Talk:Autism

Issues with picture

There has been, for whatever particular reason, the issue that people diagnosed with autism are usually much more strongly associated with the diagnosis than they would have if they were diagnosed with some other diagnosis.

Now, frankly, this isn't the place to complain about the issue that once a person has been diagnosed with autism, the person, in essence, disappears and, instead, a kind of golem emerges, one called the person 'with autism' or the 'autistic' person, where the premises seem to revolve around the person doing ordinary things the wrong way, because the person himself is often thought to be "wrong".

I personally feel uncomfortable when the first picture in the autism article is a 2-year-old boy, referenced by name, who's labelled as autistic for stacking cans, at least readers could interpret such behavior as inherently autistic when it is not. I'm aware this picture has been in use for years but it struck me as wrong back then and still does so now.

The picture with the Somali kids in an autism center may not be an ideal choice, given recent controversies over Minnesota autism centers laundering tax money to Somalia.

Arguably, given that the articles o ADHD, learning disabilities, schizophrenia etc. do not have pictures showing people at all, I fail to see its relevance here altogether. And because, in practice, the point boils down to little more than showing people argued to have autism, (does anyone really know whether or not the Somali kids in that stock picture have autism, they may be intellectually disabled and such centers also cater to them), we might as well juxtapose a picture of Einstein with a non-verbal wheelchair-bound case of severe cerebral palsy, in essence the two end points of that "spectrum". Confirmatores (talk) 23:45, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

Let's begin with the images themselves. The first image does indeed depict an autistic child stacking cans; but, contrary to what you claim, we are at least not saying that he is "labelled autistic for stacking cans [emphasis added]". It serves its purpose well in depicting a symptom of autism manifesting in a child. Regarding him being named, you can blame (if you want) the person who published the image together with that description. Personally, I hope that the subject has not suffered any damage stemming from his name being revealed; regardless, I would indeed not be happy if I had been involuntarily used as an exhibit item, even for scientific and related purposes. However, I remain unconvinced that it is not beneficial to an encyclopedic article in which his identity is even disregarded, mind you.

In regards to the Somali child, I find it interesting that you connect it to the Minnesota issue; I had actually never come to think of that, perhaps because I am European. Anyhow, the issue regarding WP:VERIFIABILITY of what the image is claimed to depict, which I actually raised almost a year ago (check the archives for that discussion and many others worth reading), has been resolved for now because I was informed that images are fine as long as they serve to depict what they supposedly capture, even in situations where it cannot be verified. However, I am a bit unsure about how useful it actually is; I personally think it's just a child engaging with an object that many children have engaged with, especially in the past (I grew up with electronic devices with user-facing arithmetic capabilities, but in poor countries, people might not).

I think one reason for its inclusion is that it explicitly shows a black person in the context of autism, similar to the ice skater being an example of a female person with autism; this is supposed to counteract this article ending up showing only people who are, at the same time, prepubescent, white and male, which is a stereotype associated with autism. I don't mind diversity, and want to inform anyone wondering about this that in practice, we just happen to be limited by the content available in Wikimedia Commons, where the trend ended up manifesting in stereotypical autistic people being uploaded more often than other autistic people. Feel free to upload images not conforming to the stereotype if you want to counteract it.

Lastly, I agree that people indeed often use templates found in their minds in order to interpret the world, such as "autism" when seeing someone known to have autism, instead of actually perceiving the subject at hand. That's unfortunate, but there is little we can do here or elsewhere; people will most likely continue letting their minds be lazy. That's that, I guess... BlockArranger (talk) 23:20, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Again, I note that writers and editors probably would not have supplied pictures of people in the first place if there wasn't the false assumption that autism somehow defines a race of people as opposed to being a mere diagnostic attribute. So, again. I fail to see the necessity for pictures of people being featured just because they happen to have received an autism diagnosis at some point. I tried to hint at that issue with criticizing the toddler pic because that kid may have potentially, by now, turned out to be not autistic at all. Confirmatores (talk) 17:12, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Like deafness, autism is not merely a clinical condition. It has important social, sociological and community aspects. As an autistic person, who is very complex and is far from being entirely defined by my autism, I can assure you that autism is not merely a clinical diagnosis. Your viewpoint that there is no dimension to autism beyond the strictly clinical or that there is no autistic community is demonstrably wrong. People are autistic in their entirety, therefore photographs of entire people are relevant, unlike swollen ankles, where a photograph limited to a view of ankles would be sufficient. Urselius (talk) 05:20, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

No, autism is a set of behavioral issues so, really, a proper illustration would not involve a still picture but a video showing a person exhibiting distinctive behavioral issues called "autistic". Static autism doesn't exist. Confirmatores (talk) 16:33, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Please do not continue on the off-topic ontology of autism beyond this comment. This is about pictures. BlockArranger (talk) 23:20, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that actions/behaviors can only be illustrated with a video. When I think about whether there could be a video of this same boy stacking cans in his kitchen, I'm not sure that a video would actually be more informative. Additionally, I suspect that the video would draw the same basic complaints (both "I hate having pictures of kids in this article, because I'm an autistic adult, and autistic adults like me get overlooked!" and "I hate having pictures of autistic people doing something stereotypical!") plus a new complaint about how video isn't accessible to people with poor internet connections. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Well, why not have a gallery of the first known WP:NOTABLE deaf person, as well as deaf people who are young, female, colored, and so on, engaging in programming, driving and the like merely with the purpose of showing actual deaf people and examples of things that are able to do? Also, why do we not apply your suggestion to Personality disorder, even though PD is infact central to affected individuals? BlockArranger (talk) 23:25, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Your reply is so convoluted as to be somewhat unintelligible.

Photographs of deaf people signing would be entirely cogent. A photograph of someone with personality disorder talking to a therapist/psychiatrist would also be relevant. However, givemn appropriate permissions and consent, photographs of whole people with neurodevelopmental, physical and psychological conditions doing things not at all associated directly with their condition, seem unobjectionable to me. There are plenty of photos of people on Wikipedia not doing whatever it is they are famous for, just smiling for the camera. A photo of Stephen Fry just smiling for the camera, included on the page for bipolar disorder would be unobjectionable, as he has that condition. Insisting that the photograph be of him while suffering from a depressive episode would be inane. Urselius (talk) 07:30, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

The toddler photo was taken and uploaded by his mother, who is a professional journalist and who has written about her son's mostly non-speaking autism and published videos such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7kHSOgauhg that talk specifically about him stacking cans and lining up things. He was formally diagnosed with autism about three months after this picture was taken. The same boy is shown another photo, also taken and uploaded by his mother, in Autism#Restricted and repetitive behaviors. In both photos, he's showing restricted/repetitive behaviors. Somehow, we get lots of complaints about him actively stacking cans but no complaints about him being asleep in his bed with all his ducks in a row. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:24, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

This strengthens, rather than weakens my point, because I don't think it's ethically sound to publish pictures of kids functioning as illustrations of medical conditions without explicit authorization coming from them. Even assuming that this issue is legally solved because the parent explicitly allows for mass distribution, I think, from the perspective of the child, verbal or not, it might come across as insulting and a breech of both autonomity and anonymity. Anyway, I also don't think that lining up toys or stacking up cans is syndrome-specific enough. Such stereotyped patterns also occur in post-encephalitic conditions and cases of hydrocephalia. They also occur in normal kids. Confirmatores (talk) 16:28, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Regarding the ethics of the image, you are unlikely to get it removed even if I also share some of your sentiment. It is debatable how syndrome-specific these phenomena are, but as long as these are recognized symptoms of autism to the extent that they constitute part of meeting official criteria for a diagnosis of ASD, the image is good. This would also be the case with head-banging, for example. Anyway, I think it is good for the factuality aspect that, as @WhatamIdoing points out, the autistic person in question is well-documented, so that this is not merely a case of Wikipedians finding a picture of a generic child stacking cans and using it to illustrate autism (which would be fine); rather, this is specifically an autistic child with a symptom of autism. BlockArranger (talk) 07:20, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

"This would also be the case with head-banging, for example"

A lot of things cover the repetitive and restrictive behavior domain to the point where I personally consider it meaningless because it's simply scientifically meaningless in terms of what behavior is mapped on what assumed disease-entity. Head-banging argumentaly occurs in PTSD, personality disorders, severe intellectual disability and an array of genetic diseases as well, yet, in theory, showing head-banging as an example of "autistic" behavior falsely associates that behavior so that, in the end, it comes solely to stand for autism.

