Talk:Autism

Infantilizing infobox images

As an autistic person, I don't like that that half(2/4) of the images in the infobox of this article are children. Given how common the infantilization of autistic people is, I don't think we should be giving so much weight to the harmful popular image of autistic people as young children.

I suggest that either one of the images of autistic children be removed. Another possibility is that we do away with human portraits and replace them with something that doesn't illustrate an individual person(i.e. a piece of art related to autism). This would prevent further fighting on what kind of people we should use to illustrate autism. NumelCase (talk) 23:07, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

First of all, read the discussions in the Talk archives. Regrettably (in my opinion), some of the otherwise awesome people working on this article decided to insert images once again, with the current status quo being the result of discussions having occurred for some time now. I do not think this is perfect, but it seems like there is a consensus for at least having some image(s); thus, a removal of the images is likely to be reverted.

• We can only use images which are freely available to us. Thus, please check out Wikimedia Commons and see if you can find something better (taking previous consensus into consideration), or perhaps you could even publish something yourself, as can anyone.
• There are autistic children, so there is nothing inherently wrong with pictures of them
• There seems to be more images of autistic children
• Art related to autism is very different from what seems to be the popular view here, but you are of course welcome to attempt to change the mindset of your fellow editors
• Art is not the only option for how we should solve the question of what people should be used for illustration; in fact, even this would not have to be a matter of discussion if instead we illustrated autism directly through depictions of it manifesting rather than indirectly through people who's only connection to this article is that they supposedly have an ASD or previously utilized diagnosis.
• If we illustrated with only portraits of adults, as an example of an extreme, we would be illustrating samples from a population without any clarity on what makes them belong to the same group, apart from the separate explanation that they are all autistic. For example, displaying only Thunberg and Triplett would be rather useless, as that combination could equally well be an illustration of adults or white people. Thus, the toddler stacking cans is good as it actually shows something which is specifically a feature attributable to autism, which adult faces are not.

Hope this helped introduce you to the ongoing bu currently invisible discussion on the matter, with an admitted emphasis on my viewpoints. BlockArranger (talk) 00:37, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Admitting that autism is to a large extent a condition seen among children, while also taking great care to include images of adults in appropriate imagery is not an issue and should not be discussed as one. Utmost care has been spent in choosing a range of images, which are objectively appropriate and not infantilizing. The point made is is purely WP:IDONTLIKEIT and WP:NOTHERE. Expressing it as somehow relevant that is could be from someone with autism is not an argument. Many people with autism have voiced positive words about the images. Neither of that strengthens the arguments, and this is a moot issue at this point. The suggestion that it is infantilizing is objectively false, and the assertion holds no other substance. CFCF (talk) 00:48, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on your claim that "that autism is to a large extent a condition seen among children?" Yes, it is typically first diagnosed when someone is a child, but it affects people at all stages of life, even if it may be less visible as those people learn to ask.

I think I may have not done enough to explain my problem with using a disproportionate amount of images of children. While it is true that I personally dislike the infantilization, using images of children conveys the idea that ASD is a mental condition primarily related to children, which I've never seen proof of. It gives readers an inaccurate impression of autism, which goes beyond just Wikipedia:IDONTLIKE. Wikipedia should seek to accurately portray autism. NumelCase (talk) 01:11, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I didn't see anything about current consensus on the talk page so I assumed that the discussions on the image where still up in the air. I'm still learning Wikipedia conventions.

