Is everyone on the spectrum?

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What a warped perspective you have , it's not dogs that would be allowed everywhere it would be cats

I believe we are all on the Spectrum - it's the Human Spectrum --- with ASD those people that further out along certain axes: expression, sensitivity --- which share social difficulties. I see people as a sphere and ASD is on the layer --- my aspie BFF who is flat affect and hyposensitive on another side of the sphere from me: uber expressive and hypersensitive; and my NT dad who is Mr. Social but hypersensitive and anxious towards the middle, etc.

So as OPs say, it's where one arbitrarily draws a line ---- these so many conditions to this degree means THIS.

@ToughDiamond, that!

I am very fortunate that our local public school does exactly that. In fact, I don't know that I need "special" accommodations for my ASD daughter b/c individual "accommodations" is how they teach *every* student. Too bad more schools don't do that.

I was also fortunate that my college accommodated my needs to some degree. I was not diagnosed and didn't know how to proactively solve for my problems, but the college did have the flexibility to react to my problems, e.g. rescheduled tests. Some colleges wouldn't have done that.

Sounds like you must live in a place that has decent human beings running it. My personal experience of most institutions these days is that they don't help anybody unless the client practically forces them to.

No although there will obviously be an area where its hard to tell whether or not someone should be classified as autistic.

I've been sheltered. I was surprised (but not) that near all the ASD women at a local support group were involved in legal activities, or had a lawyer close at hand. Come to think of it, I have called on lawyers four times - so maybe I haven't been so sheltered.

After our post exchange, I was inspired to thank and provide feedback to the school principal on the supportive school culture. She said she was glad to hear it (implied the school culture was "non traditional"). Now she has a couple more spoons. Even NTs need them.

I don't think that everyone is on the spectrum or a little bit autistic. People in generally supposedly may have Autism traits but finding common ground doesn't necessarily make someone actually on the spectrum. Being a little socially awkward doesn't automatically give someone grounds to be ASD, it's a different way of processing the world, anxiety, and affects the way one communicates.

Yes, it is a wide-ranging spectrum disorder, no two individuals are the same, and people on the higher end of the spectrum can appear not to have a disability to an onlooker who knows nothing about ASD whatsoever. But I strongly disagree with "everyone's a little Autistic." With that mentality, it would prevent people from getting help from actually getting the help that they need because if everyone needs help, there is only so much people can do and people will get left out. No one is perfect, everyone has struggles, but the way that people go about it, and it invalidates that it actually is a disability, even if it's milder for some.

I would somewhat disagree with these opinions. I consider many people who do not meet ASD criteria and (or) do not have symptoms typical for autistic children described by Leo Kanner as fully autistic - for example many diagnosed with so-called "nonverbal learning disorder" or people diagnosed with "social communication disorder" from DSM-V are for me autistics too. I think that it is somewhat unfair to exclude socially awkward, inept, inadeqate people who are "odd", present peculiarity and have "quirks" from being in the same group with people with most typical form of autism (if they have these symptoms since childhood). I definitely do not restrict "autisticness" to meeting DSM-V criteria of ASD! It is somewhat ruthless to many people, also those who are similar to me. I think that many (if not most) people with NVLD are (or at least can/may be) more harmed by society and diagnosticians than people with ASD.

I would say that most "pure" sort of autism is associated with certain traits of temperament, character and personality. For me "truest" developmental autistics are those who have since childhood: lowered social needs and motivation, poor social skills, bizarre thoughts, emotions, behaviors, interests. I think that such a person may have really large amount of NT traits but still be strikingly autistic and "weird" life-disabled "kook" and "oddball".

Generally, autism is a way of relating to reality in my opinion. It is more similar to schizoid disorder (Asperger's might be called "schizoid disorder of childhood" despite it is NOT a personality disorder, it is more than it, a pervasive developmental disability with early onset which can make you unable to deal with life even with above-average IQ despite lack of somatic illness) than to cognitive deficits (like lack of (especially intuitive) theory of mind) or rather neurological disabilities or health problems (like sensory hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity). "Normal" people crave of being loved, have significant need of being accepted and have close friends, do not live in own "social bubble", are not "me**ed up kooks" who don't care about ellegant appearance and washing whole body or changing clothes, do not look like someone with significant intellect development disorder due to lack of eye contact or other serious impairments of nonverbal communication. It could be (although wrongly!) named as a sort of "psychopathy" (Asperger's named condition which his patients with characteristic symptoms had as "autistic psychopathy"), because it is a sort of serious disturbance of the instinct (which could be named or described as narrowing relations to the world outside), but I can think that it would be better considered as "pathological nonconformism (syndrome)").

I do not want to speak against people with ASD and Asperger's, but "genuine autism" may appear quite similar to antisocial personality disorder or psychopathy - I suppose that people with "genuine autism" can be extremely egocentric and many bad traits like cowardice (associated with fear, anxiety) or laziness (which can be caused by lack of energy, motivation deficits, uninterest in normal life, egoism and selfishness) really often. They are rather asocial in some way than antisocial (although their anger may be more severe or dangerous to others than angry outbursts of "typical" person). "Genuine autism" is not ASPD, it is rather severely disabling in some areas of life (like job or social relationships), it definitely should be diagnosed in childhood, before puberty (symptoms may be quite apparent about 6th year of life), it is not a personality disorder which is rather diagnosed in adults!

By the way, you just described me, and I am diagnosed ASD. I know your point was about those who are tangent to that, but thank you for that succinct description. It's really bothered me that I have "NT traits" (extroverted, empath, traveler-relying on resources) but that it still doesn't "go well" for me relative to NTs. Oh, except (TEASING) my social needs are normal, NTs are weirdly high. My social skills are good, NTs are weirdly vague. My thoughts, emotions, behaviors, interests are normal, NTs are weirdly complacent, nonplussed, shallow.

No.

It's an Autism Spectrum, not a Human Spectrum.

If everybody is on the spectrum that means Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian is on the spectrum.

my favorite video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWnyDvG7XEk

No.

@skibum, TY for that!

Maybe the question should be rather "does anyone have at least one or few autistic(-like) traits". Are there people who score 0 in AQ test which has 50 questions, especially having always "strongly disagree" for "autistic" traits, and "strongly agree" in "non-autistic" traits?

I think that children with NVLD are often autistic because sometimes traits like "loner personality" or "isolation from peers" and lack of basic social skills are attached to it. I think it is bad that these people are diagnosed with a learning disability instead of autism or pervasive developmental disability. I think that they do not have (pure) NVLD, but just a sort of autism or PDD/autism + NLD.

We all get hungry. Should we then say we all have Prader Willi? I may have spelled that wrong. Would it be fair to the people who struggle with that to say we all have it because we all get hungry?

Whether or not you are Autistic is not determined only by whether or not you have traits. In order for you to be Autistic, those traits have to actually impair you on a daily or near daily basis. And you have to have enough of them happening together and impairing you. So NO, not everyone is Autistic. There is no maybe. The answer is NO!