Ignoring here the 'ontological' discussions which you are disinclined to have, the ontology of autism is a legitimate research subject; Again I have to ask what precise task the pictures fulfill in the article? Because most other articles on mental illness or developmental disabilities don't have such pictures. Notably, you seem to justify their inclusion based on just one out of four pictures which arguably does show a symptom, though the behavior is neither specific to autism, nor limited to autism nor even universally present in autism. Ignoring all that, the ethic aspect still remains with featuring pictures of identifiable people who were unable to give their consent to distribution. Confirmatores (talk) 08:37, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

The pictures in this article fulfill the same point as any pictures in any Wikipedia article: They visually illustrate something that is mentioned in the article. For example, the article says "arranging toys in a row", and we have a picture of this boy arranging cans in a stack and sleeping next to a row of toys that he has arranged. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:00, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

I am not disinclined to have an ontological discussion regarding autism; in fact, I started one, titled "What is Autism?", which was apparently archived recently because our archiving is too quick. I also see the ethical problems, but they are not going to stop Wikipedia from solely being focused on building an optimal encyclopedia for the masses, including, if possible, illustrating autism in one way or another. Furthermore, we do not need to find a symtom that only occurs in autism and only in autism; stacking cans is sufficient because it exemplifies how repetitive behavior can manifest. BlockArranger (talk) 22:50, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Please prove that "writers and editors probably would not have supplied pictures of people in the first place if there wasn't the false assumption that autism somehow defines a race of people as opposed to being a mere diagnostic attribute". In my opinion, the can stacking picture is good (but not exhaustively sufficient) for an encyclopedic depiction of autism because it clearly shows a symptom of autism manifesting. In this context, I do not really care about the actual child in the picture, and the article should not either. I don't really like the other pictures, as indeed, I think those aim to show examples of a "race of people" merely in order to convey that they can be figure skaters, old, businesspeople, female and black; these pictures do not really help someone understand what autism is. The banker may be an exception, because it's perhaps a fun fact that he's the first person diagnosed by Kanner – but not with ASD, which is perhaps another issue: is this article perhaps not merely about ASD, but also about other diagnoses considered to be "autism"? BlockArranger (talk) 23:19, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

+1, idk we don’t just follow WP:GALLERY anyway: There is consensus not to use a gallery of group members as the lead image for articles about large groups of people such as ethnicities., an RfC might be worth doing Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 12:22, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Fortunately, we're not doing that. The infobox shows:

• an autistic boy doing something stereotypically autistic;
• an autistic teen doing something not stereotypically autistic;
• a probably autistic child receiving an appropriate education;
• a historically significant person with autism.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:02, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

"an autistic teen doing something not stereotypically autistic"

Which precisely shows that the original concept of autism is exchanged for a identity-centered reformulation of autism where the clinical picture becomes irrelevant. If an "autistic" person exhibits no autistic behavior, he's not "autistic" in that situation hence the picture is misleading.

"a probably autistic child receiving an appropriate education;"

I mean, for starters, this kid may not be autistic at all, and the picture has been likely derived from promo material featured by a educational center targeting a wide array of kids (as has been shown in previous thread discussing that issue.)

Generally, all pictures suffer from issues. Either they illustrate behavior that is common but not limited to autism, or they illustrate behavior that isn't autism or there is some other significant uncertainty. Donald might be the only exception but whether or not we want to include him in the collection is similar to the question whether cases of dementia praecox should be included in the schizophrenia section. And anyway, this maintains that Kanner's definition of autism is autism (as per the DSM-5 which is the only remotely legally binding definition). Now, I personally would not be too unhappy about Kanner's definition because it's more stringent and more clearly differentiates his kids from generic cases of intellectual disability. Confirmatores (talk) 21:46, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

When something is common in one condition, but is also seen in other conditions, it's called a Nonspecific symptom. Almost all medical signs and symptoms are non-specific, e.g., a fever appears in many infections and also some non-infectious medical conditions. That doesn't mean that it's useless or inappropriate to say that people with the flu have fevers. Similarly, many autistic children like to stack cans or line their toys up in a row. That isn't specific to autism, but the fact that someone with a non-autism condition might also like to stack cans doesn't make it useless or inappropriate for autism. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:19, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Medical conditions are medical conditions because symptoms are outward signs of an underlying identifiable pathology that is the source of the outward signs. It's obvious this definition doesn't work for autism except for syndromic cases where it is obvious that the autism is caused by chromosomal deletion syndromes, brain damage, encephalitis etc. Fun fact: "Even the DSM-5 specifically state that diagnoses of syndromic autism must include cause if it is identifiable."

Anyway, leaving out the picture of the kid stacking cans (which, for a long time, has been the only picture; infantilizing and showing a vey nonspecific syndrom for that matter) we now include three pictures that actually show nothing autism-specific at all. Just people who've gotten a piece of paper at some point stating that they had autism and for the Somali kid, even that isn't verified. Confirmatores (talk) 15:45, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, "infantilizing" is the usual complaint. As I said earlier, this complaint boils down to "I hate having pictures of kids in this article, because I'm an autistic adult, and autistic adults like me get overlooked!"

We need to include people who don't "look like" they have autism, because most autistic people "look like" non-autistic people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

"We need to include people who don't "look like" they have autism"

No, we absolutely don't because autism has nothing to do with physical looks. And since autism is a pattern of behavior, it would be appropriate to feature pictures showing examples of such behavior. Confirmatores (talk) 18:11, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't feel like I'm understanding your concerns. For example, first you tell me that you don't want the picture of an autistic boy engaged in an autism-related behavior. Now you tell me that the pictures should show examples of such behavior. Could you perhaps organize your thoughts into a numbered list of statements? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

You're evading my questions, instead whatabouting over this and that. Your arguments for keeping the pictures are utterly unconvincing. The picture lacking any verification of a kid using the abacus must be kept according to you because it conveys the idea "that autistic people can learn math" or that "autistic people can do non-autistic things".

These are utterly non-sensical statement because 1. it's not a commonly hold pre-conception and 2. even if it was still had nothing to do with the article's purpose. Judging from what you say so far and the articles you would like to write yourself, it seems obvious that you are deliberately steering the autism article to whatever ideological flavor you would like to see it represent. And since you're failing to give any clear directions, instead just going for summarizations of what somebody says or claims, never mentioning who that is, I simply can't but think that you're not arguing in good faith. You refuse to structure the article around the one thing that actually gives it form which is its official definition, instead allocating a tremendous and disproportional amount of attention to "neurospicy" minority/fringe positions which 1. do not belong in an article on autism proper because they're not medical or psychological and 2. even if they were, should be contrasted against positions held by interest groups representing parents of severely autistic kids. Confirmatores (talk) 23:18, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

The idea that autistic people can't do things is pervasive. Have you seen nothing about what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said about autistic kids? He said that autistic people "will never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on a date."

That's wrong, but it is a common belief.

We show: An autistic kid who stacks cans. An autistic teen who does ice skating. An autistic kid who is learning math. An autistic man who worked in a bank for most of his life. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:06, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

RFK Jr. claim is taken out of context because he was talking about severely autistic people for whom his characterization isn't really that far-fetched. We probably wouldn't have these discussions more generally if we would differentiate between different presentations currently subsumed under autism but there's resistance towards that so these inconsistencies and misconceptions will remain for the foreseeable time. Confirmatores (talk) 14:19, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, after RFK became the center of a media firestorm for promoting misinformation, he appeared on Fox News to claim that when he talked about autistic people in a press conference, some of his remarks only apply to some autistic people.

But the stigma is real, and it's not just RFK Jr who holds those views. There wouldn't be so much pressure to "fix" autism or to "mask" symptoms if parents, schools, and others didn't think that being autistic was bad. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Are 'severely autistic people' just people with intellectual disability and autism?

There is growing evidence for two basal genetic causes of autism, one inherited, an additive effect of small-scale genetic variants found throughout the general population, tending towards a less overt presentation and the other from de novo, large-scale, genetic changes occurring in sperm and ovum production that tend to be more obviously disabling. This also explains the double peaks of intelligence in autistic people, one peak below average intelligence, the other peak above average intelligence, with a saddle around the average. Urselius (talk) 07:56, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't know what average IQ is for the entire autism cohort. I know that, for kids younger than 8 years, 40 to 50 % have intellectual disability with an additional 20 % scoring an IQ between 70 and 84. So low IQ seems to be pretty solidly associated with autism. Anyway, since conception-wise, autism and intellectual disability aren't really that different, I agree with the current ICD decision that the co-occurence of autism and intellectual disability isn't just mere co-occurence but actually one syndrome warranting two diagnostic labels. Confirmatores (talk) 15:10, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Recent figures show that autistic people with an average or above average IQ outnumber those with below average IQ by a considerable margin. The ratio of high to low IQ autistic people will only increase in the future. Before the mid 1990s people with average to high IQ were rarely diagnosed as autistic, diagnosis has become more accurate in diagnosing high-masking and intelligent people (especially women) over time. This, and no other reason, is why the numbers of people diagnosed as autistic has increased.

Personal observation has led me to conclude that people in scientific research - my direct observation has been mostly of biochemists, molecular and cell biologists, chemists and computer-based theoreticians - show more autistic traits than are found in the general population. Certainly, a published study showed a significantly higher proportion of children enrolled in the schools of the Dutch equivalent of Silicon Valley have autism diagnoses than the Dutch national average.

From the graph below it can be seen that autistic people are over-represented, compared to the general population at both of the extremes of IQ. The relatively higher incidence of autistic people with very high IQs is notable.

Bimodal IQ distribution in autism 2d line chart

General population in green, autistic population in blue. Urselius (talk) 16:19, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Funny how despite the extreme bi-modal distribution, we're told that an Aspie engineer and a severely non-verbal autistic with clear dysfunction of his nerve system have the same issue and experience the world similarly. Autism is a joke of a diagnosis. Since Simon Cohen's blabla about the male brain and Atwood claiming every historic person to be "autistic", we should have stopped taking it seriously and instead started asking why the avalanche of low-functioning clearly biologically compromised kids is simply written off as "autistic". Confirmatores (talk) 18:11, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

I have come to the conclusion that you are a POV-pusher with zero interest in helping to create a better Wikipedia article on autism.

