"I think one of the problems with the definition of autism is we keep expanding it. It started as "early infantile autism", and then it became "autism", and now it's "autism spectrum disorder". I'm not opposed to that from the standpoint of trying to broaden our vistas, and so forth. But from a research point of view, the term autism is lost in specificity."

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Parents don't particularly care whether it's early infantile autism or whatever label the clinicians have put on it. All they want is treatment, and they want what's best for their child, whatever that is. And when it comes to treatment, it may be that there's much more shared interventions that don't make any difference what label we're putting on it.

— Darold Treffert