

Signs and symptoms are the observed or detectable signs, and experienced symptoms of an illness, injury, or condition.

Symptoms are not limited to disease or illness, so I do not think any change is required. Mitch Ames (talk) 04:03, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I never had a problem with the word "disorder". Autism is also not a disease or illness, and most people with Autism (including me) prefer the word "traits" over "symptoms". It could also give the perspective that Autism is a bad thing.

I'm not trying to make this a big issue, I just wanted to make this article feel more friendly, since this can be a sensitive subject to be discussed, and there's some controversy too. Tonkarooson (talk) *new editor* 02:38, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to merge Asperger syndrome here

As Asperger syndrome is a form of ASD ("6A02.0 Autism spectrum disorder without disorder of intellectual development and with mild or no impairment of functional language", ICD-11 for Morality and Morbidity Statistics, 2018-06-18{{citation}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)), shouldn't it be here instead of on its own page?
COArSe D1RTxxx (talk) 23:34, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - It is a good point, and some rearrangement would make a lot of sense, but on purely practical grounds, Autism spectrum is over 8,500 words and Asperger syndrome is nearly 6,000. Even allowing for much duplication, the resulting article would just be too big. And who is going to carry out that merge? A better solution would be to treat Asperger syndrome as a spin-out subject, giving it a heading on this page and a link. Then duplication on Asperger's syndrome could be reduced. Causes and such like are already covered here, and could simply be linked from that page to the appropriate section. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

  I do agree with you about both articles being joined together it will only make the article long and duplicate the words , as someone who was diagnosed with aspergers i would find this really frustrating,but that's just me and its not about me but others. Cobyc09 (talk) 10:56, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

  I agree. Having Asperger's be a spin-off is a great idea. Because Asperger's is still called a form of Autism, I might come to the Autism page to learn more about it. Lord knows I was hungry for information, but didn't know where to find it, when my adult stepdaughter, who still lived with us at the time, was first diagnosed. I would expect to at least see a link to more information here, but I think you're right. Added together, it's too much. StarvingForAnswers (talk) 12:22, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Oppose - I do not really understand the argument given for merging - Monster is a type of energy drink, and medical libraries are a type of library - that does not mean they should not have their own articles? Am I missing soemthing? -- NotCharizard ^🗨 03:58, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

@Notcharizard nobody uses the word aspires anymore its not even a thing its now catagrised under asd, it having its own page will make people think its still used. but at the same time we have Nintendo_Entertainment_System and History_of_the_Nintendo_Entertainment_System should they be merged? Anthony2106 (talk) 06:28, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

It's not a diagnosis anymore, but that is stated in the first sentence of the article: "Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's syndrome, formerly described a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized..." Female hysteria is not a diagnosis anymore either, but having an article on it so that people can learn about its history is still useful and important. -- NotCharizard ^🗨 06:33, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

@Notcharizard yeah true Anthony2106 (talk) 06:41, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Oppose - Autism is a diagnosis that is still used, while Asperger is no longer in use. I think that could create some confusion if it were included in the Autism spectrum article, possibly misleading some to believing that Autism is no longer a valid diagnosis, or that Asperger's still is. Additionally, as others have mentioned, the resulting merged article would be far too long and lots of duplicate information would have to be pared down. If you have a draft of a merged article of reasonable length and with acceptably little duplicate information, I might be in favor. With Love from Cassie Schebel (talk) 20:56, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Oppose just because something may not be distinct now doesn't mean it wasn't distinct historically. WP:NOTABILITYISNOTTEMPORARY, furthermore the term is still used with over 15,000 papers since 2020 using the term aspergers and many distinguishing it from autism. Traumnovelle (talk) 20:25, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Oppose - It is a historical diagnosis, it is mentioned already in this article, there is no useful outcome in merging the two articles. Besides, this article is very long as it is, no need to make it even longer for no real gain. Urselius (talk) 17:29, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

The image

I’m autistic.

A baby stacking cans is not a good picture. It has little to do with autism and suggests no internal complexity on the part of autistic people. It makes it look… basic. Boring. Like the kind of thing that only leads to annoying and pointless habits. Meaningless.

What would be better? In my opinion, an artistic representation of some sort of creative activity or of something that’s really relevant to autism would be much better. The sheer depth and complexity and difficulty and beauty of being autistic is not portrayed by the cans baby.

