not_so

This is a late comment on the topic, but since autism is a spectrum, and no two people are ever on exactly the same point of the spectrum at any given time, why isn't Autistic Spectrum enough? The more labels there are, the more things there are that inexperienced people have to learn to interpret. What is needed is eucation - people who do not know/understand autism need to be taught something about it. What we really need is an easier way of helping others to understand what it means to be autistic. Which means we need to somehow simplify the definition of the condition. I struggle with defining it; I know what it is in my son's case, and how it affects him, but it's so difficult to explain to others. And he is nothing like either of his cousins with an ASC diagnosis, each of whom were able to cope with mainstream education, while he was not. Yet they are all fairly similar in terms of social interaction.