I'm tempted to continue a conversation about your points but I'll read up on the Talk archives first and see how I feel. NumelCase (talk) 01:02, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

It's good if you read the Talk archives, but by no means am I trying to defend there actually being a sustainable consensus; rather, as I see it, images were added and most agree that we ought to have images, and currently, this combination seems to work without too much objection. I maintain that I disagree with the objectives that people try to achieve by illustrating autism as autistic people. However, you reading the history in the recent archives will make you understand the context that others here understand implicitly. I guess that most don't actually really want to dedicate all their time to nitpicking about images, and I understand that; I object to images largely because I immediately saw their introduction as detrimental to otherwise improving this article, as it was distracting editors from the initiative on dealing with non-WP:MEDRS claims and sources. I have for several months been trying most of all to make this a WP:GOODARTICLE, for which images is not the main issue. BlockArranger (talk) 01:47, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Proposals for good images should always be welcome, I think. Even if they aren't chosen for the top of this article, they might be useful in a section or in a related article.

I think that good images for the top of this article won't be overtly medical (e.g., brain scans), "taking sides" (e.g., symbols of the neurodiversity movement), or abstract (e.g., a painting that supposedly represents an autistic artist's feelings about autism). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

I'll see what I can find later this week, then. NumelCase (talk) 12:33, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

I see NumelCase (talk) 12:32, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

if there is all this talk about the images all the time. Shouldn't it be a sign we should remove them? Anthony2106 (talk) 22:13, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

I get where you are coming from, but I think there is a strong desire among many of us to illustrate autism in one way or another. However, I would be pleased if we could try to stick to this toned-down, collaborative tone which has taken root since the bigger controversy occurred during the summer. I guess we are all here in order to improve the article, and those of us who are editing in good faith and who are familiar with Wikipedia probably all share the goal of eventually making this a good article. We should at this point attempt to figure out what would be the most important steps for bringing this to GA status, and work systematically towards that goal. BlockArranger (talk) 21:41, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Autism "Cause" Announcement from Trump Administration on Sept 22nd - Add to Article?

Should this be added to the "Causes" section or somewhere else in the article? Or not at all? Should a "Controversies" section be added and have it there instead? Wanted to start a discussion around it while it's fresh. I do think it might be more of a controversial section topic than actual causes since there is speculation. Maybe it's just too politically skewed in general? Would love some thoughts. ^🥑GUACPOCALYPSE^🥑 23:13, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

I think "not at all" is the right answer for this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:10, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Agree. It was announced by the bleach guy and pushed through by a batshit insane antivaxer with a decades-long history of lying about autism. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:43, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

I have made a much more elaborate statement in regards to this matter at Talk:Autism/Archive 14, which you may read in order to acquire a better understanding of my views, to which you may respond in a response to this comment. In addition, I would like to point out that a Controversies section should be avoided per WP:CSECTION. Even the disproven hypotheses are listed under causes, as – while it is WP:NPOV to call them disproven as WP:VERIFIED by WP:MEDRS – we should not follow in the footsteps of Teach the Controversy by giving WP:UNDUE weight to these as separate from the science, nor should we feel a need to wall it in behind "warning: controversial". It would furthermore be good if we were able to obtain WP:MEDRS coverage of this, especially if it is decided that covering it is necessary. Keep in mind, however, that equally to how the argument of intelligent design is outside the realm of science, moronic people in the realm of politics are fundamentally different from scientists, and we should not try to equate the two. BlockArranger (talk) 00:20, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for providing an intelligent and policy-sourced response! I was just wondering if this would be important to note in the article for historical purposes in that they are attempting some efforts around finding autism causes. But you think because it's political it's not worth adding at all? ^🥑GUACPOCALYPSE^🥑 01:13, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

It's not really because it's "political". There are lots of "political" things in this article (e.g., in Autism#Inclusion in education and the workplace, Autism#Society and culture). Everything a government does, every law passed to protect autistic people, every policy that decides these people are disabled and those aren't, etc. is "political".

In this case, it's not even because it's Partisan (politics) (e.g., anything the Republocrats and the Demicans fight about). It's because it's ultimately unimportant. If you want some WP:UPPERCASE for that, it's because it's WP:UNDUE and fails the Wikipedia:10 year test. Someone with no knowledge and no medical background has said something. Who cares what he said? We don't include politicians (or monarchs, for those who think their king is "above" politics) saying stuff just because they said something. Nobody is expecting any long-term effects from Trump saying this, and the researchers are saying that he's got the facts wrong. For example, I've heard that one of studies his administration likes compares

• pregnant women who received medical treatment for fevers vs.
• pregnant women who never had any infections.

