The overloading of the term autism has had a real damaging effect on some people. My cousin is profoundly autistic: he's nonverbal, and will never live independently. In the 90s most autism research was focused on helping people like him. He was involved in some pioneering studies at John's Hopkins University.
Today most of the money and advocacy is for high-performing or moderately-performing people with autism. Not just in relative terms, the amount of funding for people like my cousin has gone down. It makes sense; they are the larger group by volume and are able to advocate better than people like my cousin.
I wish it weren't a zero-sum game, and we recognized that autism is just a word for a broad series of conditions. It would be like if we called everyone with poor eyesight 'blind': yes, your vision is impaired. But the solutions you need are very different than the solutions Stevie Wonder needs.
Today most of the money and advocacy is for high-performing or moderately-performing people with autism. Not just in relative terms, the amount of funding for people like my cousin has gone down. It makes sense; they are the larger group by volume and are able to advocate better than people like my cousin.
I wish it weren't a zero-sum game, and we recognized that autism is just a word for a broad series of conditions. It would be like if we called everyone with poor eyesight 'blind': yes, your vision is impaired. But the solutions you need are very different than the solutions Stevie Wonder needs.
See also: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/health/autism-spectrum-ne...