the.com/autism
A neurodevelopmental difference in how a person communicates, senses and experiences the world.
means A neurodevelopmental difference affecting how a person communicates, processes sensory input, and engages with the social world, present from early life and lasting a lifetime.
from From Greek 'autos' (self), plus the medical suffix '-ismos'. It was coined in the early 1900s — first by a psychiatrist describing a withdrawn, self-absorbed symptom seen in schizophrenia — literally 'a state of being turned inward on the self.' It was only decades later, in the 1940s, that clinicians repurposed the word to name the distinct developmental condition we mean today, stripping it from its original context but keeping that core idea of an inward-facing, self-contained way of being.
- spectrum myth
- not a line from mild to severe, more like a wheel
- sensory world
- everyday sounds and lights can feel ten times louder
- special interests
- deep focus that looks like obsession but builds mastery
- diagnosis gap
- girls and women often missed for decades