Would you say that's a fair comparison? Why weren't they comparing:

• pregnant women who had fevers high enough to benefit from antipyretic treatment but didn't get it vs.
• pregnant women who had fevers high enough to benefit from antipyretic treatment and did get the treatment they needed?

This is an important distinction, because maternal infection is a known cause of autism, and has been since humans first existed. And heat alone, even in the absence of an infection, also causes birth defects.[1] WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:09, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, I agree this should probably be ignored then based on the arguments against it above. Appreciate the discussion. ^🥑GUACPOCALYPSE^🥑 15:19, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Agree in full about ignoring this. A far more interesting recent study is the following [2]. CFCF (talk) 08:22, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

@CFCF The article already mentions maternal diabetes, but you can insert the new source. LogicalLens (talk) 10:34, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

My point was that there is real scientific progress being made, and we should focus on that instead of nonsense. CFCF (talk) 05:13, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

References

• Note this has already sprouted at Causes of autism#Maternal acetaminophen use. Bon courage (talk) 15:12, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

That's a plausible place to acknowledge that. I have tried to clean it up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:11, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

WP:TDS Anthony2106 (talk) 22:15, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Very true. 😂 ^🥑GUACPOCALYPSE^🥑 19:10, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

I didn't notice that article, thank you. ^🥑GUACPOCALYPSE^🥑 04:21, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Now that there is a section on it

...what exactly is the consensus? To me it seems like we decided against inclusion, but then some bold people went ahead and wrote about it anyway. The fate of the section must be discussed, at least in regard to its size, as it seems to be getting a bit too much weight. Furthermore, it would be good to have a more broad discussion about what should be kept in the Causes section as WP:SUMMARY of Causes of autism. BlockArranger (talk) 23:06, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

I've removed it (and place a copy here for anyone who needs it). This political Tempest in a teapot is really not wikt:salient or WP:DUE for this article.

When you're thinking about WP:DUE weight, contemplate the fact that there are some really important things that happened in the history of autism, and saying that someone "gave a press conference" is never one of those things. If we don't have "the DSM gave a press conference" when they merged multiple diagnoses into a single label (a key point in autism's history that researchers will remember a century from now), then we really shouldn't have "some politician who knows almost nothing about autism gave a press conference" in this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:57, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Text and sources copied from the article The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

==== False claims of links to paracetamol in pregnancy ====

See also: False or misleading statements by Donald Trump § Press conference about autism, Tylenol, and vaccines

On 22 September 2025, US President Donald Trump gave a press conference on the findings of an investigation led by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in which he falsely claimed that they had found Tylenol (paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen) taken during pregnancy was the cause of autism. Trump instructed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to notify physicians to stop recommending acetaminophen use during pregnancy due to the alleged links to autism and ADHD. The FDA issued a statement as announced by Trump, but did not follow the wording of the announcement, instead saying doctors "should consider minimizing" its use and noting that "a causal relationship has not been established" and that the matter was "an ongoing area of scientific debate". The FDA statement also noted that acetaminophen remains the safest analgesic and antipyretic option in pregnancy compared to alternatives like aspirin and ibuprofen.

Following the Trump administration's announcement, news and fact checking organizations around the world reported broad rejections by international medical experts. The president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists called the announcement "irresponsible" and "highly unsettling", saying it is "not backed by the full body of scientific evidence and dangerously simplifies the many and complex causes of neurologic challenges in children". The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine highlighted that not treating a fever in pregnant women can increase the risk of miscarriage and other problems. On 24 September 2025, the World Health Organization refuted the claim, stating there is no conclusive scientific evidence linking paracetamol use during pregnancy to autism.

