On the spectrum is short for on the autism spectrum. What that realky means is that there are several characteristics, all of which are spectrums themselves, which have a subset that is associated with autism. There is basically a formula for calculating a score that combines them and if it is in a certain range, they call it autism.
All and all, autism is a syndrom, which means they don’t know what causes it or even what it is. They just take a bunch of people who have similar symptoms and lump them under a syndrome so they can try and study it better. Same as IBS. Most likely there are multiple different causes that may very well be unrelated.
On the spectrum is short for on the autism spectrum. What that realky means is that there are several characteristics, all of which are spectrums themselves, which have a subset that is associated with autism. There is basically a formula for calculating a score that combines them and if it is in a certain range, they call it autism.
All and all, autism is a syndrom, which means they don’t know what causes it or even what it is. They just take a bunch of people who have similar symptoms and lump them under a syndrome so they can try and study it better. Same as IBS. Most likely there are multiple different causes that may very well be unrelated.