Winnie the Pooh - how does Roo have autism?

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I was looking at an article about the characters in Winnie the Pooh and what disorders they display, and it said that Roo had autism. How does Roo come anywhere near autistic? His character seems like a normal child to me; cheerful, playful, adventurous, and he likes social interaction and is a good team-player and gets along with all the other characters in the group. I always thought he was the one without any disorders.

Hmm, also I think if honey was replaced with alcohol, Pooh Bear would be an alcoholic. But, remaining honey as honey, I think he either has some sort of dementia because he's always forgetting things, or learning difficulties because he often is about 10 seconds behind the others and comes out with unrelated answers. After all, they do call him "A Bear Of Very Little Brain".

Unlikely.

A.A. Milne created the characters prior to what we are generally accepting Autism to be, so Roo wouldn't have been modeled that way. It could only really be a coincidence. Could he have modeled Roo after children who displayed those traits? Sure, but they wouldn't have been labeled as Autistic at the time.

I doubt any of the characters were created with any specific psychological diagnosis in mind.

I know the characters aren't intended to have psychological disorders but it's just what people say. Forget about the actual cartoon, and just think of the characters. The others make sense:-

Eeyore: depression
Tigger: ADHD
Rabbit: OCD
Piglet: anxiety
Pooh: learning difficulties
Roo: autism

I don't understand where they got Roo having autism from?

The OCD part comes from the fact Rabbit likes to clean and keep his house clean. That is not OCD. Just someone who is a neat freak and likes to clean and garden.

I will agree with Eeyore having depression and Piglet having anxiety and Tigger having ADHD.

Wouldn't the Owl be a better candidate?

I thought Pooh might be a little autistic, because of the way he gets lost in his own thoughts, as though he's living on a slightly different plane as everyone else. So everyone thinks he's slow, but actually he's just thinking about other things. And he can be a bit oblivious to social cues, like when he invited himself to Rabbit's and ate all the honey.
I like Pooh.

Pooh’s a daydreamer. When pointed in the right direction gently, daydreamers frequently do well.

Wait, I thought all of those characters were figments of Christopher Robin's imagination.

It's drugs, man!

Eeyore: Barbituates
Tigger: Crystal Meth
Rabbit: Valium (a.k.a., "Mother's Little Helper")
Piglet: Amphetamines
Pooh: Marijuana
Roo: Caffeine (e.g., a 'gateway' drug)

Almost all children’s stories feature characters that are literally caricatures of various personalities and conditions. Their features are made more extreme so that they are obvious. That is because children’s stories are designed to teach lessons, often about acceptance and interaction with others. If we applied this exact same effort to other children’s literature and television, we would end up with:

Donald Duck: apraxia of speech.
Little Red Riding Hood: prosopagnosia (face blindness).
Goldilocks: anti-social personality disorder.
Snow White’s stepmother: paranoid personality disorder.
Sleeping Beauty: narcolepsy.
Geppetto from Pinocchio: active psychosis.
Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz: catalepsy.
The Wicked Witch of the West: aquaphobia.
The Little Engine that Could: OCD.

And the list could go on and on.

This whole diagnosing ambiguous disorders in fictional characters is stupid and insulting.

Taking all the charm out of classic and beloved characters with the cynical belief they all have some horrific mental problem. Like the myth that Belle from Beauty and the Beast has Stockholm Syndrome. She didn't really have it because she wouldn't obey the Beast, she tried to escape, and even after they became friends, when he gave Belle permission to leave so she could rescue her father, she did.

You could also say the Beast had Lima Syndrome because he fell in love with his prisoner, but it was because he loved her that he put Belle's needs before his own and released her.