Wing knew that this definition was so narrow that it excluded many children who were neuroatypical and needed supports. So she developed the idea that autism was not a fixed set of symptoms, but a spectrum, presenting in a range of different ways depending on the individual, and could include people who are very verbal and physically capable. Her research eventually led to autism being diagnosed as a "spectrum disorder." To bolster her argument for a more expansive definition, she called attention to then-obscure writings by an Austrian pediatrician named Hans Asperger, who had done research into autism at the same time as Kanner, but in Vienna, including in the period when Austria was under Nazi control.

XREF: Connects to ongoing debates about neurodiversity, Asperger's Nazi-era history, and how diagnostic categories are socially constructed.

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 669