What does "on the autism spectrum" mean?

It means you must see the world as an avaragarian. All things and people judged against the average. I like to think of people as unique individuals.

"On the spectrum" is what parents say to feel better about having dumb or awkward kids. It's now hip to say you are "on the spectrum" because you get praised for doing the common things normal people do every day.

Yes, there are many cases of autism. Most claims are simply overblown. Kids with real autism have difficulty functioning in society. They can't look people in the eyes and have an extreme need for routine, for instance. Someone with autism (or even Asperger's) would not be able to stand in front of cameras and large groups of people and make a coherent speech without significant practice/experience. "On the spectrum" gets thrown around for everyone with slight problems. Unless you have immense problems, you're just an awkward person, and that is fine. This ridiculous need to diagnose everyone that isn't completely normal as having a disease needs to end.

Just like saying your kid has ADHD. No, he's just a hyper kid which is normal. You just want to explain away his behavior as a medical condition and not do any actual parenting. Somewhere along the way, a lot of parents decided to stop disciplining their kids.

If I was born 20 years later, I would have been doped up with meds. My teachers just learned to give me more work so I always had something to focus on.

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But this is not a story about Asperger’s, autism, or the spectrum—those very real afflictions that can bring untold hardship to the people who suffer from them and to their families. It is, instead, a story about “Asperger’s,” “autism,” and “the spectrum”—our one-stop-shopping shorthand for the jerky husband, the socially inept plutocrat, the tactless boss, the child prodigy with no friends, the remorseless criminal. It’s about the words we deploy to describe some murky hybrid of egghead and aloof.

Like the actual clinical disorder, the cultural epidemic in scare quotes may have less to do with changes in the world than with changes in those seeing it. To some degree, the spectrum is our way of making sense of an upended social topography, a buckled landscape where nerd titans hold the high ground once occupied by square-jawed captains of industry, a befuddling digital world overrun with trolls and avatars and social-media “rock stars” who are nothing like actual rock stars. It is, as the amateur presidential shrinks would have it, a handy phrase for the distant, cerebral men with the ambition and self-possession necessary to mount a serious run for the White House. When quants and engineers are ascendant, when algorithms trump the liberal arts, when Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber tweet about the death of Steve Jobs, when the hyperspecialist has displaced the generalist and everyone is Matrix-ed into the Internet, it’s an Other-deriding tool to soothe our cultural anxiety about the ongoing power shift from humanists to technologists. As the coders inherit the Earth, saying someone’s on the spectrum is how English majors make themselves feel better.

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The diagnosis is everywhere: Facebook’s former head of engineering has stated that Mark Zuckerberg has “a touch of the Asperger’s.” Time suggested that the intensely awkward Bill Gates is autistic; a biographer of Warren Buffett wrote that the Oracle of Omaha, with his prodigious memory and “fascination with numbers,” has “a vaguely autistic aura.” On Celebrity Rehab, Dr. Drew Pinsky deemed Dennis Rodman (selectively hyperfocused, socially obtuse) a candidate for an Asperger’s diagnosis, and the UCLA specialist brought in to make it official “seemed to concur,” Pinsky told viewers. On the Asperger’s community site Wrong Planet, threads like “Real life celebrities who have or probably have Asperger’s” include Jim Carrey, Adolf Hitler, Daryl Hannah, Slash, Billy Joel, J.?K. Rowling, and Adam Carolla, who makes the cut because “I’ve heard guests on his podcast remark on his lack of eye contact.” “Kanye Probably Has Asperger’s,” BuzzFeed recently declared.

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People also claim Romney and Obama are on the spectrum because of a couple verbal missteps. It has reached absurd proportions.

LINK

-TLDR-
Most claims of being "on the spectrum" are bullshite.

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What does "on the autism spectrum" mean?

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Nobody has outright autism anymore. They are "on the spectrum". Watch the Netflix series Atypical (it's pretty good). It's about a high functioning young person who is "on the spectrum". I didn't know the term till I watched the show. And I don't think I've ever been around anyone with autism as far as I knew. Or shall I say I've not been around anyone who's "on the spectrum".

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You’ve broken the code. There’s a whole group of parents who are trying to get their children classified with some sort of disability to work the free money, educational assistance and special accommodation, or preferential hiring angle.

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Comment is funny but there are a number of actors on the show who are "on the spectrum". They are very clearly processing things differently than most of us. It is a real thing.

It’s a real diagnosis that gets abused and misused by lots of people, similar to self-diagnosing OCD.

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I know other Asperger's (a young friend of ours) that actually has a college degree but doesn't drive and can't really function in a job

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Think about that statement for a minute. No, think about that for ten minutes. Who is bullshitting you...your young friend, the college that granted the degree, or the person who diagnosed him?

I think I’m slowly turning into the Sam Kinison version of Jordan Peterson.

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What does "on the autism spectrum" mean?

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It means the Saints will get another solid late season pickup when a player labels a fan as "on the spectrum" when that is considered an insult in 5-10 years.

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 Had a one year old on Risperdal that mom brought in for a med refill, because some quack child psychiatrist had dropped a diagnosis of bipolar disorder 

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Wow. I'd love to know the name of that quack.

The world was simpler when "retarded" was acceptable...

What have we moved through... "mentally deficient", "mentally challenged", "learning disabilities",...., now "on the autism spectrum"...