Surveying the Colors of Autism

Some people classify autism spectrum disorders into subtypes by their presumed causes, but because science hasn’t yet resolved the causes, this practice is controversial and not widely accepted.
You can also look at autism as a spectrum ranging from severe to light. Leo Kanner observed the severe end of autism when he first wrote about the disorder in 1943, discussing children with severe challenges in communication and socialization. There is a perceived homogeneity of people at the severe end of the spectrum as depicted by the circles within the autism spectrum severity wedge in Figure. People with high-functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger Syndrome may be less severely affected, blending into general society. (In this book, Asperger’s is considered part of the autism spectrum, although its precise relationship to autism remains unestablished.) Additionally, the notion of greater diversity of persons at the less severely affected end of the spectrum is depicted with the largest number of different shapes in Figure, as the condition fades into subclinical characteristics of autism and typical society. Persons with autistic tendencies that impact their daily lives but aren’t strong or numerous enough to warrant diagnoses are often referred to as autistic cousins, a term reportedly developed by Kathy Grant when talking about people with a limited number of autistic tendencies at an Autism Network International event run by Jim Sinclair. John Ratey, MD, author of Shadow Syndromes (Bantam) and numerous other books, considers such people to have “shadow autism.”
For the purposes of this blog, we distinguish between Asperger’s and HFA. Some researchers include Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) on a broader autism spectrum because of its similarities to Asperger’s, including the challenge of attention; others claim AD/HD is a clinically distinct disorder that may occur simultaneously with autism. We don’t consider AD/HD a part of the autism spectrum in this blog.
On the other hand, some researchers don’t consider Asperger Syndrome to be autism at all; others consider it the same as high-functioning autism. Child researchers Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner both (independently) described autism as a disorder in the 1940s, and speculation has continued on whether they were explaining variations of autism or separate conditions entirely.