What do you picture when you hear autism called a "spectrum"?
I think of a linear scale, the kind you see in so many surveys, such as this:
That's the image that comes to my mind, but I don't believe it's accurate.
Recently, I saw a short video of a man who dusted a thin metal plate with sand, and then drew a violin bow along one side, the vibrations creating a pattern with the sand. By placing his fingers on different combinations of points on the edge, he could create beautiful, complex patterns. These are called Chladni figures, and you can find out more in this demonstration, which is under 10 minutes long.
This strikes me as a much more reasonable way of describing the set of people that we have decided to label "autistic."
What of other people? What of other dimensions?
Maybe the true value of diversity lies not in magnifying our differences but in celebrating our beautiful patterns?