Multiple international health authorities, including the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the UK, and the European Medicines Agency, recommend acetaminophen as the first-line treatment for pain and fever during pregnancy when used at the lowest effective dose for the shortest duration. Current high-quality evidence shows no causal link between prenatal use and autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders, while untreated pain or fever poses risks to both mother and fetus.

Very large population-based studies indicate that prenatal acetaminophen use is not clearly linked to autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability, and studies comparing siblings suggest that earlier reported links were likely due to other factors, not acetaminophen itself.

I agree with WhatamIdoing. In a few months when this has died down we can include a single sentence on it. CFCF (talk) 07:28, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

I also think that would be for the best, and I think her rationale is good. To pose the question more directly, do you and others agree that we should also aim to discuss and establish a consensus regarding summary of Causes (or should we continue waiting for this article to acheive higher quality and more information), as that will need to be done at some point in order to abide by WP conventions on organization of content? BlockArranger (talk) 15:49, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

However vs but

@AlsoWukai: regarding these edits [3][4], I propose that but is incorrect here, being a conjunction, and that however is better. Other editors are invited to comment. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:01, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

See Common_English_usage_misconceptions#Grammar. AlsoWukai (talk) 10:18, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I’ll actually jump in and say we should use neither of them as they’re both examples of MOS:EDITORIAL. The sentence as it is also doesn’t say who is stigmatized, autistic children, or the parents, and if it’s the latter, what is meant by that? The sentence really doesn’t tell me as the reader what it is trying to say, other than trying to imply that the theory may have harmed someone, but it’s not clear who. Raladic (talk) 15:25, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree with @Raladic. LogicalLens (talk) 03:30, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I also agree with you. "However," editorializing would be fine if we were to find that specific connection between the two in a reliable source. In that case, clarity would be if great importance so that the reader only draws conclusions supported by the source. Now, I must admit that I am on the go at the moment and thus I haven't actually read the source but it's worth pointing out that editorial words aren't always forbidden. BlockArranger (talk) 08:44, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

surprised it’s taken this long for a group of autistics to start a discourse about grammar :) 2A02:C7C:9B04:EA00:396A:2BF5:7885:1EDC (talk) 10:23, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Yet also works. No, I'm be facetious, because this is frankly WP:NOTHERE. None of this objectively improves the article and it is not relevant to the talk-page. I support whatever is there currently and suggest we make as few of these changes as possible.

The reason the sentence doesn't say whether it's the children or the parents, is because it isn't defined. It is both "children and parents" as well as a broader contribution towards societal stigma to anything related to autism. This does not need to be spelt out.

It also isn't editorializing, because precisely the juxtaposition that the concept is rejected in the scientific community - but/however/yet remains as a source of stigma - is what is described in the WP:RS. CFCF (talk) 06:44, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree that this isn't editorializing. The point of this paragraph is:

• First, researchers blamed mothers for causing autism in their kids. This caused harm (increased social stigma) to autistic people and their parents.
• Later, the researchers said they (the researchers) were wrong to blame the mothers.
• Even though the researchers said they were wrong to blame the mothers, the harm that the researchers caused with their earlier blame-casting did not magically disappear. Society still stigmatizes autism and still blames parents for autistic children (especially if the autistic children don't mask effectively in public settings).

That last sentence could accurately be introduced with "However" or "But", as it introduces a contrast. It is equivalent to writing "He blamed her for eating the last cookie. Later, he realized he was wrong and apologized for incorrectly blaming her. However, their friends didn't hear his apology and correction, so they kept wrongly blaming her."

The difference between these two words is personal aesthetics (what you're used to, in your WP:ENGVAR or subculture) rather than actual meaning. I suggest not bothering with it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:34, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Research directions

We don't have a specific section on ==Research directions==, though there is research-focused content in the article. If we decide to create one, a recent article in The New York Times has this concise summary of the two different approaches that I think it should address:

"Ms. Singer [a parent of an adult with Level 3 autism] argues that the growing influence of the neurodiversity movement has also played a role in shifting research priorities away from questions about causes and cures and toward issues like mental health, best practices in employment and how to support autistic women during pregnancy.