Note: I don’t want to try to send any specific message about autism through the image. It should portray autism in a neutral way. I just want something that is a little more dignified than the baby. Thoughts? Language Boi (talk) 05:18, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

It’s also the case that there have been very few times in my life when I have had absolutely no friends. This is true of most autistic people. The image might be able to hint at the fact that social interactions are not always difficult for autistic people. Language Boi (talk) 05:30, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Autism is a very large diagnosis - every autistic person has a different experience with it and no two autistic people have the exact same characteristics/symptoms of the disorder. It is true that repetitive lining up and stacking of objects is a behavior associated with autism, even if you're autistic and you didn't do that as a child. Also, very few pictures actual suggest internal complexity - that is the job of the article. I would actually argue that some kind of diagram trying to show complexity in autistic people would be counterproductive, and having the photo of a human being is a lot more fitting. With Love from Cassie Schebel (talk) 19:40, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting a diagram-that would be a bad idea. I just think that if we find a better image we should use it. The cans baby doesn't show the whole picture. I did lots of goofy things as a kid-but autism gives me serious feelings and ideas. It's more than just something that causes weird habits.

Note: I'm using "goofy" and "weird" here as shorthand for "things that don't have a direct purpose and arguably lack deep meaning". There's nothing wrong with such behaviors (I have several myself), but the picture should show autism from a more big-picture perspective. Language Boi (talk) 20:57, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

The child is a toddler, the cans are stacked very precisely, the photo is showing a child with unusual skill levels for his or her age. It seems to me to be a relatively positive image of autism. Urselius (talk) 17:34, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree - but I can see @Language Boi's point. Perhaps a similar but more impressive behavior, something that shows both intelligence and autistic behavioral patterns, would be better.

However - and this is something that can be difficult to cope with - we have to remember that not all autistic people are as fortunate as we are. Autism is a condition that can cause severe developmental disability. There are people who, due to autism, lack either that internal complexity or the ability to utilize and express it.

With the scope and variability of Autism, I don't think there will ever actually be a particularly good well-representative lead picture. With Love from Cassie Schebel (talk) 22:09, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

What about an image from some sort of autistic-related movement or protest? I think that some pages related to the LGBTQ community have that. Lots of those pages also have a symbol of some sort. Maybe we could use that rainbow infinity sign thing? It just seems really weird to have autism represented by a young child doing something nonproductive or antisocial. I’m not completely opposed to it but we can do better. Language Boi (talk) 23:19, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree with using an image that doesn't have a singular person in it. What about this image? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Autistic_Pride_Flag.png. It's used on other articles about Autism and its community. Tonkarooson (talk) *new editor* 01:09, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't really see the issue with the autism baby? it shows an autistic person engaging in an activity that's typical for autism, in a natural and neutral way. boring isn't necessarily bad either—especially for an encyclopedia. it neither dramatizes nor glamorizes the subject.

you're never gonna show "the whole picture" of autism in a single pic because autism is too heterogeneous. and you're never gonna show the internal experience of autism in a single pic because by their very nature, pictures only capture what's outwardly observable (you can't capture what a person feels when sorting objects, but you can show that sorting objects is a common activity in autistics). a single picture is inherently reductive, there's no way around it. but an autistic person doing a typically autistic thing is still appropriately illustrative, in my opinion. as a comparison, the page for Intellectual disability shows children participating in the special olympics, Developmental coordination disorder shows a picture of shoes to illustrate the fact that tying laces is difficult for people with DCD, Obsessive–compulsive disorder illustrates hand-washing, Schizophrenia a piece of art by a person with schizophrenia, and Dysgraphia shows handwriting by an adult with dysgraphia. None of these pictures show the full depth and complexity of the subject matter, or the internal complexity of the people with the disability—and they don't have to.

if you have a better picture, by all means bring it forward (especially if there can be improvement of the demographic diversity of the images on this page—e.g. most pics now are of kids, so an adult would be nice), but I don't think the autism baby is so bad that we should urgently look for replacement or flat-out remove it. TheZoodles (talk) 15:51, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I propose Greta Thunberg as the photo. She is a notable person with autism, and many other wikipedia articles don't use a photo to represent the entire subject, but to give a notable example. Here are some: Arch, Murder, Lesbian, Car. What these articles have in common is that their subject has a wide diversity in appearance - no one picture is going to represent all arches, all murders, all lesbians, or all cars. The same is true for autistic people, so perhaps a notable example of an autistic person is the best choice. With Love from Cassie Schebel (talk) 21:29, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't mind what the picture is changed to but I feel like a picture of Elon Musk when he was a guest appearance on SNL, him saying he was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. I suggest Elon as a picture because he is a very well known person, and how smart he is. Tonkarooson (talk) *new editor* 03:31, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

