What is Autism?

The way most medical systems largely define autism is often seen as pathologizing and is hotly opposed by many in Actually Autistic communities. In these spaces, autism is viewed not a disorder, not a disability, not a set of deficiencies, and certainly not something to be defeated or cured. Around the turn of the millennium a paradigm shift (called the neurodiversity paradigm) began, with the goal of changing the views and language around neurodiversity from pathologizing traits (including those related to autism) to instead recognize them as valid parts of alternate neurotypes.

There is no singular way autism presents; the only qualities in common across autism is that everyone has processing differences, typically around sensory stimuli and social communication. Within the spectrum, the range of possible variations is as infinite as humanity. While there are some common traits shared by many autists (such as a penchant for honesty and directness), none of them are true for all autistic people. A common phrase in autistic communities is "if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism". This doesn’t mean that autism is indefinable, it means that while there are many shared features, no specific presentation can be relied on as a predictor of autism.

In short: Autism is an atypical schema for sensory and information processing that is highly variable while having many commonalities.