The research that parents of children with profound autism wanted to see was worlds away: “What is causing my child to bang her head against the floor? Why is she having seizures? Why doesn’t she eat? Why doesn’t she sleep? How can I teach her to talk?” Ms. Singer said."

WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:39, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

I think it could be great to have a section on this topic, if we can pull it of well with consideration given to WP:LENGTH. An example of this being done successfully is the WP:FEATUREDARTICLE on Schizophrenia, at Schizophrenia#Research_directions. Research directions is in my opinion quite important when it comes to information on autism, especially as many facts boil down to there being very little knowledge on whatever the fact concerns. In case nobody opposes this inclusion, it might be worth it to WP:JUSTDOIT. BlockArranger (talk) 22:22, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

We could include information on future research directions. I would, however, choose better sources than this one for claims such as that the neurodiversity movement was an important factor in the shift from research on autistic people with high support needs to those with lower support needs. First, the vast majority of autism research still focuses on biology instead of support, and second, the shift is largely because, as the diagnostic category has been expanded continuously, the percentage of autistic people with intellectual disability has decreased, which means it is logical that the percentage of research that focuses on this part of the spectrum also decreased. LogicalLens (talk) 04:53, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

If you wanted to make a claim that severely disabled people are being excluded, then you probably want a source like PMID 30536112 or PMID 39453549. The newspaper article says this is partly due to convenience (which means money): it's a lot easier to do an online survey of "high-functioning" people than to figure out how to communicate with someone who with an IQ of 50 and a vocabulary of six words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:48, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

The difficulty in having a research directions section is that there is so much research, and a lot of it is pointing in different directions. CFCF (talk) 06:58, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Maybe, but it sounds to me like that's evidence that such a section would be important and valuable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:00, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a bit like your – creds where due* – story titled "WP:Bring me a rock"; but I think we should in that case establish some kind of agreed-upon canon for what is to go there initially, based on obtaining a variety of sources, in order to make that section good from the beginning. I will justify the request for another rock by stating that this article is already at this moment in a condition worse than it would have to be in, and that we ought to make improvements first, as we have several major issues such as the one I pointed out in regards to the placement of information on suicidality.

In a nutshell, I currently want to focus on quality over quantity by systematically optimizing the layout and then section prose, rather than indefinitely letting this article be in many cases a dumping ground for factoids. This will require a lot of work, branching out into several main articles for WP:SUMMARY, but I maintain that it will be worth it. However, I have no direct objections toward discussing research directions per se, and if there seems to be consensus – perhaps in what I would term reckless populist fashion (but to each their own) – I will accept the new section as part of a slightly increased backlog for polishing and eventual WP:GA status. *You have written great essays BTW! BlockArranger (talk) 20:50, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Appropriateness of mental health and suicide in Signs and characteristics

While some forms of self-injury, such as head banging, are characteristics of autism, I would like us to give a moment of consideration to whether or not suicide and self injury as outcomes of mental health issues should be considered characteristic of autism, especially if the mental health problems themselves stem from what the autistic person faces in their environment. I think that some of this should actually go in prognosis, as in "mental health problems and social problems such as [list] are risk factors for [list]" and so on, with this being only a very crude example of how to deal with it; we could likely move and copy edit existing content with otherwise similar structure. BlockArranger (talk) 18:18, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

