What Is the Autism Spectrum?

Autism spectrum disorder is called that for a reason. There's a huge range of experiences that fall under the diagnosis. So here’s what we know today about the entire spectrum of autism—where it comes from, how to recognize it, and how it's treated.

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[UsenameTakenWasTaken]

That is incorrect.
The autism spectrum is actually what blasts out of my eyes whenever someone says, "You're not autistic, I know someone who is and they don't act like you."
And then they go blind and grow hair on their palms.

[nenben]

as an autism, im just happy y'all didnt use the puzzle peice for the thumbnail

[LunDruid]

As a person on the spectrum, my favorite analogy is that autism is not a computer bug; it's a different operating system.

[PrimataFalante]

I really loved the video. I would just add something to the critique of ABA, from the POV of a diagnosed autistic with sensory challenges: for many autistic individuals, is not just discomfort, but actual pain (it's my case). The extreme focus on behaviour caters to parents who want 'a normal child', ignoring the child's feelings and experience. Since alexithymia is very present on the spectrum, the child is not equipped to understand and express the pain of being conditioned to accept being constantly uncomfortable and suffering. So the behaviour may change (and that is seen as a 'positive result'), but at the cost of making the child get used to being in pain or discomfort for the rest of their life, resulting in a worse quality of life and, obviously, added trauma - just because the individual needs were treated as a problem, instead of a difference.

A very commom term on autistic communities today is 'masking', and is exactly what ABA and similar treatments incentivize. Masking is the "skill" of pretending you are comfortable and not making extreme efforts to appeal acceptable for others. It's a very sad skill that many of us develop to a point where we start thinking we are just incompetent for being constantly exausted and depressed while everyone else is just "living life", all just to be looked at as a 'normal person'. Imagine being forced to burn your hand everyday until you learn to not express pain any longer, and being taught that the right answer is to pretend that pain is not present and you should continue your life ignoring it. That is what exposure therapy is, almost literally - the difference being your pain is not physically visible as it would be with a burn, but it is real and present, and not going away just because you learned to act as if you feel nothing.

I dived into a deep depression in my late twenties/early thirties thanks, in part (because depression is multi-fatorial), to ignoring all my sensory and social issues my whole life, leaning into the idea that I was being weak and that everyone faced the same issues as me and were capable of surpassing then, when in reality my issues were almost in a completely different world as the rest of the prople around me.

That's an inhuman way of life to encourage, specially when it's done just to make someone 'look normal', instead of helping them have a more functioning and fulfilling life. And that is the actual problem with ABA, exposure therapy and others that focus on controlling behaviour instead of trying to help the individual understand their own needs and find creative ways of coping and functioning on their daily life.

(I'm sorry if there are multiple spelling or grammatical errors, I'm Brazilian and writing in english is not something I do frequently)

[auburngeekgirl]

The side camera for “it’s not vaccines” was gold

[saizai]

Regarding ABA (applied behavioural analysis): you glossed over an important caveat to its "success" rate, which is that it measures "success" in terms of conformity to neurotypical behaviours — rather than in terms of improving the subjective experience of the autist, like by teaching them ways to reduce the effects of overstimulation, explicit emotion reading skills, explicit social scripts, differences between them and allists which help understand problems in interactions, etc. That is the crux of autistic criticism of ABA: that it looks at behavioural conformity (like operant conditioning) to improve life for allists around the autist, rather than at improving life for the autist (and as a byproduct giving them the skills needed to better integrate with allists).

[howdy]

reminds me of when my sister went to volunteer to help "high functioning" (that's what they called it back then) people with autism spectrum and was met with the existential crisis that the people she was volunteering to help were struggling with the exact same stuff she did! Not only that, she was with her classmates and they commented how similar her idiosyncrasies were to them. She got diagnosed shortly after. Goes to show how varied the autism spectrum can be that a person with it might have no clue!

[samelis]

10:43 "and there's a mutual lack of understanding when we're trying to communicate with people outside of our group". This is what I wanted to express all these years. That's all I've ever wanted to tell anyone. I feel like I've come full circle. Thank you, Hank and Scishow!

[ariananehrbass]

I lucked out growing up. My Mom picked out right away that I was Autistic and dove HARD into the research about how to raise me right. She informed me that I had Asbergers, and encouraged me to say that proudly; it was part of my personality. She taught me how to approximate eye contact ("Look at the bridge of their nose.") Whenever we went to parties, the first thing she did was ask the host about a quiet room, and showed me where to go if I ever felt "overstimulated." She was very attentive to routines and surprises. She made sure I always had earplugs on hand. I wore them with pride and would sass the other kids if they made comments. People called me "precocious" lol. Mom prepared me so well that we all assumed I'd outgrown my Asbergers.

Then I graduated college and took on a socially-intense job traveling the country. For the first time, I was having regular public meltdowns. Massively embarrassing, completely uncontrollable. I would push myself until I broke. I wondered what the hell was wrong with me. Why couldnt I do things like my coworkers? Was was noise so loud, lights so bright? Things that bothered me did not bother them... And why did I have such a hard time connecting with people? My coworkers called me an odd bird (lovingly). I'd always been an odd bird. But now I could really, REALLY see it on full, unsheltered display.

Theb I looked up Autism in adult women and.... holy cow, it was me. Just knowing that I wasn't alone, that the strange things I experienced were experienced by others... it cut my stress immensely. I realized all those "coping strategies" Mom taught me as a kid had a purpose. So I gave myself permission to use them again: Leaving social gatherings early; making space for alone time; bringing earplugs everywhere; and letting my coworkers know when I need a break or other accommodations; proudly claiming my differences and working with them.