He’s also, arguably, an ass. This doesn’t mean that we should silence him, but Greta Thunberg is much less controversial when it comes to spreading misinformation. I would suggest someone like Einstein but he was never diagnosed with autism or anything. Language Boi (talk) 23:12, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Greta Thunberg is also controversial - I do think that certain things that make both of these people controversial are actually autistic traits. People don't tend to be receptive to different communication styles - so when someone in the public eye has these autistic traits, they're disliked. I would support Elon Musk being the preview image for this article. With Love from Cassie Schebel (talk) 23:22, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 17 May 2024

Autism spectrum → Autism – This article is about the condition, not really the spectrum. I can't easily find any sources that say "Autism Spectrum" to refer to the condition instead of "Autism" or ASD/ASC. "Autism" also seems to be consistent with WP:PRECISION. A mentally disabled mathematician (talk) 17:25, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Move. I understand the reasoning for the article name “autism spectrum”, it’s important that people understand it’s a spectrum and such. But that’s discussed in the article, and “autism” is more efficient, fits better with WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONCISE. -- NotCharizard ^🗨 03:52, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Having the article named as it is is good enough I would think. Maybe if it were to be renamed, possibly it could be called "Autism Spectrum Disorder"? Since Wikipedia likes things to be professional like. Tonkarooson (talk) *new editor* 11:17, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Another issue I noticed is that the medical condition infobox was seemingly written as if the header would say ASD, but because the name of the page is "autism spectrum", it says that instead. So I think it will need to be renamed regardless. The synonyms argument includes ASC and autism, not ASD. That would be fixed with a rename to either "Autism" or "Autism spectrum disorder". A mentally disabled mathematician (talk) 15:21, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

the medical condition infobox was seemingly written as if the header would say ASD — I changed it, in response to #Request to change the word "symptoms" to "traits" in infobox (I acknowledge that the request did not include the word "disorder", but I was treating "disorder" as similar to "disease or illness"), and also {{Infobox medical condition}} says "Name ... should be the same as the title of the article". I have no objection to my edit being reverted. (It might make sense to agree on the article title first, then adjust the infobox if necessary, but we can always change the infobox again later - after agreeing on the article title - if necessary.) Mitch Ames (talk) 05:34, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. The condition is called "Autism Spectrum Disorder" per the DSM-5. While moving the page to Autism may make it more concise, it really does not seem necessary. With Love from Cassie Schebel (talk) 14:45, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

It could alternatively be renamed to "Autism spectrum disorder," and you make a good point that the article is about a medical condition; in any case, "Autism Spectrum Disorder" and "autism" are both common names for ASD and "autism spectrum" is not. A page called "Autism spectrum" to me implies that it's about people with autism, not the condition itself. A mentally disabled mathematician (talk) 15:15, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Autism is not a “medical condition”. -- NotCharizard ^🗨 09:45, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from but by definition and from what is published in reliable sources it is. Traumnovelle (talk) 12:25, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

See the definition of neurodevelopmental disorders. Also, this was already discussed in the past. --WikiLinuz (talk) 15:13, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Support, not seeing any policy or guideline based reasons in the discussion. Opposition is based on the official name which is an appeal to authority not used by Wikipedia's title guidelines and an opinion on how the 'spectrum' is an important feature (that's what the article body is for, not the title). The guideline to support this move is WP:COMMONNAME which is supported by a simple search of google scholar for 'autism' which shows that the condition is commonly shortened to just 'autism' in the body of most papers. Ngrams, whilst not being perfect does show autism to be about 5 times as common than autism spectrum (which implies that autism is used as a stand alone term far more than it is with the name 'autism spectrum'. Traumnovelle (talk) 20:22, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I am a firm believer that both logic and what happens in the real world should trump Wikipedia policy and guidelines, whenever they clash. Wikipedia policies are never cogent for all situations. They cannot be as they are often formulated to deal with quite specific problems, then expanded to cover situations where they are either irrelevant or are positively detrimental. Urselius (talk) 10:47, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

There is no problem. It's a common name being used instead of the formal name, said common name is still used in hundreds if not thousands of reliable sources. It's not even erroneous unlike other common names either, just simplistic. Traumnovelle (talk) 17:09, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Oppose I would like to register my dislike of dealing with pointless requests for mergers and changes of article names, please people, preferentially add useful well referenced content rather than investing time and effort into initiating constant chopping and changing! Autism is universally recognised as a 'spectrum condition'; the use of the monolithic term 'autism' would tend to distract from this very important feature. Urselius (talk) 08:58, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - Current understanding of autism is that it isn't a single, monolithic disorder but rather a spectrum of conditions with a wide range of symptoms and severity levels. Calling it just "autism" is outdated (though it's popular in informal and historic contexts). Moving it to "Autism" would actually make it inaccurate and less precise. "Autism spectrum" or "Autism spectrum condition" would be more scientifically aligned, and also represents a heterogeneous group of people who share certain core characteristics of the condition but may vary significantly in their specific symptoms and abilities.

