(New York Times) – Families of people with severe autism say the repeated expansion of the diagnosis pushed them to the sidelines. A new focus on the disorder has opened the way for them to argue their cause.

Now Ms. Singer, who is the head of the Autism Science Foundation, a nonprofit that funds autism research, is one of a group of parents and clinicians who are calling for the autism spectrum diagnosis to effectively be split in two, saying it has become so broad that it is obscuring the experiences of the seriously disabled people it was first meant to describe, like her daughter.

At major autism conferences and in scientific journals, the group has proposed the creation of a separate category, called profound autism, for people with the most severe disabilities. (Read More)