From Fred Zemke, Grover Beach, California, US
I am wondering whether “autism” is a single condition. Your article on concerns about diagnosis in girls and women reports at least two patterns: one commonly found in males and one in females. I interpret them as follows: male-pattern autism has underactivity in the social brain, whereas female-pattern autism has overactivity in it. We don’t have a single word for thyroidism, but two: hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism. Maybe we need multiple terms for the two (or more?) conditions named autism (5 April, p 32).
