Talk:Low-functioning autism

Sources for Nonverbal Autism Section
Hello, I am planning on adding a section titled "Nonverbal Autism." Here are some new sources I will be adding:Jthuey (talk) 06:51, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Achmadi, D., Kagohara, D. M., van der Meer, L., O’Reilly, M. F., Lancioni, G. E., Sutherland, D., Lang, R., Marschik, P. B., Green, V. A., & Sigafoos, J. (2012). Teaching advanced operation of an iPod-based speech-generating device to two students with autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 6 (2012) 1258–1264. doi: 10.1016/j.rasd.2012.05 Kagohara, D. M., van der Meer, L., Ramdoss, S., O’Reilly, M. F., Lancioni, G. E., Davis, T. N., Rispioli, M., Lang, R., Marschik, P. B., Sutherland, D., Green, V. A., & Sigafoos, J. (2013). Using iPods and iPads in teaching programs for individuals with developmental disabilities: A systematic review. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 34 (2013) 147–156. doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2012.07.027 Kassari, C., Brandy, N., Lord, C., & Tager-Flusberg, H. Assessing the minimally verbal school-aged child with autism spectrum disorder. Autism Research, 6(6) 479-493. doi: 10.1002/aur.1334

Lerna, A., Esposito, D., Conson, M., & Massagli, A. (2013). Long-term effects of PECS on social–communicative skills of children with autism spectrum disorders: a follow-up study. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 49(4) 478-485. doi: 10.1111/1460-6984.12079

McGonigle-Chalmers, M., Alderson-Day, B., Fleming, J., & Monsen, K. Profound expressive language impairment in low functioning children with autism: An investigation of syntactic awareness using a computerised learning task. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 43(9) 2062-2081. doi: 10.1016/j.rasd.2014.06.007

Patten, E., Ausderau, K. K., Watson, L. R., & Baranek, G. T. (2013). Sensory response patterns in nonverbal children with ASD. Autism Research and Treatment, (2013) 1-9. doi: 10.1155/2013/436286

Sandiford, G. A., Mainess, K. J., & Daher, N. S. (2012). A pilot study on the efficacy of melodic based communication therapy for eliciting speech in nonverbal children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, (2013) 43:1298-1307. doi:10.1007/s10803-012-1672-z

Vernay, F., Kahina, H., Thierry, M., & Jean‐Yves, R. (2017). Self‐paced segmentation of written words on a touchscreen tablet promotes the oral production of nonverbal and minimally verbal children with autism. Journal Of Research In Special Educational Needs. doi:10.1111/1471-3802.12384

Orphaned references in Low-functioning autism
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Low-functioning autism's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "DSM5": From Autism:  From Anxiety:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 03:40, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Introduction: Bizarre behavior
Am i the only one that believes “bizarre behavior” should be specified? No one knows what this is referring to. This could even be interpreted as psychotic behavior. WikiJanitorPerson (talk) 18:15, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Outdated terminology/taxonomy
After some discussion, the article autism is planned to be merged with autism spectrum. However, some of the content in the former article might be better moved to an entry on 'classic' autism: the article asserts at the beginning that that's what it's about, but much of the content is clearly about the autistic spectrum more broadly.

This article is where classic autism currently redirects to. However, the title is unhelpful: 'low-functioning autism' was never an actual diagnostic category, and functioning labels are widely considered harmful and offensive by autistic people, and not endorsed by more than a small percentage of any of the groups surveyed in Kenny et al, 2015. As one participant said: "It is also often used to disregard the opinions of autistic people. Non-autistics decide for themselves that we are either ‘too low functioning’ to be capable of having an opinion, or ‘too high functioning’ for our experiences to be relevant."

I would suggest either classic autism or Kanner autism for this article. This has been discussed a little as part of WikiProject Autism. Oolong (talk) 07:59, 12 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose Not an improvement. 120.16.139.6 (talk) 02:24, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you could expand on that...? Oolong (talk) 09:25, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that this article should be merged with the classic autism article (and significantly edited to be less focused on functioning labels). I think it would also be good to rename the classic autism to something along the lines of "history of autism" since classic autism does refer to the original diagnosis and we would be expanding it to include more recent but still outdated information. I think both articles contain some redundant information and also make it seem as though they are separate diagnoses from ASD when that isn't the case. Tekrmn (talk) 16:36, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for all your hard work! I am still learning the rules-n-regs of the Wikipedia community, and write mostly about underrepresented groups in STEM professions. I have met many Level 1 autistic scientists (some whose accommodation needs are so few that I was unaware until they disclosed to me).

