Is everyone on the spectrum?

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It used to annoy me when my colleague would say this, as I very much felt like NTs were something different. Last week I was discussing it with my therapist, and she said that when under extreme stress NTs can behave in a way that is more autistic.
I think I now prefer the idea of a sliding scale, because the NT vs autistic polarisation creates an us and them 'thing' (can't think of the word I want).

Yes I think practically everybody has some ASD traits, even if they're not very strong. The diagnosticians basically score the client's traits according to the diagnostic manual and apply a cutoff point, so that anybody scoring below that point is not considered to have ASD. The cutoff point is rather arbitrary. From the point of view of adjustments and benefits, they try to gauge it so that you only get help if your ASD traits are messing up your life significantly, and I suppose if society was extremely generous with money and resources, everybody would get adjustments and benefits for every little thing that was holding them back, however slight. From a pure science point of view though, a cutoff point is meaningless.

Everybody has at least one 'autism trait' that is just part of their personality or whatever. But it doesn't mean everybody is on the spectrum though.
Other neurological disabilities can share similar traits to autism but not be on the spectrum. I suppose they have their own spectrum.

Most people aren't on the Autistic Spectrum.

The age where most people exhibit "autistic traits" is toddlerhood.

I wouldn't say that everyone is on the autistic spectrum. However, the boundary is fuzzy, arbitrary, and subjective, so there are a lot of people who can at least be said to "autistic-like" various ways, but who would not be considered to have ASD. Hence the concept of the "broad autistic phenotype" (BAP).

No, no and no.
Any person with in depth knowledge on ASD will not agree with the idea "that everyone is a little autistic." I'm talking MD's and PhDs and people who have done TONS of research and study on this.

Don't let anyone discredit the difference in brain function by believing such false things.

No.

Someone who is socially awkward isn't necessarily on the spectrum, just as someone who has a bout of sneezing doesn't necessarily have the flu.

Not everyone is autistic. There are however many "NTs" and "Aspies" who are barely indistinguishable from one another.

By definition everyone is on it even without any symptoms if AQ scores go from 0 to 52 or something like that.
They also use normal distribution to model it. Guess what? The normal distribution goes from minus infinity to infinity so it is even mathematically impossible to not be in it. QED

I can not believe how hard is it for neurotypicals to think in big picture.

In a manner of speaking you could say "we are all on the autism spectrum". But its an inane and unproductive way to frame it.

You could say "we are all on the dwarfism spectrum". A six foot eight star of the NBA is just a "less extreme dwarf" than a circus midget three feet tall. And if you did say that it would be hard to refute. But saying that has no practical value, and doesnt help folks who under five feet fall. If you are normal or above normal in stature you dont have the life issues that folks under a certain height have. So there is no point in pretending that normal or above normal folks are just "less extreme" versions of actual dwarves.

I'm on the pregnancy spectrum

^ Well if we are being so open with each other I've slowly being committing "genocide"

I'm constantly wondering my own place on the canine spectrum. It keeps me awake at nights especially during the full moon.