“SPOKANE, Wash. — If you showed up at an emergency room with a heart attack, you’d expect to receive some diagnostic tests like pulse, blood pressure and an EKG. You’d be surprised if medical professionals based their assessment only on how you looked, or how they perceived your behavior that day.
Yet, that is exactly how autism spectrum disorder is diagnosed. Dr. Georgina Lynch, an assistant professor at Washington State University in Spokane, Wash., says autism is assessed with too limited a set of tools, focusing only on sociability and behavior markers that can often be perceived subjectively by healthcare providers…”
