Flutterby™! : Rethinking autism

Book review of Rethinking Autism: Variation and Complexity. Looks like it might be worth reading:

Dr. Waterhouse goes beyond “the autisms” and argues that autism is not a disorder, or set of disorders. Rather, it’s a trait which may be produced by many different underlying conditions. Calling these conditions “autisms” would be like saying “flu is one of the fevers,” or referring to all fever-causing conditions as “the fevers.” In her words,

I suspect that the review doesn't really do the argument justice, if only because my impression is that we've already started breaking down autism into 5 different sub-groups based on expressed symptoms, but given that autistic behavior is a symptom not yet traced to any particular underlying causes, we clearly need different ways to categorize and view it.