I think you are pointing out a very serious problem. ASD and other mental "disorders" are bing overdiagnosed and diagnosted too easily. If you want to look for disorder of sorts, you would find them with virtually anyone as none of us function perfectly on all levels. And if you are a child and get slapped with a mental diagnose, that's bound to have a nocebo (a detrimental placebo) effect on you. In a way, many diagnoses easily turn into self-fulfilling prophecies.
I would say that the "magic" areas of your graph that are the fuzzy boundaries should be pushed to the outside as much as possible in order to put the label of disorder on as little people as possible, especially when dealing with children. A child is too maliable still, so giving them a label is not a very good way to go.
Still, I would disagree with the idea that autism is something that happens to you and my interactions with adults that have learned to function with such disorders leads me to believe that at least for some people on the spectrum, it's not really a behavior, but a way that their brain functions. They just notice different stuff, are interested in different stuff and their brains functions a bit differently than us "normals". But the thing is, it doesn't have a problem with functioning, it just functions a differently. The reason something like that would be viewed as a disorder is the fact that society has an expectation for your brain to function "normally".
I have a family member who is on the spectrum and I've witnessed their whole development as I spent a lot of time with him from early childhood into adulthood. My limited and arguably anecdotal observations were that around the age of two he suddenly strayed from the expected behavioral path most children are on. He started spending more time playing on his own, singing and sounding off to himself, walking around oh his toes, taking more interest in listening to music or noise than talking to people and so on. Keep in mind that this was long before screens were a vital part of our lives, so I doubt that influenced him in any way. It was also before the autism diagnosis was popular here and it actually took them decades to slap a label on him. He is still not a screen addict. He has a younger sister who's younger by just a tiny bit and she didn't have any problems at all and is perfectly adjusted socially despite the fact that she was brought up in virtually the same environment. With this relative of mine, you can surely speak of a disorder as he still has serious trouble with social interactions and functioning normally in society. He lives with his parents and I expect that when they are eventually gone, he would stay with his sister and depend on her for certain aspects of his life.
Having seen this first hand, I doubt that this is just a behavioral meme especially in his case. But since the spectrum is so broadly defined, it is entirely possible that there a few very different conditions and types of cases that are wrongly grouped together and are caused in vastly different ways. There might be people under the spectrum that would have been considered "normal" if they weren't diagnosed at an early age as I think diagnosis nocebo is absolutely a possibility at least for the softer cases.
But we are all interested in different stuff based on how our environment guide us. It is part of the distribution. Your example is merely a simple behavioral pattern that we could be caused from a myriad of factors — especially early development ones.
the meme is the over-diagnosis. the "spectrum" includes literally everyone. Where does on draw the line between "normal" and not? usually is based on what parents think. That's what is really fucked up.
I agree, I don't agree with the post from kyriacos or see what basis he has to be an authority on this issue. Claiming the whole thing is some sort of "behavioral meme" sounds like another search for a silver bullet, meaning a simplified solution to a complex problem. With any physical or mental issue in our society, our knowledge is still evolving and growing, and there is room for debate about categorizations and incident numbers, that is normal. Overall though the narrow analysis posted in this article trivializes the efforts and struggles of many dealing holistically with the issue.
That's an assertion that you haven't actually demonstrated and as far as my arguably limited awareness of research in the field goes, others haven't either. We know that we have different tastes and interests and we for sure know that our environment and experiences play a significant part in those, but there is not good evidence that the environment is the only factor. How do you rule out innate personality factors that might affect interests as well?
Let me point you to another post of yours about cats and their personality. There you seem to point out behavior traits that are innate, right? I'm sure you agree that there are some behavior traits in humans that are innate, too, right? Well, why would you rule out the possiblity of a personality trait being optional? Why wouldn't it be possible some people to have an innately different way to process external stimulus. Of course, I'm far from proving this, but I think it's an option that is unreasonable to dismiss yet and it seems to me that it fits well with the evidence we have about autism and especially the more severe forms as I too am not entirely sure we are drawing the line fuzzy as it is at the right place.
Possibly, of course. But that hasn't been actually demonstrated to be the case. That's why I'm saying that it's way too early to rule out the innate option and I personally find it to have a bit more merit as of now. And it certainly doesn't have to be an either-or thing anyway. We could easily have all kinds of people that are currently on the spectrum with very different reasons for a similar condition. What I don't understand is why you discount all the other options in favor of one and that's why I'm discussing this.
We agree about over-diagnosis entirely I think.
Drawing the line might be a challenge and the middle ground might contain a lot of fuzziness, but I think it's already clear that people on either ends of the spectrum function very differently from a practical perspective. That's why I think making a differentiation does make sense despite the fact that I'm not sure that either ends of the spectrum are warranted to be viewed as disorders. That's why I think having it is not pointless, we should just not allow for the "diagnosis" part to eat up the middle ground.