What IS The Spectrum, anyway?

Image credit: Autism_Sketches

We often think that "the spectrum" is linear, from "low functioning" to "high functioning," but it's really not.

All spectrum disorders are far more complex than a line. In this post, I am sharing two images to kind of give you a better visual. The autism spectrum is made up of autistic traits such as sensory differences, social struggles, etc. Where one autistic person may be nonspeaking, another may have hyperlexia. Where one autistic person may be primarily sensory avoidant, another may be sensory seeking.

I think the general understanding of autism in our society is such that when an autistic trait lies outside of neurotypical parameters, we only recognize it as autistic when it goes in one direction. For instance, while I am sensory avoidant for some things (nail files…. *shiver*), on the whole I am more sensory seeking than avoidant. For many years I assumed this meant I was not autistic, but in actuality, when something is less or more than neurotypical parameters, it might be autism. In the image below, you can see this more clearly, where “neurotypical” folx would fall along the line at 0 value, or very close to it., but autistics would be above and/or below for each of their traits.

Source unknown. Please let me know if you know!

In another post, I discussed why the autistic community is asking that we move away from using functioning labels, but in the mean time you can know that a person cannot be “more” or “less” autistic than another person and that the idea that “everyone is a little autistic” is a fallacy. One is either on the spectrum or not. If you relate enough to autism that you believe that statement to be true… You might be autistic!