I have tinnitus - it is continuous and sounds like a dentist's drill - and high-frequency hearing loss. I am not profoundly deaf, but my auditory loss does cause me problems on a daily basis. I tend to mis-hear what people say, especially if I cannot see their mouths. I do not need to be profoundly deaf in order to have a clinically recognised degree of deafness. My deafness was confirmed by audiological testing and diagnosis.

In a similar way, I am not profoundly autistic, but it causes me problems on a daily basis. I believe that I do not need to be non-functional in order to be autistic. My autism was confirmed by my clinical diagnosis by relevantly qualified clinicians.

Autistic people can have co-occurring conditions: hypermobility, gut issues, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, generalised anxiety disorder, OCD, ADHD, epilepsy, depression etc. and also intellectual disability. These can affect people in an additive way with autism. I see no 'avalanche', anyone who is autistic and cannot live independently, due to autism and co-occurring conditions, needs support commensurate with their needs. Whether they are called 'autistic' or 'intellectually disabled', or something else entirely, makes not a jot of difference. They should have their support needs met.

You appear to be living in some sort of conspiracy-theory dystopia of your own device, one with an unhealthy obsession about autism at its core. Urselius (talk) 19:57, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

None of what you write is relevant to anything that I wrote or that anyone else has written so far.

"They should have their support needs met."

Again, this is not relevant to the point I raised. For that matter, it's also painfully naive that an industrial complex centered around generating profits with disabled people does this only out of some humanitarian mission. There is a very real thing called medicalization and disease-mongering and it involves lobbying to lower the bars for what qualifies as disabilities. I don't think someone with mild Asperger traits or what not is helped by a blanket diagnosis ascertaining him of suffering from the same ailment that elsewhere leaves people unable to speak and making them wear helmets because of the evr present threat of a clonic epileptic seizure.Confirmatores (talk) 20:32, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

There is no such thing as an, "industrial complex centered around generating profits with disabled people", outside of your febrile imagination. What happens with autistic people unable to live independently is, firstly they are looked after by their families with minimal, if any, state support. Then they are looked after by badly paid support workers, either in their own homes or in institutional settings. No one is making huge profits out of this. In the US, and some other benighted countries, the medical insurance industry is a sort of institutionalised fraud perpetrated on the whole population, not specifically on disabled people of any type. Urselius (talk) 22:40, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

I believe that this "industrial complex" language is sometimes used to describe Applied behavior analysis treatment programs. While an individual program may or may not be profitable overall, and the lowest-level employees in any large program are probably poorly paid, they are hugely expensive from the POV of the person paying for them. One medical center that provides ABA and other services sued the State of Florida over a change that appears to be cutting into their profits by about a million dollars a week. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:30, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

A very parochial problem only affecting those US citizens able to afford a very expensive therapy, a therapy has been accused of traumatising its subjects, or victims. This does not affect the rest of the world to any appreciable extent. It can hardly be characterised as an "industrial complex", like the defence industry or pharmaceuticals. Urselius (talk) 06:12, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Please, only write one comment to adress the issues I raised. I've got 14 notifications and I'm unwilling to go through them all.

The term; "industrial complex" is a perfectly appropriate term because it describes any enterprise which has stopped operating on the basis of market principles and instead uses its political power to lobby for its continuous existence and growth. It becomes a purely self-serving enterprise with no positive or even adverse effects for those outside of it. ABA is just one instance, although a pretty good one, because ABA has no scientific evidence that it works, yet thanks to lobbying it's the only treatment option available in most states for autism. Confirmatores (talk) 10:16, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

There is no treatment for autism. All that ABA does is increase masking abilities by forcing autistic children to conform to the behavioural expectations of society in general. ABA has a very bad press in the autistic community and the parents who inflict it on their children should be educated away from doing so. Your 'industrial complex', which is no such thing, could be effectively destroyed by educating American 'autism moms' away from paying for their children to be abused. Urselius (talk) 18:11, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

You might be interested in reading https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD009260.pub3/full if you're interested in a more scientific approach to the question of what ABA does. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:30, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

No, the general problem with ABA is that it has been originally developed with severe brain damage in mind. It is obvious that ABA can NOT teach people to develop appropriate social skills because ABA, by definition, operates in a highly artificial and abnormal environment where you're meant to explicitly prompt kids. ABA is only good for conditioning people to stop maiming themselves or hitting their heads etc. or for certain motor movements like going to the toilets. The fact so much ABA is offered to parents of autistic kids either implies that these services are falsely offered to parents and generate no tangible benefits or, if they create benefits, that the number of extremely low-functioning autistic kids must have increased substantially. Confirmatores (talk) 20:34, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

So... I don't know much about the history of ABA, but what you're saying about teaching social skills to young children is wrong. Young children get that kind of "artificial and abnormal environment where you're meant to explicitly prompt kids" regularly. To give a banal example, most English-speaking kids grow up hearing "What's the magic word?" to prompt them to say please and "What do you say?" to prompt them to say thank you.

ABA is also not necessarily about "social skills" in the sense of (e.g.) how to make friends. It seems to get used mostly for basic functional behaviors and developmental milestones. The ABA-based Picture Exchange Communication System (which has multiple WP:MEDSAY violations), for example, teaches kids to trade a picture of something for the object, which I think most people would say is an improvement on the usual preverbal approach (e.g., the baby cries until the parents guess what the problem is; the toddler screams if you prevent him from doing something dangerous). WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:43, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

This is irrelevant to the point I raised. Confirmatores (talk) 15:10, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Do we have any consensus here? As it stands now, the image collection is not representive, includes one person who is not autistic, falsely associates a DSM/ICD disorder model as representing the people themselves which is ethically unsound, includes a picture of a now 20-something-year-old kid who is identified by name and the reasons for why these pictures have chosen are ideologically motivated and largely irrelevant to the article. Confirmatores (talk) 19:30, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Which person is "not autistic"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

The abacus kid isn't.

Regardless, relevance of the pictures in regards to the article is simply not established. Confirmatores (talk) 22:57, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Do you actually know who the student at the Autism Somalia Center is, and what his list of diagnoses are? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Whataboutism since the burden of proof lies on the one including the picture. Confirmatores (talk) 10:28, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I'd say the burden of proof lies on the person writing that he "isn't" autistic. That's an assertion of a fact, and very different from writing something like "I know this is in a special school for kids with autism, but they have some kids with Down syndrome, so what if this kid happens to be one of the few kids that doesn't have autism? I'm assuming, of course, that they take kids with Down syndrome who aren't autistic, because of course I already know that lots of kids with Down syndrome are also autistic". Do you have any basis for making your factual assertion that this kid "isn't" autistic? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:07, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Again, whataboutism. It's pretty pedantic and insincere at that point.

In regards to: " That's an assertion of a fact, and very different from writing something like "I know this is in a special school for kids with autism"

1. You keep conflating autism with ID/DD, (intellectual disability), proving that you seem to struggle at understanding these concepts.

2. You fail to reasonably prove that this school is for "autistic" students. Since the discussion so far has shown that the featured picture is NOT from a school tailoured for "autistic" students, it stands to reason that the vast majority of the pupils aren't autistic and the few that likely happen to suffer frmo autism and ID/DD.

In regards to: "I'm assuming, of course, that they take kids with Down syndrome who aren't autistic, because of course I already know that lots of kids with Down syndrome are also autistic"

Insincere whataboutism + the vast majority of Downies aren't autistic. Anyway, irrelevant point.

In regards to: "Do you have any basis for making your factual assertion that this kid "isn't" autistic?"

Whataboutism + the following fallacies: moving the goalpost and begging the question. Confirmatores (talk) 17:50, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

"You're saying something with no factual basis" is not whataboutism. An example of whataboutism would be "You said this boy in this picture in this article isn't autistic, but what about a different picture in a different article?"

As for your "1", I don't conflate autism with Intellectual disability or Developmental disorder (ID and DD are different things). However, you may wish to note that autism is pretty common in Down syndrome:

“ "In the general population, the prevalence of ASD is about 1%; in children with Down syndrome, it has been estimated at 41%."

”

About your "2", I wonder why you might think that a school that literally has the word "Autism" in its name might not be for autistic students? I think that a school:

• whose name is Autism Somalia Center;
• whose website says things like "The center is committed to improving the health and living standers of autistic special needs children", and
• whose vision statement says "The Development and Care for Children with Special Need-Autism Somalia Center (DCCSN-ASC) envisions a world in which individuals and families living with autism are able to maximize their quality of life, are treated with the highest level of dignity, and live in a society in which their talents and skills are appreciated and valued"

is probably a school for kids with autism. What do you think? Does that sound to you like a school for primarily non-autistic kids? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:57, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

C.f. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9979529/

Cites 13 %

Elsewhere, I get numbers in the range of 10-18 %. The 40 % seems to be a singularly high estimate. Presenting it as a fact is insincere and manipulative.

See: "Does that sound to you like a school for primarily non-autistic kids?"

