Fact Sheet: Labels on the Autism Spectrum: A New View

2009

Linda Rammler
[email protected]
860-679-1585

There is considerable disagreement among ?autism experts? today as to whether autism spectrum disorders (or ?differences?) do or do not involve intellectual disability. The thinking about autism has, in many professional circles, changed significantly over the past several years. (See, for examples, the professional literature by such researchers/authors as Don Cardinal, Anne Donnellan, Morton Gernsbacher, Temple Grandin, Martha Leary, Doug Biklen, Margaret Bauman, Donna Williams, and Herb Lovett.) No longer do these experts view autism as a variant of mental retardation. Rather, it is becoming better understood as a complex brain condition that reflects structural and functional differences in the Movement, Anxiety, Communication, and Sensory systems of the brain as well as the interconnectivity between those systems and, in some situations, other parts of the brain. Certainly many individuals who have labels of autism spectrum differences (ASDs), in discussing their own experiences, have described their own movement differences, heightened levels of anxiety, communication challenges, and sensory sensitivities in powerful terms. The Autism Spectrum Differences Institute of New England (ASDI/NE) shares this view because we have found it to be more helpful in providing an appropriate education program to individuals carrying this diagnostic label.

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