I wonder whether the section should be split, so that "head-banging, hand-biting, and skin-picking" are in signs and suicidality is separate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, pretty much like that! We can read the sources for mental health and subsequently figure out what context is the best for that information. Do you agree that suicidality belongs in prognosis? BlockArranger (talk) 10:31, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Self-injury/harm is "is by definition non-suicidal", so it would make a lot of sense to separate the former from the latter. Whether "mental health" should be grouped with self-harm is debatable. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:32, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Sources use the term self-harm with two different definitions: One excludes suicidal behavior (this is self harm, and that is suicidal, so we talk about "self harm and suicidal behaviors"), and the other includes it (suicide is a type of self harm, so when we talk about "self-harm", that includes both suicidal and non-suicidal behaviors). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

I would move it into the section "co-occurring conditions". Specific "repetitive" behaviors in autism can make certain self-injurious behaviors more likely, but they are not part of autism. This handbook lists them alongside other co-occurring conditions.[5] LogicalLens (talk) 04:19, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

I think it's necessary to prioritize suicidality, as it would be quite absurd indeed for us to remove repetitive self-harm and retain suicidality under characteristics; after all, the self-harm – although you argue it doesn't belong there – is as of now the only contextual glue making it even remotely make sense for the section to include suicide. Mental health, I think, should be dealt with secondarily, until we have isolated self-harm; for this process, I request that we all try to cooperate incrementally in consensus in order not to create retroactive drama as with the images. BlockArranger (talk) 10:40, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

The book LogicalLens links to has a chapter on Self-injurious behavior (chapter 17), which separates SIB from suicide, followed by a chapter that puts Suicidality and Self-harm back together (chapter 18). Both of these are in section 3, "Related Problems". (Section 2 is "Co-Occurring Conditions".)

Chapter 17 has a footnote that says "Interestingly, the term “SIB” is applied to IDD populations, whereas the terms “self-mutilation” or “nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI)” are applied to non-IDD populations (cf. Maddox, Trubanova, & White, 2017; Matson & Turygin, 2012)."

Chapter 17 gives these examples as SIB: "head hitting and headbanging (forceful contact between head and body, objects, or surfaces), self-biting, eye poking or eye gouging, and body-focused repetitive behaviors such as dermatillomania skin picking and trichotillomania, or hair pulling" plus sometimes "aerophagia (air swallowing), bruxism (teeth grinding), pica (ingesting inedible objects), and rumination (self-induced vomiting)", saying that "self-biting and self-hitting" are "the most prevalent" in autistic people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:47, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Is there at this moment any opposition to initiating the process by simply moving the last two paragraphs to prognosis, with subsequent CE? BlockArranger (talk) 05:51, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Mentioning secondary features in the lead.

I find it curious that this sentence made it in the first paragraph: "Motor coordination difficulties are common but not required."

We should be summarizing core characteristics. If we're going to include secondary features that aren't part of the diagnostic criteria, why not include others such as sleep disturbances or atypical eating behaviors? The latter seems to be even more common than motor coordination difficulties, but isn't mentioned in the lead.

Since the article already mentions motor coordination difficulties farther down, I suggest removing this (unsourced) sentence entirely from the lead. Cringechancellor (talk) 02:15, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree. LogicalLens (talk) 03:39, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree that it may be problematic to cherry-pick an example if we cannot find a reason for it in our high-quality sources; however, I think we could replace it with a statement about there being several secondary features, as that is indeed reasonable for a summary. Would we have any reason not to proceed like that? BlockArranger (talk) 05:54, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes and no, the motor coordination difficulties have been part of the diagnostic criteria at different points. It's not really singling it out in that way. I agree with BlockArranger that we could summarize multiple secondary characteristics, but this would need to be very brief, because the lede is already long. CFCF (talk) 11:01, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I could see it both ways. I'm not entirely convinced we need to mention anything that isn't part of the diagnostic criteria - and therefore not part of the definition of the condition. However, briefly mentioning it seems reasonable. We could add it to the last sentence in the first paragraph:

Because autism is a spectrum disorder, presentations vary and support needs range from minimal to being non-speaking or needing 24-hour care, and various associated characteristics and co-occurring conditions are common. Cringechancellor (talk) 13:52, 6 October 2025 (UTC)