Autism as a Hierarchy of Impairments
A French Pyramid, worth visiting Today’s post is not full of complex science. I am reminded from time to time that I am supposed to be writing a book about translating autism science into practical therapy. To even partially do justice to all the science, things have to get a little complicated, at which point it will inevitably lose many readers. What is much easier to achieve is to explain what autism is, and is not, and what, if anything, you might want to do about it. I think you can consider autism as a hierarchy of impairments that together define a particular person’s “autism”. For example, epilepsy is not just a comorbidity of someone’s autism, it is an integral part of it, and very much so biologically. All of this is a simplification, but I think it does actually help represent what is currently diagnosed as autism. Most people diagnosed today with autism are at the lower end of the pyramid/hierarchy, they have impaired social and communication skills to some degree and...