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“Autism is a Spectrum” Doesn’t Mean What You Think (neuroclastic.com)
submitted 5 months ago by DakRalter to c/[email protected]
14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Someone on Mastodon shared this link with me, and I thought you might find it as interesting as I do.

I really hate the misconception of the spectrum. It enables nasty people like Ellen degeneres to justify being a bully (in case you missed it, she tried to get diagnosed autistic. When that didn't work, she said, well it's a spectrum so we're all a little autistic, so I'm not a bully). And enables others to dismiss our struggles, cos hey, we're all on the spectrum!

Back to the article, I feel like I'm a mix of the three examples. I can see some that match from each example. How about you? When I stop feeling so lazy, I might do my own custom one.

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[-] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The author’s total misunderstanding of how visual/color spectrums work makes their analogies fall apart.

  • the “visual spectrum” as they mention it is a gradient, it’s just a gradient of frequency/wavelength which usually isn’t particularly relevant unless you are doing science
  • there are ways people organize, define, and describe colors for aesthetic purposes, often in 2D or 3D “spectrums” or “gradients”. In this context statements like “this color is more red than that color” are very well defined and make sense.

I think I get their core point that there are many facets to autism and annoyance at people who aren’t really “autistic” trying to claim to be to play that “card” in an argument. But IMO trying to pretend words don’t have meaning for the sake of a half-baked analogy is a really weak way to make that argument.

this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2025
42 points (90.4% liked)

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