I understand that concept in principle, but in practice it doesn't really work, and this article demonstrates why. The article goes on about low IQ individuals who would have been diagnosed with autism in the past, and pretty much ignores high IQ folk "on the spectrum" who would have been diagnosed with Aspergers before Autism and Aspergers were lumped together as a spectrum disorder. Functionally these are different populations with entirely different issues facing them.

From my perspective I'm confident I have aspergers, but I'm not diagnosed (typical of someone my age at 35). I'm confident of this because everything I've read and watched about aspergers matches my childhood exactly (serious issues with bullying, especially by teachers, I'm highly curious and am compelled to research topics obsessively ever since I was a child, and imaginative or pretend play to me was simply dumb). People always tell me I'm odd or weird (but from my perspective "normal" people are the oddballs). I know I have issues with picking up on social cues, but I study people consciously and analytically to get by: At age 12 I got tired of being bullied and I wanted friends. I put alot of effort into learning how to socialize, but I had to do so consciously. I worked hard on being able to maintain eye contact with people, but I still hate being touched, also things that "normal" people find compelling holds little or no interest to me (namely things, both childhood and adult toys seem silly to me), I also don't understand why everyone wants to listen to music so damn loud (music is great, but why the need to always crank up the volume, it's annoying). The issues that face me are nothing like those that face my cousin, who has little to no ability for introspection, he completely lacks a sense of agency as far as I can tell. Conversely I think that there is no fate, we have power to effect change ourselves and I'm comfortable with being odd and I think it's on me to put effort into acting in socially acceptable ways; a decision I made when I was 12 and have stood by every since (as a side note simply accepting you have a different mind and behaving confidently and mindfully goes along way in terms of social acceptance). I am in charge of my own life, and my cousin couldn't even understand that concept. I can hold down a job, my cousin never will be able to. It took me years to learn how to behave around other people, my cousin will never even consider that he may be acting in ways that others find unacceptable.

From my perspective normal people also have a host of issues: They are generally incurious, and devious with serious issues with honesty (especially to themselves, from my perspective a perpetual state of delusion is "normal" behavior). Normal people are also terrible at novel problem solving and seemingly need their hand held when trying to fix any problem they face that they have no experience with; they seem to completely lack the ability to step back and analyze a situation as an outside observer when that is often required to begin to tackle a problem they don't understand. I have never and would never want to be normal. My shortcomings are seemingly minor compared to what I see as the issues facing someone who is normal.

This is why I don't feel that the spectrum concept really works, it doesn't have much utility. Someone with aspergers can not only function normally, but in many ways is superior to their peers. Someone with autism can't function in society, they can't hold a job for starters, but it's more than that, they can't even introspect enough to try to work on their issues in order to fit in. No matter who you are you are a human and humans need positive social contact, it's a basic need right behind food and water.

This article to me demonstrates perfectly what I am talking about. It conflates autism and aspergers and then goes on to discuss the issues facing people with crippling autism while assuming these same issues impact people with aspergers when they do not. This perspective does not work and will do more harm than good in my opinion.