Still no proof that the featured kid is "autistic" nor that the picture is relevant to the article. Confirmatores (talk) 20:17, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

• Even 13% proves your claim that "the vast majority of Downies aren't autistic" wrong.
• Still no proof for your claim that "The abacus kid isn't" autistic.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:29, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Although you have previously argued for including the picture because autism isn't mental retardation, now it seems that you treat both topics as one and the same thing. Although, and I have repeatedly pointed this out, the fact that various syndromic pictures give rise to often debilitating "autism syndromes" can be regarded as trivial consequences of profound disruptions in neurodevelopment; hence treating them as "autistic" renders the diagnosis of autism meaningless because such cases hold absolutely no relevance for the vast majority of well- or somewhat functioning people now labelled as autistic. Confirmatores (talk) 17:53, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

If your POV that (e.g.,) autistic-like behaviors due to Fragile X syndrome are not the same thing as autism ever develops significant support in MEDRS sources, then I'll cheerfully advocate for that POV to be included in this article. Until then, though, "autism syndromes as a consequence of profound disruptions in neurodevelopment" are still Autism and still within the scope of this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:01, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

It's my point of view and as a significant minority it deserves representation. - WhatamIdoing. Confirmatores (talk) 20:10, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it's a "significant" minority. Significant minority views should be easy to source in MEDRS-quality sources. I have found MEDRS-style sources differentiating between "profound" or "severe" and the more common forms of autism, but not ones that say autism with a known medical cause, regardless of severity, is importantly different from autism without a known medical cause. If you can supply a few such sources, I'm sure we'd all be grateful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Why exactly would the distinction not be relevant.

For that matter, why do you disregard MEDRS sources when forcing neurodiversity views into the autism article? Confirmatores (talk) 20:24, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Distinctions that are not published in reliable sources are not relevant, because Wikipedia:Neutral point of view requires us to "fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources" but none of the "tiny minority" viewpoints, and Wikipedia:No original research bans us from including distinctions that aren't published in any reliable sources. If the distinction between syndromic and non-syndromic autism isn't a "significant" viewpoint in MEDRS sources, then putting it in the article would violate core content policies.

I don't think you will find a single instance of me either "disregarding MEDRS sources" or "forcing neurodiversity views into the autism article". In case you'd like to check, here's a complete list of every edit I've ever made to this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:55, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I certainly do not think there is any consensus supporting your position. You have an entrenched viewpoint, which you push tirelessly. It seems not to overlap greatly with the viewpoints of other editors. On a practical level, the article is constrained by what images are available on Wikimedia. No doubt everyone could imagine ideal images for the article, but they are simply not available. Urselius (talk) 20:19, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Most articles on mental disorders don't feature any pictures of people. Curiously enough, only in the autism article is there a weird consensus FOR disease identification with the featured pictures actually having little relevance. Confirmatores (talk) 22:55, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

In the "Neurological and symptomatic" section of Template:Mental disorders (the section that contains Autism), I found that about half of the articles had images in them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:31, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

C.f. previous discussions.

Again, whataboutism since we're specifically dealing with pictures of people, not pictures more generally. Confirmatores (talk) 17:59, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Huntington's disease#Management and Parkinson's disease#Signs and symptoms have pictures of people diagnosed with those conditions. Asperger syndrome and Savant syndrome have them in the lead. While most articles on neurological disorders don't feature any pictures of people, some clearly do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder, or condition, not a 'mental disorder'. Autistic people can be, though this is relatively rare given the high rates of anxiety, entirely free of mental ill health. Urselius (talk) 05:24, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Neurodevelopmental disorders are, by definition, mental disorders. Confirmatores (talk) 09:34, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

That's not quite true. Motor disorder is a category of neurodevelopmental disorders in the DSM-5, but it includes things like Developmental coordination disorder, which is not considered a "mental" disorder. Cerebral palsy is also a neurodevelopmental disorder, and it is not considered a mental disorder. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Cerebral palsy isn't a neurodevelopmental disorder. Neurodevelopmental disorders are specific disorders of mental development as codified in the DSM-5 and now the ICD-11. Cerebral palsy can cause neurodevelopmental disorders, however.

Either way, even if I were to allow motor disorder etc. as neurodevelopmental disorder, this doesn't refute the status of autism being a mental disorder since autism is characterized by mental disturbances in social conduct and behavior. Whether or not these are caused by underlying neurological defects is irrelevant to the diagnosis per se. Confirmatores (talk) 20:20, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

• "Cerebral palsy (CP) is a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by damage to the immature brain." doi:10.1016/j.expneurol.2023.114411
• "Cerebral palsy (CP) is a neurodevelopmental disorder resulting from an injury to the developing brain." doi:10.1002/14651858.CD011660.pub2
• "Cerebral palsy is a neurodevelopmental disorder that exerts its impact on motor development and functioning, leading to various abnormalities in movement, coordination, muscle tone, reflexes, posture, and balance." ISBN 9780323984300, p. 342
• "CP is a neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosed based on clinical signs, not etiology." doi:10.3389/fneur.2021.617813 {{doi}}: unflagged free DOI (link)

Would you mind, whenever you're about to post a "fact", actually doing a quick search to see whether your claim is easily disproven? And maybe read it again just before you post, so you don't come across as being totally arrogant? You just said you might "allow" the DSM to include motor disorders in their definition of neurodevelopmental disorders, but I really don't think anyone cares whether you granted them your permission to do so.

This article doesn't have to take a stand on whether autism is a "mental disorder". That term is not well understood by the general public (i.e., the likely readers of this article), so it's probably best to be a bit more specific (e.g., write "neurodevelopmental" instead of "mental"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:49, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Don't bother pestering me with any low-quality medical paper. Cerebral palsy is NOT a neurodevelopmental disorder and it does not suddenly become one based on idiosyncratic naming conventions. More importantly, cerebral palsy is caused by brain damage. Feel free to redefine autism as brain damage. Confirmatores (talk) 21:22, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

"This article doesn't have to take a stand on whether autism is a "mental disorder".

It should because any medical authority defines it as such.

"That term is not well understood by the general public"

1. Not an argument. 2. Doesn't refute my point autism being a debilitating mental disorder.

"so it's probably best to be a bit more specific (e.g., write "neurodevelopmental" instead of "mental")."

Which, as is clearly shows, means that the user wants to force a large number of clearly neurologically diseases into it. Again, I have whatsoever no problem with autism being defined as a form of brain damage. Autistic people definitely behave as such. But it's not scientifically warranted. Confirmatores (talk) 21:25, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I think your comments are insulting to autistic people.

I think you are overlooking the fact that communication is a two-way activity. If we say "____" in a technical sense, but average people (=Wikipedia's readers) don't understand that to be a narrowly defined technical term, then we have failed at the fundamental goal of communicating information to the reader.

For example, MOS:MYTH warns us against using the word myth without communicating the meaning. My statement below about "the myth that all CP is caused by birth asphyxia" should not appear in any article, because it's not a myth in the scholarly sense (i.e., in the sense of the Greek myths); instead, it's a common misconception.

In this case, we shouldn't say "Autism is a form of brain damage", because brain damage is generally understood as physical trauma to the brain. We don't want Wikipedia's readers to think that autism is the result of car wrecks or a babies getting dropped on their heads, and if we say "brain damage", then some of them will think that, and we'll have created misunderstandings.

If we say it's a "mental disorder", they'll think it's like depression or a psychotic disorder. Again, this language will result in some people misunderstanding autism.

What we need to communicate is that it's a neurodevelopmental disorder: autism affects how the nervous system develops as a child grows. That's the term most often used in the medical literature, and it is correctly understood by most readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:55, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

C.f. "What we need to communicate is that it's a neurodevelopmental disorder: autism affects how the nervous system develops as a child grows"

Autism can NOT affect nervous system development. This is a deliberately misleading term based on falsely propagating to people with no medical knowledge that "autism" is a physically real thing somewhere located in the brain or in the genes. 1. It's deliberately misleading, 2. scientifically false and 3. meaningless.

C.f "MOS:MYTH warns us against using the word myth without communicating the meaning"

The category doesn't apply here. The notion of brain damage limited to car wrecks is also deliberately misleading and medically false. You are actually lying, and have done so repeatedly. Confirmatores (talk) 20:10, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

• Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder.
• Neurodevelopmental disorders are "causatively related to atypical development of the nervous system". All neurodevelopmental disorders affect the development of the nervous system.
• But you believe that "Autism can NOT affect nervous system development"?

WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:39, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Autism cannot affect the nervous system because it is argued to be caused by abnormal nervous tissue development, a claim that lacks scientific evidence. Confirmatores (talk) 22:52, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Also provide an answer to the question why you are lying and why you provide me with incosistent answers. Confirmatores (talk) 23:28, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Which "low-quality medical paper" were you talking about? The first one is a systematic review in one of the world's leading developmental neuroscience journals. The second is a Cochrane review. The third is a scholarly book on pediatric neurodevelopmental disabilities published by Elsevier. And the fourth specifically addresses the myth that all CP is caused by birth asphyxia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Tbh, since the entire argumentation so far, in essence, is meaningless busywork and the user seems to have unclear motives + exhibits characteristics of an LLM-based bot, I will simply end the discussion here.

