Autism - It's Not a Spectrum, It's a Ballpark

Lately you hear a lot about the autism spectrum. People say things like "he's not autistic but he's on the spectrum". Just what is this "autism spectrum"?

Back when I was getting my MA in education, "autism" meant a very specific type of syndrome - think "Rain Man". People with autism were highly unusual and very limited. Nowadays, people with a wide variety of problems, and a wide variety of levels of problem, are called some variety of "autism". There's "high functioning autism" and the new DSM may move Asperger's Syndrome to the autism spectrum, and my own disability (Nonverbal Learning Disability) may belong on the spectrum, depending on whom you ask. I've even used the term myself.

What is a spectrum, anyway?

The most famous use of the word "spectrum" is probably the color spectrum, which is usually given as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Here, place on the spectrum is determined by wavelength. If you know the wavelength of a color, you know exactly where it goes on the spectrum, and the order of the spectrum is determined by only one characteristic. Of course, the spectrum does not fully describe a color - there are many colors at each particular wavelength. To fully describe a color you need three attributes - you can use hue, saturation and value (HSV), or RGB ; or other methods. But it's not just one dimension.

We also talk about the spectrum of political beliefs, which is surely more complex than color, but, at least in the USA, there is a liberal-conservative spectrum, and some political scientists think that this one dimension nearly fully describes the positions of congressmembers (see this site on VoteView ).

Why "autism spectrum" is misleading

Given that, it's clear that "spectrum" implies a high degree of order, probably on a single attribute. But the autism spectrum is not like this! The science dictionary defines it thus:

A developmental disorder characterized by severe deficits in social interaction and communication and by abnormal behavior patterns, such as the repetition of specific movements or a tendency to focus on certain objects. Autism is evident in the first years of life. Its cause is unknown.

(see halfway down the page here). And the autism spectrum includes that, plus Asperger's, plus "pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified" - the infamous PDD-NOS, which seems to me to mean "something's wrong here, but we don't know what!".

How to put people on a spectrum? If someone has severe deficits socially, but communicates halfway OK in some situations, and has no specific movements, is he farther along the spectrum than someone who has moderate social deficits but has a lot of repetition of movement? What if one of the people hyperfocuses and the other doesn't? Who knows! That's because it's not a spectrum.

Psychologists and others probably like 'spectrum'. It sounds like science, and it implies that they know what they are talking about. Maybe some of these psychologists have what has been called "physics envy" . I think that's all wrongheaded. Psychology isn't physics, and physics isn't psychology. Psychologists shouldn't try to be like physicists, they should try to be better psychologists.

It's more like an autism ballpark

For all the research that's been done (and it's been very valuable) we are still in the infancy of learning about autism and related syndromes. I really doubt that "spectrum" will ever be appropriate - psychology is too complex - but it certainly isn't appropriate now. So, what term should we use?

Ballpark! Look at a baseball field. There's a center, and then it spreads out in all directions. Then we could say that a person with all the symptoms of classic autism is (say) standing on second base, in the middle of the field. Other people might be out in left field, or on the pitcher's mound, or anywhere else. Take me. I've got some symptoms of autism, some symptoms of Asperger's some symptoms of NLD; I have a 100% diagnosis of being me. Maybe I don't belong on the autism spectrum, but I am in the ballpark!

(By the way, the classic definition of NLD includes a lack of sense of humor. If you think that I think that's sort of silly - well, you're in the ballpark!)