This bears a little unpicking because encoded in this authoritative language are some problematic assumptions. We should not be surprised to find words such as ‘disorder’, ‘deficit’ and ‘impairment’ in the DSM; it exists to pin down the exactitudes of problems brought to psychologists by patients. What’s striking, though, is the external nature of the criteria: the autistic person is passive here, being observed and judged, rather than explaining her own experiences. Of course, the diagnostic subjects might be very young, or nonverbal – but equally, they might not be. What many autistic people would question is the framing of these descriptions: they appear to favour the offence to the sensibilities of the practitioner over the challenges faced by the autistic subject. They highlight effect over cause. To an autistic eye, the balance is all wrong.
-- Autism from the inside | Aeon