Make from it what you want. I'm whatsoever not surprised that industrial interest groups and other corps would manipulate the internet to force their view onto the public. But i'm big into the dead internet theory anyway so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Confirmatores (talk) 20:27, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

What "most articles" have wrt images isn't supportive evidence of a consensus that editors wish that situation. Or what Wikipedia might look like if the UI was capable of magazine quality layout and we fostered a community of illustrators, rather than just people who can insert plain text and square brackets in a text box. -- Colin°^Talk 08:31, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia makes it pretty clear that editors have to justify why and what they include in the article. Once again, 1. why is the abacus kid included despite him not being autistic, 2. what exactly is gained from featuring pictures of "autistic" people in the lead? Confirmatores (talk) 09:36, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

This image has been discussed already (e.g. Talk:Autism/Archive 17#Questionable inclusion of image of a child with an abacus) where an editor had a similar complaint. This discussion hasn't added anything new that is likely to shift consensus. Repeatedly arguing about the boy's autism diagnosis wasn't a helpful approach last time, and claiming you know for sure he does not have autism is unlikely to impress anyone here. We are all grown ups and can deal with unknowns and uncertainties.

We would love to have an abundance of images from which we could select and which would represent autism in all its global variety. We don't, unfortunately, and part of contributing to Wikipedia is accepting compromise and accepting others have different opinions and priorities than you. Your last question, about what is gained from "featuring pictures of "autistic" people in the lead" strikes me as a very odd question indeed, and one for which I'm sure you are capable of answering yourself. -- Colin°^Talk 13:07, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

In regards to: Your last question, about what is gained from "featuring pictures of "autistic" people in the lead" strikes me as a very odd question indeed.

It's not odd at all. Linking a debilitating disorder to a person such that the reader comes to associate the person with his/her disease suggests an ideologically motivated and charged motive. In other words, the Wikipedia autism article so far heavily suggests that autism "is" the person, hence that people constitute a specific neurodevelopmental disease which they are rather than they suffer from.

Anyway, the issues also are that;

1. this contradicts established medical guidelines,

2. it is ethically an unsound decision, you know with the whole "you are your disease" talk.

3. it seems to be a position not pursued in other articles treating disorders affecting mental capabilities. Confirmatores (talk) 17:58, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

i partially agree with you but you are committing a slippery slope fallacy KnightsAreNotHorses (talk) 11:36, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Break

People who are unhappy about an infant having autism representing autism can give up by this point; it is clear and obvious that Wikipedia shouldn't do anything at all because of arguments like "WP:IDONTLIKEIT"; we are WP:NOTCENSORED. BlockArranger (talk) 23:12, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Your position is analogous to demanding that all photographs of sportspeople or actors just standing and smiling for the camera should be removed from Wikipedia because they are not actively engaged in their professions. It has no merit. Urselius (talk) 07:46, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

The merit is that the sportspeople and actors represent something, that is; themselves.

The non-autistic Somali kid learning math with an abacus represents nothing relevant to the autism article. Confirmatores (talk) 09:18, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Well, we're assuming that the abacus is part of a math lesson. He could just be stimming. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Photographs of autistic people represent themselves and, by extension, autistic people in general. Urselius (talk) 16:35, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

1. It is universally considered ethically unsound to reduce people to their disability and disease. This seems to be something that few people struggle with except in autism spaces.

2. Would you consider it appropriate if profoundly autistic people with minimal self-care skills are represented by employed and independent people and v.v.?

Unfortunately, as it stands now, it might be altogether better to remove pictures instead of having the ever same discussions around the mostly infantilizing or embellishing portrayals of autism here which seemed to have occurred several times the last couple years. Confirmatores (talk) 21:13, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand the relevance of your #1. A photo of a child engaged in an autism-related behavior is not "reducing people to their disability". A photo of a child engaged in a school activity is not "reducing people to their disability". A photo of a teen engaged in a sport is the opposite of "reducing people to their disability".

I'm not sure how your #2 would be possible. Do you mean taking a photo of two people, and mixing up the captions? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:20, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

But could the argument that the images are of aspects not also be used for galleries on ethnic group articles? Could argue eg. image of a [foo] family, image of a [foo] woman in traditional dress, image of a [foo] man on a fishing boat etc. Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 22:26, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

In an ethnic group article, the goal is to show what people look like. Here, the goal is to show what they're doing/capable of doing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:54, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Which, at best, only pertains to two of the four pictures, omitting the very real question; Do we really need to show people that an acclaimedly "autistic" child is capable of learning 2+2 with an abacus?

The pictures add nothing of value to the article and it's clear that political identitarianism is largely responsible for why some people think it's appropriate to include them. It goes well with the PC/woke dogma of autism as something inborn, a neurotype that you just have for life, ignoring the very real evidence that some kids can effectively leave it behind etc. Confirmatores (talk) 15:35, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

With the Somali group, we're illustrating the point that autistic kids can learn. In much of the world, schools won't accept children with special needs.

(Also, in medicalese, symptoms are different from signs.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I do not think we should illustrate any point at all; we should merely illustrate ASD to the extent that it is possible. ASD is abstract, but it manifests in manners like stacking cans, head-banging, having limited ability to speak, and so on. Regrettably, it is difficult to illustrate impairments in social communication (but perhaps measures taken to assist may be used in images for that). Regardless, the ability of someone with autism to be a figure skater or a banker cannot be used to illustrate what autism is, equally to how we do not need such images in order to show that deaf people can skate. In fact, Wikipedia seems to (in theory) accept the teen image as an example of a deaf person being able to be a figure skater, as long as she plausibly appears deaf, as WP:V is not necessary for images. However, there is not a chance that I would get that image to stay for long in the infobox of that article, obviously because her ability to skate has nothing to do with deafness, or ASD, for that matter. BlockArranger (talk) 23:08, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Stacking cans, head-banging, having limited ability to speak isn't limited to autism nor is it present in all or even most autism cases. Stacking cans, unfortunately, is probably the closest we have to what represents a true "autistic" behavior because it's comparatively rare in any other diagnosis yet I still remain uneasy about this being a referenced photo which allows for identification of the kid. Confirmatores (talk) 15:03, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

If memory serves, someone found a social media post a couple of years ago in which the mother said that the now-grown young man actually thinks it's kind of cool that his picture is in Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:22, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Whoops! Your rather unpleasant ideological motivation is showing. Urselius (talk) 07:58, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

"PC/woke dogma of autism as something inborn, a neurotype that you just have for life, ignoring the very real evidence that some kids can effectively leave it behind etc." Is it possible that some children, and adults, merely perfect masking strategies? I was showing distinct autistic traits when starting school at five, which were not picked up on (too long ago, before intelligent autistics were routinely diagnosed). I was diagnosed aged 59, after a lifetime of problems and having no idea what was causing them. I certainly did not 'leave it behind' !

I am autistic (clinically diagnosed), I have a wife and children, I have a PhD in molecular and cell biology. I had a 34 year long career in biomedical research in leading UK universities. My masking/camouflaging is near perfect. However, after giving a conference presentation I would be close to catatonic for the rest of the day. I cannot follow conversations if there is background noise (difficult in a lab with lots of mass spectrometers). An inability to accurately time my interjections in group conversations is hugely frustrating. In crowded situations I have a building desire to lash out at people near me to clear some space - I do not do so, but the impulse exists. Touching synthetic fabrics, especially nylon, makes my brain itch and I feel an enormous physical revulsion and nausea. I have many more manifestations of autism, too numerous to list, but suffice it to say it impacts my daily life and prescribes what I can and cannot do, If you met me you would have no clue that I am autistic. I even make eye-contact, but I time it, I do not do it subconsciously. I know how to make, hold and break it, so that allistic people feel comfortable talking to me.

Brain scans on people doing tasks, neuron/synapse density and the strength of short-scale and large-scale connectivity within the brain have shown reproducible and significant differences between autistic and allistic brains. This includes the brains of autistic people of high intellect capable of seamless masking. Autism, affecting intelligent and capable people, able, often with a high degree of difficulty and exhaustion, of functioning in society, exists. Rather than autism merely stopping people from doing things, autism often just makes doing things orders of magnitude more difficult than they are for allistic people. If you are allistic just be thankful, your life is easy. Try not making it more difficult for autistic people than it already is! Urselius (talk) 08:46, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

In response to: "Is it possible that some children, and adults, merely perfect masking strategies?"

How can people mask a neurodevelopmental disability whose symptoms are argued to be biologically caused? People can't mask Alzheimer's, Parkinson's etc. either. More notably, even if they attempt to hide it, standardized clinical testing which is now routinely carried out on kids, will find relevant impairments. If autism wasn't detected back in school and no other diagnosis or special educational needs are attested, the obvious conclusion is that the kid didn't have autism.

Much of what you describe isn't autism but sensory processing disorder.

In response to: "Brain scans on people doing tasks, neuron/synapse density and the strength of short-scale and large-scale connectivity..."

