“If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism”
—Dr. Stephen Shore
REVIEW OF: Parshall A & Montañez A, Scientific American, March 17, 2026
STUDY TYPE: Graphic interpretation of an autism rating scale
No two autistic people are alike, and a new graphic from Scientific American helps visualize each fingerprint.
The graphic clusters items from the Autism Symptom Dimensions Questionnaire into 10 domains, each shaded by how severe it is. The picture above shows a person who is more autistic (neurodivergent) in their sensory interests, reflecting questions like:
- Are you fascinated by sensory experiences? (eg, staring at lights, fans, running water, symmetrical patterns, street signs, falling or dangling objects, textures, smells, etc.)
- Do you become preoccupied with visual patterns or sounds? (eg, fascination with the way something looks or moves, excessive focus on certain sounds or videos)
Below is a guide to the full graphic:
This approach helps us appreciate the specific ways that autism affects people, moving away from a one dimensional view of the condition. Missing from the picture is cognitive ability and IQ, which varies in autism and influences response to treatment. Autism is increasing recognized in people with normal or high IQs, a subgroup that has risen from 30-50% to 70% of clinical and research samples in the past 50 years.
IQ distribution in autism (ASD) and two normal (neurotypical) populations (Non-ASD and Norm Sample) in 2021. Average IQ is 100, and levels below 70-75 are generally defined as intellectual disability
The graphic is static, but life is not, and it does not capture how autism changes with life experiences, maturity, and treatment. When Carl Jung developed his theory of personality (later popularized as the Meyers-Briggs Types), he carved out seemingly opposite traits like Extroversion-Introversion and Thinking-Feeling. But they are not fixed marks. In Jung’s view, people develop more of the opposite trait through the life span.
There’s a tension in that development. Social skills training for autism can lead to anxiety and burnout from the sense of being inauthentic, masking or camouflaging. Jung recognized a similar struggle for neurotypical and neurodivergents alike between the outer, public self (the Persona) and the inner, core self (the Shadow). His concern was that people focused too much on presenting a likeable face to the public, ignoring their inner self. Through therapy, he sought to bring them into more balanced harmony.
Practice Implications
- Autism can be viewed as a disorder or as spectrum of traits
- The original description (circa 1943) was closer to a disorder, while the post-2013 (DSM-5) conception is closer to a spectrum.
- Traits are not disorders. They can be strengths or weaknesses depending on the situation and how we utilize them.
- When patients present with autism, work to understand the specific traits they have and how they can maximize their strengths.
—Chris Aiken, MD
Director, Psych Partners
Editor in Chief, Carlat Psychiatry Report
What’s Your Take? Share in Comments
- How do you work with the autism concept in practice?
- Which rating scale do you find most useful for children? Adults?
