> Number (3) has better explanatory powers than (1). However, for the purpose of assessing social and family impact, it is rendered to (1).

My first thought was is (1) more of a projection of (3) from multiple dimensions to one, or more like the magnitude.

Also, it is known thing or are "trains" a euphemism now like "friend of Dorothy"?

For reasons I am compelled to comment that “really bad autism” is not a medical description.

"Spectrum" works too in that if you take white light and split it in a prism, it is spread out into its separate but overlapping components of light at different wavelengths.

Perhaps "big ball of mud"? "mess"? "cluster f*k"?

Arguing relevant metaphors in HN?! A new low...

> rgb values still points to a single color, which maps back to a single value on a 0 -> 1 or red -> violet continuum.

No, it doesn't. Wavelength is unidimensional, but color can mix many wavelengths, and RGB is a 3d color system which doesn't cover all combinations of visible light but does approximate the way most human vision works, and is therefore useful as a description for human-perceived colors (and more accurate than picking a single point on the unidimensional wavelength spectrum for that purpose.)

An RGB value points to a single color, but if R is "really into trains" and B is "repetitive behavior" and G is "susceptibility to sensory overload", then it's basically the same metaphor as a multi channel audio mixer, except understandable to a different (and likely bigger) pool of people.

RGB doesn't map to a single line, you're thinking just about the hue. RGB is a proper vector that addresses a whole 3D color space.

DSM-V [1] describes criteria / symptoms in two groups (caps from document, sorry):

> A. PERSISTENT DEFICITS IN SOCIAL COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION ACROSS CONTEXTS, NOT ACCOUNTED FOR BY GENERAL DEVELOPMENTAL DELAYS

> B. RESTRICTED, REPETITIVE PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR, INTERESTS, OR ACTIVITIES

For criteria A, severity is more or less measured by how much social impairment is observed --- that's a measure of social acceptability in some fashion.

For criteria B, the severity criteria is about "interference with functioning in contexts" as well as observed distress of the patient. Interference with functioning can be related to the patient resisting the desired function, but it can also be because the patient is socially excluded due to their behavior.

Although, I should point out clinical criteria in general and the DSM in specific are a formalization of arbitrary judgements that describe observable characteristics grouped into a diagnostic category; this can be useful, but it's not really an understanding of the underlying condition(s), it's a handbook of things to look for when a patient comes asking for help and what things to try to help them. If someone has the same underlying conditions but manages to pass as socially acceptable, they may not come in for help, and that's fine too. When multiple underlying conditions result in similar observable criteria, the DSM gets pretty confused; there's not much in the way of attaching traces and getting debug logs for mental processes though, especially out in the world, so this is the best society has, I guess.

[1] https://depts.washington.edu/dbpeds/Screening%20Tools/DSM-5(...

ASD is defined by the level of support the individual needs. It says nothing about “fitting in” or by pain or anything else like that

I suspect part of your parent comment's point is that this is an implicit bias in the way the spectrum is defined and thought of, so it wouldn't be clinically defined in those terms explicitly.

In other words, the "spectrum" doesn't exist to capture the variation in the autistic person's own experience - if it did, it would look very different. It's a remnant of a time when autism was seen as just a "problem" for the people around you, and the spectrum measures how much of a problem you are and how weird you are seen by their measure; which does map onto a continuous line in the same way.

That does capture something useful, but only a small part of what autism actually comprises, and is much less useful at capturing the autistic person's own experience of it, and makes it a less useful tool to them than people might assume.

Has social acceptability in any context ever been defined, beyond say, rules of etiquette? It's a free market and everyone is arguably entitled to test to see what it will bear.

The entire nature of the field of psychology and mental health treatment is relative to pain and dysfunction.

If people fit in well and didn’t have issues (either internal pain/suffering or society interaction pain/suffering), they are not applicable to the field.

I won't offer an opinion of my own but I don't disagree with that take.

Oh yes, absolutely. Self-diagnosis is valid.

It is still important to get a official diagnosis if one can but yeah the reality is that it can be a very long process and not in reach for some people.

Autism is something you are born with. It is simply who you are.

Support needs can change over time. You can need less help because you learn better coping strategies and have a stable environment or you can need more as you get older. It is not fixed.

Support needs are denoted in level because that is what system like schools and the like need. They don't really map to reality. Like for example a autistic person can have really bad sensory issues, being really sensitive to sounds, restricted diet and the like but decent social skill. Another autistic person might not have any sensory issues but really struggle with social stuff. Who needs more help? They need different kinds of help.

Having Covid is a spectrum from having nearly no or even no symptoms to having really bad symptoms. Just because everyone experiences having a running nose from time to time, does not mean everyone has Covid.

Autism is not the only way your brain can be different from other people.

The more helpful way to think about is that the neurotypical brain is like RGB(63.32, 12.3, 73.02) but with thousands or maybe millions of variables. If certain values are significantly lower or bigger it might cause you trouble.

Having Autism is one cluster of values you can have. So is having ADHD. So is having Trauma. And many more things. And you can and often have multiple things at once and their symptoms overlap.

Within a particular culture that may be true, but for example the Japanese concept of blue/green is decidedly different from most Western concepts which consider blue and green separate colors.

Well, if one is being pedantic about a loanword one must admit the possibility of the word being loaned twice with different meanings. If one doesn't want to be pedantic, all manner of things are admissible, of course.