The most prominent spectrum these days is the gender spectrum, but the absolute absurdity of the idea of a gender spectrum pushed in medical fields should make us question the validity of a medical “spectrum,” particularly with Autism.
I genuinely think that Autism is rampantly over-diagnosed, and has created a paranoia within the population of whether they are “normal” based on very loose parameters.
If gender spectrum is seen as a joke, why do we still place the concept of the Autism spectrum on relatively a higher pedestal?
Autism is frequently misdiagnosed by terminally online people self-diagnosing themselves. Professionally though, I believe most of the cases are legit. We are seeing testosterone hit all-time lows and RFK Jr. credibly question vaccine regimens and we think autism isn't rising rapidly?
Most autism is also done professionally as a "we aren't leaving until there is a diagnosis" condition, and its the easiest to do with its more broad definitions.
Whether its a mom looking for an excuse for being a bad parent, or a teacher failing to control her class looking to push the blame back onto the kid, its a situation where the docs often can't win.