1. Brain connectivity issues has never been ruled a cause of autism. And I have previously discussed a similar issue with a neurologists who notified me that standard anatomical mapping procedures on the brain cannot actually be used to map the neuron density of the brain or similarly, because it relies on measures of blood flow which are extrapolated from measures of electrical conductivity and impulses.. The one thing they can is identify dead or lost tissue within the brain. Confirmatores (talk) 09:28, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

I can tell you that many scholarly papers and books have been written on autistic masking/camouflaging, Your incredulity as to its existence seems obtuse at best. I have given you an actual example of how I, an autistic person, mask. I make eye-contact by use of intellect rather than by subconscious instinct. There you have it, that is masking. I feel no need to gaze directly into the eyes of other people, though doing so causes me no real distress; therefore I do it because it is expected of me by allistic social norms. Me doing it makes others happy for some strange reason, and doing it helps me to function in social settings, so to do it is a useful for me thing to do. Asking your question is at the same misguided level as asking how profoundly deaf people could possibly communicate, as language is primarily spoken. The answer is the same, the effects of disabilities, physical, sensory or neurodevelopmental can be overcome or mitigated by the application of intellect (sign language, wheelchairs etc. etc.). If an autistic person has a co-occurring intellectual disability their abilities to mask will be compromised. For an autistic person with above average intellect, their intellect takes over from 'social instinct' to a considerable extent. Masking is a lot like acting, another intellectually-mediated activity, the autistic person is scanning and consciously noting what other people do, winnowing out the appropriate from the inappropriate, in different social settings. Then they apply this learned information in the form of having a 'script' and 'stage directions' for use when in public in social situations. This obviously tiring and is the reason that socialising can be exhausting for autistic people and why they need a lot of alone time to recover. Pease see these scholarly papers on masking and autism: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=masking+and+autism&btnG=

As to your second point, please peruse some of these scientific papers concerning brain connectivity and autism: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=brain+connectivity+and+autism&btnG= they contradict your opinion quite comprehensively.

I have no idea who you have been talking to in the neurology field, but perhaps you have either misrepresented their views or they are in dire need of re-education in their subject, or merely educating on the application of neurology to autism. In any of these cases what you have said is demonstrably incorrect. Urselius (talk) 10:38, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Social instinct is so poorly defined as to be meaningless. Kids have limited or no social instinct, anyone with kids knows that, so this instinct is something acquired. If autism prevents somebody from developing a "social instinct", then this is because of pervasive disruptions in acquiring most or all developmental skills which used to be typical for autism. I'm throwing also this in; theories should have some level of logical coherence that allows them to be tested and to be rejected if real-life results don't align with the model. Current autism theories have become pseudo-scientific since an untestable and hence irrefutable autism experience has been posited as its essence. Everyone can, in essence, claim to be masking their autism, meaning that in principle everyone has autism. Confirmatores (talk) 15:07, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

I note that you have studiously avoided all comment on the assertions you made in previous comments that I have shown to be false and incorrect. You merely choose other things to raise. You continually, 'just kick the can down the street.' Continued conversation with you is not worth the effort. Urselius (talk) 16:30, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Going through a selection of biased sources which hold no medical value because they involve no medical sciences is meaningless busywork. For each paper claiming masking to be a real thing, I can provide one which shows it to be problematic, meaningless or fraudulent. Confirmatores (talk) 18:08, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Pointless blathering. Urselius (talk) 20:01, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Evading the crucial point of the discussion. Confirmatores (talk) 20:25, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

For every paper in my Google Scholar searches, please provide one that is of scientific or academic integrity that refutes the concept of masking. Go on do it! Do some real work, rather than just making things up. Urselius (talk) 22:51, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

This: People can't mask Alzheimer's, Parkinson's etc. is not true. In the early stages, it is something that can be masked. People develop strategies that help them look normal (e.g., avoiding long conversations for dementia, not eating soup for Parkinson's). Being able to mask symptoms is why so many middle-aged people think their parents are doing fine, up until the moment that Grandma calls and says the electricity has been shut off, because she hasn't remembered to pay the bills for three months. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:26, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Sure, people mask but that's not what is implied here. It is one thing saying that people consciously hide problems, knowing fully well that these problems could be independently and easily verified and hence remain. In the case of autism, we're supposed to believe that a diagnosis centered around impairments in social conduct and behavior can be successfully compensated which defeats the point of the diagnosis as a behavioral tool. Without any form of independent verification that does not rely on people saying this or that, it becomes meaningless. Confirmatores (talk) 17:45, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

This is very weak as an argument. A man with one leg amputated can be fitted with a prosthetic limb, he can then walk. However, he is still missing a leg. He still has problems associated with his missing limb. An autistic person can mask, and can appear to be indistinguishable from an allistic person. This is until masking, which is intellectually exhausting, produces a shut-down or melt-down, or even autistic burn-out (this is a medically recognised autistic manifestation). These things do not happen to allistic people, just because of exceeding a capacity to socialise. Being able to function in society does not mean that an autistic person is not autistic, or that they cease to have problems directly caused by their autism. Autism is not always something that categorically stops people from doing certain things, it often just makes doing certain things very, very much more difficult. Urselius (talk) 20:18, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

What is Autism anyway? And how can an abstract concept make something more difficult? And why is this idea of autistic "burnout" now popping up out of nowhere despite autism being a thing for 80 years or so. And why are you avoiding the question what proof there is of autism independent of its behavioral manifestation? These are just a lot of claims which, to me, look like desperate attempts by a for-profit industry to talk people into wanting autism diagnoses. Surely, you will be aware that even the DSM-5 committee admits that none of its diagnoses actually warrants true medical credibility. Confirmatores (talk) 20:28, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

We could also ask: Why is shutting down after more social interaction that you can bear a sign of autism, and not a sign of depression? Because depressed people do this, too, as do people who are simply overwhelmed. Catatonia was described thousands of years before autism was, and "catatonia associated with autism spectrum disorder" (the formal name for severe shut downs) is only one of many specifiers. Why is melting down after more than you can bear a sign of autism, and not a sign of anxiety? Because an anxiety-induced panic attack looks a lot like an autistic meltdown. I think non-autistic people display the same behaviors when they're stressed beyond what they can bear.

(Also: autistic burnout is formally recognized by which medical authorities? None that I know of. The ICD-11 recognizes occupational burnout and caregiver burnout, but not autistic burnout. The DSM does not mention autistic burnout.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:06, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

I probably should have said 'is scientifically recognised' as medical thought is usually years behind scientific progress. See papers on autistic burnout here: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=autistic+burnout&btnG= Urselius (talk) 14:26, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Autistic shutdowns are specific responses to overwhelming sensory input or emotional stress, leading to withdrawal and reduced communication, while allistic shutdowns (non-autistic individuals) may not have the same sensory sensitivities and can manifest differently, often related to general stress or fatigue. The key difference lies in the unique sensory processing challenges faced by autistic individuals. Urselius (talk) 15:16, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that "responses to...emotional stress, leading to withdrawal and reduced communication" is "specific" to autism or has any particular association with sensory processing. What would convince me otherwise is a well-designed research study that compares autistic and non-autistic people both shutting down due to emotional stress, and somehow demonstrating that the one is caused by sensory processing problems and the other is caused by something else. If you find such a study, please feel free to leave a link on my talk page. (For people shutting down under emotional stress, see approximately every textbook on psychotherapy; it's a very common human response to severe emotional stress.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:33, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Without any form of independent verification that does not rely on people saying this or that, it is a psychiatric diagnosis, apparently. Consider how difficult it would be to diagnose most of the conditions listed in the DSM (e.g., depression or anxiety) without self-reported symptoms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

The picture does not show "Somali kids in an autism center". The picture shows kids in a therapy center that is physically located in Garoowe,Somalia, on the tip of the Horn of Africa. The name of the therapy center is "Autism Somali Center"; their website is https://autismsomaliacenter.org/about/ if you want to know more about them. Since the photo did not come with a statement certifying that the child (whose face is mostly obscured) was definitely and officially diagnosed with autism, other editors have objected to captions saying something like "an autistic child uses an abacus", because what if that unidentifiable child doesn't actually have autism, even though he's attending a therapy center that specializes in autism? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:33, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Previous discussion on child with abacus at Autism Somalia Cente: Talk:Autism/Archive 17 § Questionable inclusion of image of a child with an abacus. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:15, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Savant picture

What do you think of replacing the collage in the infobox with a single picture? Proposal (see image to the right):

Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic savant, drawing a landscape from memory

Some1 (talk) 23:06, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

I like the picture, but I don't think that a savant is a fair representation of autism because savants are so rare. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:12, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

An autistic savant lead image would be the worst and most myth-perpetuating choice we could make.

Wrt a video, the lead image of ironing is a still image of an activity. A video of someone ironing clothes would be useful within the article body, but a lead image has to convey information and be visually meaningful at at glance, whereas a video generally needs commitment to view for a period.

I do think the discussion has diverged somewhat and a WP:NOTFORUM reminder is due. There also comes a point where it seems people are just arguing on the internet because they can, which I suspect was crossed a while back. Points have been made. Colin°^Talk 08:15, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

At this point, since people can't seem to agree on which images best represent autism, it might be better and less controversial to just have no lead image(s)/infobox image(s) at all. I agree with Kowal2701 above that an RfC is worth doing, but I'll leave that to others who feel strongly about the lead images. Some1 (talk) 11:51, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Might be better to have nothing is about the most non-Wikipedia response I can imagine. People turn up at all sorts of articles to complain about something and our response isn't "let's not bother, then". Autism is controversial and unfortunately discussions often deviate (as the above has) from dispassionate sourced based article proposals and attempts to covering the whole topic and represent the entire spectrum of autism, to activism and personal opinion/experience. And also from people who've seen a TV program. Much of the discussion above does not belong on Wikipedia and IMO should be shut down quicker, not encouraged further.