However, both Level 2 Autistic scientists and Level 3 autistic scientists remain dramatically underrepresented. While I haven't met a scientist with a Level 3 diagnosis, there are college students with a Level 2 diagnosis on the current DSM hanging in there due to accommodations that are working.

Can someone with better Wiki-writing skills than I possess please add a page about Level 2 autism? Thanks. Truth2239 (talk) 05:26, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I support the idea of better covering higher levels of the current DSM-5 ASD diagnosis and I fully understand the impression that these groups are underrepresented. That said, I don't believe that separate articles per level are going to be helpful, as the levels do not correlate with certain characteristics in the same way the previous diagnostic categories such as Asperger's did. In my opinion, ASD with all levels should be covered in the main autism article.--TempusTacet (talk) 19:14, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, @TempusTacet. I'm glad I mentioned this because clearly, you and @Oolong are more experienced Wikipedia writers, and know which organizational next steps are best. Truth2239 (talk) 22:02, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @Truth2239 do you have a specific concern with the current article(s) or are you missing a certain topic/subject that should be covered/added?--TempusTacet (talk) 10:25, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks @TempusTacet - “yes” to both questions:
 * [1] My first concern is with the medical accuracy of the titles of the existing articles that refer to the support levels (formerly “functioning levels”) of children, teens and adults on the Autism Spectrum. Wouldn’t it be better to reflect the current DSM-V’s emphasis upon severity levels or support levels? How about retitling them as “Level 3 Autism (formerly Low-functioning autism”), and likewise, “Level 1 Autism (formerly High-functioning autism)”?                                         Does this make sense?
 * [2] Regarding your second question about a topic/subject that should be added, no one seems to have written a Wikipedia page on “Level 2 autism”. Unfortunately, public-and-media awareness of the existence of “Level 2” appears to be so new that there is a dearth of reputable, citeable sources. It might not yet be possible to write a standalone article.  Truth2239 (talk) 07:46, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi, Thanks for sharing your thoughts & perspective.
 * [1] I don't believe that "Level 1" is equivalent to "High-functioning" or "Level 3" is equivalent to "Low-functioning". The basic idea of the support requirement levels is to better reflect that while some people might be able to "function" better (usually accomplished through an immense effort) this does not mean that they don't require support and that "functioning" is a difficult concept in itself and does not reflect a person's capabilities and needs very well. The distinction between the support levels is much less pronounced than the previous separation into diagnostic categories and I feel that separate articles would create a distinction between "sub-variants" of ASD that is not intended by the DSM. Further, ICD-11 is fully compatible with DSM-V in terms of the diagnostic criteria for ASD but does not have support levels but a system of classification by intellectual and language capabilities. I would rather merge High-functioning autism and Low-functioning autism into one article and treat it as a historical subject, covering how/why these categories where introduced and eventually dropped.
 * [2] I don't see how "Level 2 autism" is a separate category. If I understand you correctly, your concern is that there is too much focus on the "extremes" of the autism spectrum rather than the middle? In that case, I would agree but I also think that this is a natural tendency of humans and science alike. Generally speaking, we're much more interested in the edge cases rather than the Average Joe. I believe that instead of creating a separate article it would be much better to make sure that articles on autism include "the middle of the spectrum" as well.
 * Looking forward to hear your thoughts!--TempusTacet (talk) 08:18, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I support your proposal. I believe that Kanner autism is the more appropriate title, as it is less ambiguous.--TempusTacet (talk) 18:46, 15 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks. There's a case for 'Kanner autism', certainly.
 * I'm never sure how to actually move proposals like this forward. We've had one contentless objection, your agreement, and one comment that's interesting but sort of orthogonal to the proposal at hand... Oolong (talk) 08:05, 17 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I believe you can just merge the article with the current classic autism article and then move them to Kanner autism (or similar). Then, the redundancies with the main article on autism can be reduced (there is no need for a "causes" section, for example) and the Kanner autism article can cover the historic diagnosis and associated therapies and theories. This would also help to further focus the main autism article on the current state of knowledge and conceptualization.--TempusTacet (talk) 19:08, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * should we close this now? Mruanova (talk) 15:25, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * There is also a high-functioning autism article with lots of redundant information.--TempusTacet (talk) 19:09, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * should we merge high-functioning autism into classic autism? Mruanova (talk) 15:25, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Please don't merge the article and also, please stop merging and splitting articles for now. There are at least three articles (syndromic autism, classic autism, and history of autism) where your splits/merges have created a lot of work that we should tackle first. I've just cleaned up some of the bigger issues with the merge of LFA into classic autism and the article still requires substantial editing and checking, probably a month's work or more. (Most of it not directly related to your merge but the merge has combined two articles that have grown over time and require editing/revisions.)--TempusTacet (talk) 16:15, 14 June 2023 (UTC)