there was an original condition called “autism” which referred to the stereotypical, ““low functioning”” case where someone has intellectual disabilities and the rest
then a ““high functioning”” variant was labelled, where the intellectual disability was missing, called “asperger’s syndrome”
then more and more inbetween cases started being labelled like rett syndrome, CDD, PDD-NOS, and so they had to say “fuck it, it’s all “autism spectrum disorder” now”
over time, “autism” has become shorthand for ASD. to avoid confusion, the OG autism sometimes gets described as “classic autism”
yeah it’s pretty messy
there was an original condition called “autism” which referred to the stereotypical, ““low functioning”” case where someone has intellectual disabilities and the rest
then a ““high functioning”” variant was labelled, where the intellectual disability was missing, called “asperger’s syndrome”
then more and more inbetween cases started being labelled like rett syndrome, CDD, PDD-NOS, and so they had to say “fuck it, it’s all “autism spectrum disorder” now”
over time, “autism” has become shorthand for ASD. to avoid confusion, the OG autism sometimes gets described as “classic autism”
honestly it’s all a big mess