“If only people knew what a spectrum is … Because they’re talking about autism all wrong.”
“Red is not ‘more spectrum’ than blue is.”
“All autistic people are affected in one way or another in most or all of these boxes—a rainbow of traits.”
“They think that the stranger we act, the ‘more autistic’ we are. We are asking you to stop. Ask us what we can and cannot do. Even if it doesn’t look as though we can understand.”
April has been branded “Autism Awareness Month” by organizations claiming to speak for autistic people and their families. In recent years, the neurodiversity community has rebranded April as Autism Acceptance Month, prioritizing information from autistic people themselves about the experience of autism.
So, I thought this would be a good time to share the below piece about the autism spectrum. Like many people, I had mistakenly thought of the autism spectrum as a linear gradient from mild to severe autism. But, as C.L. Lynch writes, it’s not that simple. Instead, “the spectrum” is more like a rainbow of traits, occurring in different combinations for every person.
