Autism is a meaningless word

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At the 2015 IMFAR conference, Professor of Anthropology, International Affairs and Human Sciences at The George Washington University Richard Grinker, Ph.D., ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Richard_Grinker ) half-agreed and half-disagreed with University of Cambridge Autism Research Centre Director Simon Baron-Cohen, PhD, ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Baron-Cohen ) over Baron-Cohen's use of the phrase "Autism Spectrum Condition" (ASC). Both men agreed that the phrase "Autism Spectrum Disorder" (ASD) carries more negative connotations than it should. Baron-Cohen defended his choice of ASC but agreed with Grinker that, perhaps, returning to the all-encompassing term "Autism" does the job just as nicely without the negative connotations. Besides, the general public understands it almost as well as the phrase "Asperger syndrome" which is now merely part of Autism.

So, your concerns are supported by some professionals.

THAT is spot-on.



Unfortunately, you are correct about this. Autism, for all its 'awareness,' is not yet well-understood even in medical or scientific circles. Because they aren't definite on what causes it, they really can only identify it by its indications, i.e. symptoms. Sort of like knowing someone has a cold by the coughing, sneezing, & runny nose without doing a viral culture to confirm; you don't actually KNOW that they have a cold, there is just a very high likelihood based on the circumstantial evidence.
In the case of autism, the circumstantial evidence is the behavior as observed by the professional and measured by the test, but the evidence is also highly subjective based on the professional's opinion and no real hard evidence. The science just isn't advanced enough in this area to remove the human factor from the diagnostic equation.

jimmyboy: exactly what I mean.

Yes, but in the case of a cold there is at least the possibility of doing a viral culture. Whereas with autism - if and when anyone ever finds out some underlying biological cause, they might find that it's not really one spectrum at all but several separate conditions each with their own completely different cause. Or on the contrary, that autism is not really "a thing" at all, but rather a specific form of something else that no-one never associated with autism before. Who knows?

What really pisses me off is all the low-level "experts" making all sorts of assertions when it's pretty clear that even people who are studying autism seriously are nowhere near a "good-enough" theory - let alone certainty, which by definition is unattainable by scientific methods.