Why do people get diagnosed autism?

Answer 1

I sometimes wonder why myself. All I seem to get from it is Hallucinogenic Persistent Perception Disorder, Musical Ear Syndrome and some psychedelic effects which seem to occur without taking drugs of any kind.

Answer 2

Autism impairs the ability to form relationships with other people; autistic people live in a world of their own, to put it metaphorically. A severely autistic person doesn't speak at all. So, if someone has these kinds of problems, a diagnosis of autism is likely to be made.

Answer 3

Autism has an enormous variety of presentations, impairments, and abilities. It was once considered three different diagnoses, but those were not found to be useful categories.

(Also, Rett syndrome has other symptoms not found in autism.) Hence the term autism spectrum disorder was found to be better.

Answer 4

Autism is referred to as a spectrum disorder because there are many ways that autism can affect a person (and different levels of severity). Also how autism affects a person can change throughout their lives, so a person is not static on a spectrum.

Answer 5

Autism is considered a spectrum disorder because of how it effects Autistic people.

There is a great range in how autism can effect a person from mild symptoms to severe symptoms, and also a wide difference in how severely someone may be effected depending on their situation - e.g. a child is more likely to be effected than an adult who has learned to deal with symptoms better, and an Autistic person who is stressed is more likely to experience severe symptoms. Autism also effects people in a wide range of ways, each different characteristic may be experienced in mild to severe ways.

Answer 6

Put it this way. A spectrum is a representation of the entire set of colours that are visible. Different types of autism can be represented as different colours on the autism spectrum.

Answer 7

Neither - autism is a neurological disorder or difference.

Answer 8

Yes.