[ollieburn]

Another reason for Autism being more common for people whos dads are older may be that their dads are also autistic and have taken longer to form relationships and have children because of this. This would therefore make them more likely to have autistic children as it is often inherited.

[eliza]

Hi I’m an Indigenous woman and was not diagnosed until my late 20s. I’m usually nervous about watching videos about autism but this was very well done. Thank you.

[michaelwintermantel]

As an Austistic Biologist, ABA is scientifically problematic, and is not the only scientifically supported method for helping with autism, and its flawed in its goals. Rather than measuring success based on the well-being of an individual, it really emphasizes things like masking. And theres a lot of evidence that perpetual masking is extremely harmful.

[thecodemachine]

I knew I was autistic as a kid, and I live independently now. It is not easy. There is so much discrimination. I've had people yell that I should have been left to rot in an institution. I've had people spray down my workplace with perfume because it overstimulates me. I've had to leave gyms because people see an autistic person walking weird and the owner tried to get rid of me.

If you are autistic, you need to know your legal rights, it is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, you are part of a protected class and you can get help.

[celestegross]

My favorite saying about autism is “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.” Also, every person I’ve talked to who went through ABA has trauma from it. You wouldn’t train your dog that way.

[Redoestimate]

I was diagnosed with “Asperger’s” as a young teenager and it took me years to recognize the ways I was belittled and harmed by my experiences with others and to embrace my own neurodiversity.

One thing I think could be improved about this video is talking about the phenomenon of “masking, ” which is a result of adapting to the fact that being visibly autistic is broadly unacceptable to society. Many autistic people develop ways to mimic neurotypical behaviors and responses, and that results in some autistic people who won’t meet the DSM criteria as adults even though they are absolutely still on the spectrum.

[OMFGZdance]

17:52 I appreciate that you didn't mention the name of the person who came up with ABA, because in my humble autistic opinion, he deserves to be so forgotten that the last memory of him crumbles into dust-- and soon. He said about us: "You see, you start pretty much from scratch when you work with an autistic child. You have a person in the physical sense – they have hair, a nose and a mouth – but they are not people in the psychological sense. One way to look at the job of helping autistic kids is to see it as a matter of constructing a person. You have the raw materials, but you have to build the person."
He also worked on the "Feminine Boy Project, " which has strong connections to what we call conversion therapy today, something which was built on his techniques and theories from ABA. That strong connection there should not be downplayed. Rhetorical question-- why would we find those techniques acceptable-- if not PREFERABLE-- for a difference in brain styles but unacceptable and cruel for another form of identity?

[Codexionyx]

As someone on the spectrum, I'm pretty happy to see this. I look and act more-or-less like a normal introvert. But socializing for me feels a lot like playing darts blindfolded. You know what you're supposed to do, and your score after, but actually playing ends up being a matter of trial and error to figure out what specific throws get you a good score. You then just blindly repeat those throws to get the outcome you want.

Also, as others have pointed out, I'm extremely happy that you didn't use

_The Puzzle Piece_

An icon that strikes variously fear and rage into the heart of those on the spectrum everywhere.

EDIT: Thanks to you commenters, I have come to the understanding that many people on the spectrum do not connote The Puzzle Piece as strongly as I do and are not bothered by it. I would like to apologize for this generalization. However, I would also like to say thank you to those who appreciate my darts analogy and hope that it helps you understand and explain your condition.

[PLuMUK]

I was diagnosed aged 58, 12 years ago, and it simply explained so much in my life. Looking back to my childhood, I recognise so many traits that today are markers for autism, but at the time, I was just considered to be a strange child. Thankfully, my parents were not bothered, played up my strengths, and gave me the confidence to ignore other people's opinions about me. I went on to a successful career in teaching, where I was able to get the best out of my pupils, yet with my colleagues, I was a social mess. I do wonder whether my life might have been different if I had been "labelled" as a child. Receiving a late diagnosis, it was more of a lightbulb moment. I finally understood why I was often overwhelmed by lights, sudden noises, and even someone touching my hair. Since my diagnosis, I decided not to put myself through the trauma of haircuts, and now my hair is well down my back. If someone thinks that the Gandolf look doesn't suit me, it's not my problem. I actually like my autism. It has given me a great deal, and I have avoided the majority of negativity. I do find that I will tend to tell people that I am autistic rather than have them wonder about my social inadequacy. I have autism, and yet I am not an autistic person. There are many aspects to who I am. Autism is important, it has affected my character, but it is, as far as I am concerned, just an indication that my brain is slightly different. It does not define me.

[Chaotic_Pixie]

The part about “you don’t grow out of Autism” and that not all autism is the same are really important points to make & I wish more would drive those points home in the therapy community. As someone with an ADHD diagnosis who also expresses many features of autism outside the overlapping ones, it’s so hard to get any therapist to even consider taking my concerns seriously because “how could an articulate, empathetic, grown woman with degrees have autism?” And well, the truth is, I’m an adult and I’ve grown a lot since I was a socially isolated & painfully awkward gifted & talented kid who preferred the company of adults and struggled SO HARD to articulate emotion while also struggling so hard to regulate emotional expression (crying, anger outbursts, exuberant displays of joy… you name it). But now I’m a socially conditioned adult who knows that if you express happiness you get told “someone’s a little manic today” but if you’re angry or sad, “someone’s hormonal today” and 30+ years of observing social interactions & their consequences really help teach one how to be less socially awkward… plus 20+ years of therapy.

It’s called masking folks. We all do it. Autistic… ADHD… functionally depressed… We’ve all learned how to put on the face the NTs want to see… and it’s not for them, it’s for our own safety… emotionally and sometimes physically.

[yeetyeet]

I love this new calm, sat down version of SciShow. The high energy shouting at the camera in front of a green screen was difficult to sit through at times.