2d ago

What do we do about people who are on the edge of autism

I've come to know a number of people who show lots of neurodivergent traits but who aren't necessarily autistic or otherwise neurodivergent, or are but only just cross the border. Do we have specific terms, research, or anything towards these types of people. I know at one point there was the term BAP (Broad Autism Phenotype), but this sounds very clinical. It's also personally been unusual to deal with as I can't really treat them like I would any other autistic person, or like a neurotypical.

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What do you mean by "do"? Are you looking for advice on how to interact with them? Or what society should do to help them?
- Both. Any resources I can point such people towards would be useful too.

People are people, you treat them in ways they respond to. There is no real deliniation, is all sliding scale even with what we call "Normies".

There's at least one other condition that's commonly misdiagnosed as autism: schizoid personality disorder. I'd imagine at least some who don't quite qualify for an autism diagnosis would be well described as schizoid. There may well be other conditions that also share a lot in common with autism that might be similarly good diagnoses for certain folks who don't quite qualify for an autism spectrum diagnosis. But it's also valid for some folks who don't qualify as on the spectrum to just qualify as not having autism.
- I am diagnosed with autism but also exhibit several SPD symptoms. I still wonder if I should try to get an official diagnosis for it, but probably I'm just about on the border of SPD.
  It's a shame they get mixed up and misdiagnosed as each other as they're not really that similar under the hood.

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