One of the points of WP:NOTCENSORED is that were are not obliged to satisfy "you" (whoever "you" may be) if you are unhappy about the content of our encyclopaedia. There are plenty people who don't like our coverage that vaccines save lives, and we don't remove that information just to deal with "controversial".

Our purpose is to create an free content encyclopaedia, which includes text and images. I encourage editors to read the archives of this talk page, which includes many discussions about the images. We shouldn't rush to "let's have an RFC" just because someone turned up who disagreed with the last discussion, which they plainly haven't even read. -- Colin°^Talk 08:40, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

See Q6 from (Top). Savantism may be correlated with autism, but these describe two different things. Savantism describes conserved fields of competence or ability in people who are otherwise severely limited in most if not all developmental domains. Confirmatores (talk) 14:59, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Clarifying infobox “Risk factors” and "Causes" text

I’d like to recommend two text adjustments to improve the accuracy and clarity of this article, and address how certain information can be easily misinterpreted by the public.

1. Infobox: "Certain prescribed drugs"

The main infobox currently lists "certain prescribed drugs" under "Risk factors". Per WP:LEAD, introductory summaries must be precise enough to stand alone without misleading readers. Leaving this phrase completely open-ended is highly problematic. It creates an information vacuum that is actively weaponized to fuel anti-vaccine and anti-medicine rhetoric, which causes direct harm to a community that is already deeply misunderstood. It also poses a potential safety hazard—pregnant readers who believe in said rhetoric could see that and, in panic, abruptly stop taking necessary, completely safe maintenance medications.

Since sodium valproate is the primary prescription teratogen with an undisputed, globally recognized correlation to increased ASD risk, we should specify it. I suggest changing the text to "valproate use during pregnancy" or "certain prescribed drugs (e.g., valproate)".

2. Causes section: Conflating etiology with diagnosis

The summary sentence of the "Causes" section currently states: "...including genetics, prenatal and perinatal... history, neuroanatomical anomalies, changing social demands in the workplace or in school, and environmental influences."

This phrasing contains a fundamental logical contradiction: it conflates what causes autism with what triggers a diagnosis. Autism is an innate neurodevelopmental condition present from birth. A person does not physically develop autism later in life due to a difficult school year or a stressful workplace. Rather, these mounting social demands deplete an individual's coping and masking mechanisms, making their lifelong, pre-existing traits clinically visible.

Placing school and work demands in the same list as genetics and neuroanatomy falsely implies that environmental stress physically creates the condition. This is misleading to layreaders and feeds the harmful public misconception that autism is an acquired psychological reaction to stress rather than an innate neurological reality.

To maintain scientific accuracy and adhere to WP:NEUTRAL, I suggest separating innate causes from diagnostic visibility with the following phrasing:

"...including genetics, prenatal and perinatal history, neuroanatomical anomalies, and environmental influences. Additionally, changing social demands in education and the workplace can increase the visibility of lifelong autistic traits, leading to higher rates of diagnosis." TumblinMuffin (talk) 22:04, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree. I didn't even notice that issue in the causes section. Saraanhe (talk) 20:49, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

 Done Sharktube2000 (talk) 05:44, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

This is pretty much just a long list of claims which lack sourcing or, for that matter, scientific evidence.

c.f. "Autism is an innate neurodevelopmental condition present from birth"

No, it isn't and I will undo the responsible change. Clearly, political garbage is now being aggressively pushed into the article with no basis in science.

c.f "This is misleading to layreaders and feeds the harmful public misconception that autism is an acquired psychological reaction to stress rather than an innate neurological reality."

So, this is apparently supposed to be WP:Neutral, yet this user introduces clearly political content into the article. Confirmatores (talk) 21:28, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Addendum: The added sentence is weirdly formulated, vague and lacks sorucing.

"visibility of lifelong autistic traits". Wtf is that? and why would autistic traits be life-long? Confirmatores (talk) 21:30, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

I believe that the view of autism as lifelong and innate is the dominant view, especially in the DSM/ICD construct. The common explanation for why a kid (especially high-IQ female patients) can be declared "not autistic" at age 3, "not autistic" at age 8, but "autistic" at age 13 is that the idea of "normal" behavior changes with age. When someone is diagnosed later, the testers simply declare that they were autistic all along, and that the prior tests had a false negative. Note that I'm not saying it's true or scientifically justifiable to say that the teenager had autism since birth; I'm saying that's the dominant viewpoint in the medical field.

Similarly, when they discover that an adult met the criteria, but it turns out to be a misdiagnosis of a non-autistic person who had a different problem, that's dismissed as just a false positive, and not as proof that they had autism for a few years. This is known to happen particularly with anxiety disorder and people taking medications that produce extrapyramidal side effects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:27, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

c.f. I believe that the view of autism as lifelong and innate is the dominant view

1. There is a difference between it being lifelong for most people vs. it being necessarily lifelong.

2. The term 'innate' is again fairly poorly defined. I don't think anyone genuinely argues that people are born 'autistic' in the sense of their behavior already fulfilling the criteria at birth. If you say that genetic factors are involved in it, I won't deny, but again an innate tendency or predisposition doesn't equal the condition itself. Autism isn't innate. If it was, it would be listed as a birth defect.

c.f When someone is diagnosed later, the testers simply declare that they were autistic all along, and that the prior tests had a false negative.

This is evidently pseudo-scientific reasoning. By that argumentation, everyone ultimately ends up being potentially autistic because the definition depends on a final test of which there is none because a future test may still reveal 'autism'. Confirmatores (talk) 21:24, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if you (or I, or any other Wikipedia editor), disagree. What matters is what's in the sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:13, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Selective sourcing of sources allows you or me to come up with anything. Since the purpose of this article is to force a distinctively lefist notion of autism onto the reader, I might wonder whether or not you're simply hiding behind "sources" to force ideological crap into the article. Confirmatores (talk) 20:45, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

We need some sources. Even if you want to present "selective" sources, that would move this discussion further along than source-free assertions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Please adher to the forum rules which includes delivering appropriate answer rather than providing me with vague non-sequitur responses. Currently, it seems this user and/or bot is engagement-baiting others to force them into providing it with sources which it then declares biased or irrelevant in order to push its own ideological garbage into articles.

Confirmatores (talk) 22:57, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

For that matter. I admit that sensitivity may change with age simply because of the nature of what is actually being measured. Overall, however, I'm somewhat sceptical of this holding up in any meaningful way once we move the age bracket out of 2-8. E.g. kids diagnosed at the age of 6 with autism already function much better than kids diagnosed at the age of 3-4 in terms of language ability, cognitive skills etc. Per the CDC, 60 % of all kids diagnsoed with autism at the age of 4 are intellectually disabled compared to 35-40 % for the entire age bracket 2 to 8. So, again, we see a notable differential in adaptive functioning and cognitive skill, suggesting that infant 'autism' and autism diagnosed later in life differ in symptomatics. Confirmatores (talk) 21:29, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Article is obnoxiously woke

"Differences in communication" should say "impaired communication." In fact, this entire article should be rewritten by someone who isn't a radical leftist. Harum the ultimate ancestor (talk) 13:14, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

This should not be turned into a partisan issue. What we think of as ASD was thought of as pathological in the socialist USSR, whereas neoliberal Americans may absolutely hold the belief that while the communication is different, it does not necessarily constitute an impairment, and that the ICD definition is therefore wrong as it would exclude supposedly autistic people who's communication is not impaired. Other than that, this article does not advocate for different political movements or parties. We aren't trying to seize the means of production, legalize abortions, unionize workers, empower women or anything like that here -- nor are we tying to impose tariffs, "drill, baby, drill" or stop taxing the rich. Making this a partisan issue does everyone a disservice. BlockArranger (talk) 23:18, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

I don't think the approach made by Harum is helpful and strongly recommend discontinuing it. However I had a look at the sections "Spoken communication" and "Nonverbal communication" where the word "different" is used four times rather than a word describing an "impairment". Reading all the text surrounding those words makes it very hard to make the case that this choice of words is appropriate. Which aspects of "Spoken communication" is merely "different"? All the text discusses delay or loss of language ability or a failure to combine verbal and non-verbal. There are a few examples in the "nonverbal communication" section which could be argued as differences rather than impairments (but equally many would still regard them as impairments), but most of the text discusses impairment (e.g., eye contact and interpretation of facial expressions). The last sentence on "Speech characteristics" really belongs in the "Spoken communication" section.

