Someone on Mastodon shared this link with me, and I thought you might find it as interesting as I do.
I really hate the misconception of the spectrum. It enables nasty people like Ellen degeneres to justify being a bully (in case you missed it, she tried to get diagnosed autistic. When that didn’t work, she said, well it’s a spectrum so we’re all a little autistic, so I’m not a bully). And enables others to dismiss our struggles, cos hey, we’re all on the spectrum!
Back to the article, I feel like I’m a mix of the three examples. I can see some that match from each example. How about you? When I stop feeling so lazy, I might do my own custom one.
I don’t think this article quite gets it, either. The problem with “Autism is a spectrum” isn’t the word ‘spectrum’, but the word ‘a’. People understand what a spectrum and if autism were ‘a’ spectrum, they would be right to say that everyone is on it. However, it’s not ‘a’ spectrum. It’s a collection of spectrums. So an individual falling on the ‘autistic end’ of one of the spectrums doesn’t necessarily make them autistic.