--WikiLinuz (talk) 21:50, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Sexuality and intelligence are spectrums too, but that doesn’t need to be mentioned in the article titles. -- NotCharizard ^🗨 09:47, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Sexuality and intelligence aren't neurodevelopmental disorders. --WikiLinuz (talk) 15:06, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

From what I'm seeing so far, it seems that even most people who oppose still think that "Autism spectrum disorder" (or "condition") would be a better article title than what we have now. There used to be a separate page for "Autism" but it was merged into this one. But autism, regardless of medical context, definitely still does exist and is highly notable on its own, so something feels off to me about having a formal page title of "Autism spectrum disorder" without simply an "Autism" page. Maybe that's why "Autism spectrum" was chosen, but it has the issues mentioned by others already. A mentally disabled mathematician (talk) 11:57, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

This is a good point.

Look at the revision history between 2009—June 25, 2022 of Classic autism, at the beginning it shows a created page by an editor with the edit summary saying, "<Created page with Classic autism, is a type of autism, is also referred to as severe autism andKanners Syndrome. The other types of autistic spectrum disorders...". If you type this out on the wayback machine "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_autism?wprov=sfti1" and go to January 26, 2022 time 16:09:56, it's named "Low-functioning autism"! And the "autism" link redirects to "Autism spectrum"! I'm not too sure if this is groundbreaking but I think this was a pretty good quick research. Tonkarooson (talk) *new editor* 04:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I just realized that link from low-functioning autism is about the "classic autistic disorder", whatever that means.

The redirect text says, "This article is about the classic autistic disorder. For other conditions sometimes called "autism", see Autism spectrum. For the journal, see Autism (journal)."

What are these articles in present day? Tonkarooson (talk) *new editor* 05:02, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

"de-pathologising language"

I have just made a partial reversion of an edit made by @Notcharizard, because of their attempts to "de-pathologise" the article.

This article is relevant to pathology. Autism is a medical condition, and must be discussed as such. I like the inclusion of the Double empathy problem, but I don't think its central enough to the topic to merit a placement in the introduction. Additionally, it does not suggest that autistic people don't have trouble communicating, but rather that they seem to have less trouble, or are less effected by their troubles, when communicating with other autistic people. This way, removing the claim that autistic people have touble communicating is probably not the right direction for the article. With Love from Cassie Schebel (talk) 21:13, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for doing a partial revert and keeping in the links, instead of just undoing it all, I appreciate that! -- NotCharizard ^🗨 02:01, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

It is worth noting though that autism is generally not considered a "medical condition", it is a developmental disability. It is an important distinction - autism is not something that most modern medical proffesionals would propose trying to "cure". -- NotCharizard ^🗨 02:03, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I 100% agree that autism is not to be cured - I believe that real human success would be impossible without it. However, it is certainly linked to pathology, hence terms like "symptom" and "treatment" do fit.

I plan to look over the page for the double empathy page and add a section on it to this one, but it will be time for me to go to bed soon, so that is a matter for tomorrow. With Love from Cassie Schebel (talk) 02:16, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• While I appreciate the importance of trying to ensure that everyone is respected, treated with inherent dignity, and empowered to live a fulfilling life, "de-pathologizing" is a bit of a social movement and not necessarily central to defining the subject in an encyclopedic sense. The subject is quite literally defined by the International Classification of Diseases and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. For an encyclopedia, those kinds of things are our North Star. That doesn't need to be at odds with valuing basic human dignity, but we're not in the business of public advocacy either. GMG^talk 21:52, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  I agree. It may be worthwhile to add a section (or even create an entire article) about the view of high functioning autism as a psychological difference that needn't be considered a disease or disorder - These ideas are becoming very popular and there are certainly enough sources. With Love from Cassie Schebel (talk) 22:15, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  I expect a lot of that falls under something like Neurodiversity. But there is a division to be had there between a diagnosis and a social group for reasons of equity and inclusion. As far as the former, we are still at a base level beholden to people like the American Psychiatric Association. They are kindof by definition the ones who get to decide whether something falls within or outside of the expected range of non-clinical variations. GMG^talk 22:36, 21 May 2024 (UTC)