One example is the text ending in "resulting in different interpretations of meaning". Communication is the passing of information from one person to another. If the other person receives "different" information from what is sent, then we class that as a failure, a problem. If I order a cup of tea with milk and sugar and get a black coffee instead, the waiter has not merely interpreted my request "differently" but has got it "wrong". The source here uses the expression "have difficulty" over two dozen times. While I am in favour of editors using their own words rather than being restricted by the vocabulary of the source, I am not in favour of us changing the meaning. If our sources describe communication difficulties then so should we. -- Colin°^Talk 07:58, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

@Colin I am in agreement with you here. Slothwizard (talk) 19:03, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Actual experimentation has shown that while autistic to allistic communication can be poor, autistic to autistic communication is on a par with allistic to allistic communication. This is of course between autistic people without co-occurring intellectual disability (or non-verbal), and indeed allistic people without intellectual disability. This does uphold 'difference' rather than 'impairment' in communication abilities. It is the autistic people who are disadvantaged or disabled by this difference, as the vast majority of people are allistic and society caters for their mores more or less exclusively. Urselius (talk) 10:55, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

"Autistic people without intellectual disability and without language impairment" sounds rather like "only some autistic people" (maybe 50–60%?). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:49, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

"(maybe 50–60%?)": Do you have a source for that?

Btw, why would any of that nullify Urselius' account? Obviouisly, no one's going to think that mentally retarded non-verbal autistics can communicate normally among themselves. It's only weird that we're being told over and over again how these mental retardation cases are just ordinary autistics and that we're supposed to treat them identically to other autistics. Confirmatores (talk) 19:54, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Please calm down KnightsAreNotHorses (talk) 11:03, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

@Urselius the sources in these sections do not describe "difference" and very much describe "impairments". Unsourced claims on the talk page don't fix the problem. If you have a good source for this "actual experimentation" then we can review how this aspect could be mentioned. The communication section sources and main text describe all sorts of impediments to communication and so the overall description we make would be negative, even if we could find and note some exceptions.

Statistical statements have exceptions. If the statistical pattern finds communication problems in those with autism, we can't just point at a sub-group without major communication problems and redo the statistics for them and then claim that now applies to the whole group. Nor should we hide mention of the issues seen for the whole group. If sub-groups have interesting differences from the whole, then that may be worth including. But if high quality reliable sources are generalising the whole group, so must we. For example, about two thirds of the US population is overweight or obese. We can say the US has a weight problem. It would be silly to say Americans are dimensionally different to other nationalities, or to use statistics drawn only from US sportspeople with healthy weights.

It is ironic, though apt for this topic, that we describe a group who strongly push their agenda and thus have an outsized influence on a topic as being "vocal". It is therefore very important that we ensure when we make generalised statements then those are coming from sources making (justifiably) generalised statements, and not studies of sub-groups with internet access, say. -- Colin°^Talk 08:23, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

The article really is just the manifestation of a very peculiar identitarian interpretation of autism which falsely mistakes a very broadly defined clinical label for the "essence" of a person. And because "autistics" are now falsely presented as a race, and obviously everyone knows you're not allowed to generalize based on somebody's race, generalization in autism becomes politically incorrect (even though generalization was its premise to begin with.)

This whole "autism is me" shtick is all around the internet and I'm inclined to believe that it's spread moreso by industrial bots than leftist interest groups. The autism diagnosis is a joke but what gets labelled as autism surely isn't. "Autism" frequently ruins somebody's life, leaves them unable to care for even the most basic needs. It can put an enormous strain on families and is nearly always a burden on society. With now like 3 % of all kids being autistic (and a good third of them profoundly autistic), the Wikipedia article ought to point that out as well. Confirmatores (talk) 20:52, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

"autistics" are now falsely presented as a race — Please provide some reliable sources for this assertion. Mitch Ames (talk) 01:40, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

In example; The lead picture identifies four people with their disease and reduces them to the diagnosis.

Needless to say, just because someone slabs the label autism on some kid doesn't actually mean that he has autism or that his autism has anything in common with somebody's else autism. Confirmatores (talk) 09:37, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

I don't see any mention of "race" in the image caption (even if we considered that a "source"). Mitch Ames (talk) 09:53, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Please, develop reading comprehension before replying to comments. I have spoken of "autistics" being treated like a race. Obviously, autistics aren't because people suffering from debilitating neuro-organic syndromes and damage don't constitute a race. Confirmatores (talk) 16:47, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Your example is not very comprehensible though. The images mostly show people with the condition, and one apparently showing symptoms. What I gather from what you're saying is that some autistic people are seeing themselves as part of a collective identity, of which they may project this during editing, and this is bad because autism is a disorder and that this may supplant people with more severe presentations. Whether this is true or not, debating this here won't do anything to help the more specific issues with the article. I don't really see how the images exemplify your issue here. There is also a question on what to do with autistic people with much less severe presentations. At this point, the major diagnostic manuals use the broad "Autism spectrum disorder" category, and most recent sources utilize that. As research evolves, we will probably have a better system to categorize this, but right now we don't. I think having both sides of the spectrum included evenly throughout the article is a good approach so far. Slothwizard (talk) 18:56, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Why do you treat autism as a political football? Just because the US is fatally politically polarised there is no reason to export it to an international arena like Wikipedia and on a health subject at that. I think that political ideologies have no cogency here. Urselius (talk) 11:04, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Autism rates are rising because of being better at diagnosing it

https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/31909/CDC-report-Autism-rate-rises-to-1-in-31-children?autologincheck=redirected KnightsAreNotHorses (talk) 11:07, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

You are obviously unsuited to editing this article due to your extremist political stance and desire to make the world and reality fit your biased viewpoint ('radical rightist'?). Plus, this is an international English language encyclopaedia and 'woke' is a parochial concept and word, largely confined to US usage. Urselius (talk) 10:59, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Good way of countering criticism by vomiting your ideological crap all over the place, forcing readers to read a deliberately falsified account of what autism is. Confirmatores (talk) 19:45, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

the purpose of this article is to explain what autism is and isn't, i feel like you yourself are not knowledgeable enough to edit this wiki yet which is fine, look more into autism yourself then come back here. KnightsAreNotHorses (talk) 11:13, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Don't

seupersonal attacks or loaded words here

y KnightsAreNotHorses (talk) 11:11, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

FYI Confirmatores has been indef blocked per Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Rude editor in autism articles -- Colin°^Talk 09:27, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

SPD

@Organhaver About my modification you reverted: to quote the intro of the wikipedia page for SPD, “Sources debate whether SPD is an independent disorder or represents the observed symptoms of various other, more well-established, disorders.” Honestly I'm not sure if there's an objective answer to this, but I would say we can at least count linking SPD as an inline “see also”, which is an established use of piped links on WP.

To be honest, psychiatry has historically paid little attention to sensory processing in autistics even if for many it is a major part of our experiences, so I think a full section dedicated to sensory processing in autistics would be really good to have, but I simply do not have the energy to write that so linking SPD feels like the best thing I can do to bring more attention to the topic to wikipedia readers.

Please feel free to disagree and tell me if you believe there is a better course of action to improve coverage of the topic on wikipedia. Arandomfolk (talk) 19:00, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining. I agree with your points, and the new suggestion for a see also link would be great. To clarify, do you mean something like the {{see also}} template, or the actual see also section?

Anyways, again, thank you for writing this! 🫀 Crash // Organhaver ( it / he | talk to me, maybe? ) 19:37, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

What I meant is that piped links can be used as a shortcut for an inline “see also”. In our current example: “Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a condition characterized by impairment in social communication and interaction, as well as a need or strong preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing differences, focused interests, or repetitive behaviors.”, as opposed to “autism […] is a condition characterized by […] sensory processing differences (see also: Sensory processing disorder) […].”

To me, this use doesn't imply that sensory processing is best understood under the lens of SPD in all autistics, rather it simply brings attention to it. And I believe it's a good thing to bring attention to it immediately in the intro to Autism. This said, please tell me if you still think it's a bad idea and that it'd be better to mention it elsewhere in the article. (Or if this warrants involving wp:WikiProject Autism for a discussion with more than just the two of us.)

Though, I don't think a See Also section is sufficient due to only showing up at the very bottom of the article. But if collective efforts go into creating a section to better cover sensory processing in autistics than what little is already discussed in the page, then using the template:See also to create a hatnote at the top of said section sounds like a good idea to me. Arandomfolk (talk) 13:35, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

Ah, I would disagree with that, then. See also things like that are not typically used, and I would believe that the mention in the actual see also section is good by itself.

I'm no expert in citations or original research, so you may want to find someone else to pitch in (if you need). 🫀 Crash // Organhaver ( it / he | talk to me, maybe? ) 18:26, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

That makes sense, I added it to the See also section. SPD is technically a different proposed diagnosis, one that was never included in the major diagnostic manuals due to a lack of evidence. It is more likely to be a symptom of autism rather than a distinct condition. Slothwizard (talk) 17:00, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

Should we mention minor LGBT in the lead?

Its only mentioned once in the page so it doesn't seem that notable to mention it in the lead. Also we should stop referencing things in the lead, you are only meant to reference on the page. Anthony2106 (talk) 00:24, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Also guys I'm upset I made this edit when I was annoyed If I didn't make that edit, then maybe there wouldn't be an image on the page. Anthony2106 (talk) 03:11, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

"[It's] only mentioned once" – the thing you're talking about is half of a whole section...! I believe the very minor mention in the lead is warranted, and that second part is completely untrue.

The lead is supposed to summarize the body, and if there is a section on something, it is reasonable to be mentioned in the lead. Apologies if I am incorrect in any of this. 🫀 Crash // Organhaver ( it / he | talk to me, maybe? ) 03:36, 23 September 2026 (UTC)