It's ironic that this post is "uncategorized" because I wonder if the spectrum itself is a construct of the human predilection for categorizing rather than a discovered phenomenon.
For example, let's suppose that we had a high need for athletic skills in order to be even moderately successful in life. Let's suppose that those without the high level skills were viewed as outliers. Would we have categories of lower skilled people? Would they be considered handicapped? Once labeled, would they become a focus and/or target (beyond the usual targeting that people get for being outliers of any kind)? Would we fail to notice anything special about people on the functional end of the autism spectrum but be highly concerned about the clumsy guy who can't dance well or the one who hits his thumb rather than a nail? What about people with poorly developed sense of spatial relationships?
Humans exist on multiple spectrums and human development from fertilized egg to viable baby is extraordinarily complex. People come out all kinds of ways.
I understand that there are conditions of life that mean an individual truly cannot survive, let alone thrive, without extensive support; however, I also wonder sometimes if we categorize too much and think that maybe if we as a culture put more emphasis on being accepting of variations the categories wouldn't be necessary.
I also think we should consider the possibility that some of our categories aren't grounded in anything that actually matters, the equivalent of saying that birds with red breasts should be a category, not birds that perch.
It's ironic that this post is "uncategorized" because I wonder if the spectrum itself is a construct of the human predilection for categorizing rather than a discovered phenomenon.
For example, let's suppose that we had a high need for athletic skills in order to be even moderately successful in life. Let's suppose that those without the high level skills were viewed as outliers. Would we have categories of lower skilled people? Would they be considered handicapped? Once labeled, would they become a focus and/or target (beyond the usual targeting that people get for being outliers of any kind)? Would we fail to notice anything special about people on the functional end of the autism spectrum but be highly concerned about the clumsy guy who can't dance well or the one who hits his thumb rather than a nail? What about people with poorly developed sense of spatial relationships?
Humans exist on multiple spectrums and human development from fertilized egg to viable baby is extraordinarily complex. People come out all kinds of ways.
I understand that there are conditions of life that mean an individual truly cannot survive, let alone thrive, without extensive support; however, I also wonder sometimes if we categorize too much and think that maybe if we as a culture put more emphasis on being accepting of variations the categories wouldn't be necessary.
I also think we should consider the possibility that some of our categories aren't grounded in anything that actually matters, the equivalent of saying that birds with red breasts should be a category, not birds that perch.