As a fellow sibling of a severely autistic individual, I concur on all points. The word, which connoted a depressingly debilitating constellation of symptoms in cognition, communication, and perception when my sister was diagnosed, has been redefined year by year inside and outside of the psychiatric community until it means very little, subject to self-diagnosis based on perceived social anxiety among high-performing, high-IQ individuals who are able to initiate conversations, appreciate comedy, lie convincingly, have relationships, and master smalltalk.

She will never take part in the debate about whether an 'Aspie' gets to call themself 'ASD' or 'Autistic' or 'HFA', because she is not able to understand or speak about such topics; She will never be able to campaign against the 'neurotypicals' efforts to create a cure or prevent the condition from occurring. She will never be able to read how Jenny McCarthy cured her son of his seizure disorder or decide whether it constituted autism or speculate about thiomersal.

People like her are not able to speak up for themselves, and they've been quietly robbed of a word for their conditions. In some circumstances, this is extremely problematic; Seeking help from the state hinges on such words. The 24/7 caretakers that have been required since my family reached the breaking point has only been possible with a lawyer and a series of lucky breaks in state funding & local politics - with 2013's definition of 'Autism', the planets might not have aligned the same way.

Autism was never a terribly precise syndrome. Mental health is full of '6 out of 10 symptom' checklists; I like to visualize them as 'constellations' rather than clouds, because they exist on their own - we just draw the lines along things that seemed to be clustered. It is the particular looseness of the Autistic Spectrum that's allowed linguistic creep. I don't assert that early-childhood regression, severe cognitive disabilities, barely-lingual, no eye contact, compulsive behaviors, self-harm, stimming, problems with loud noises, and seemingly random inappropriate decisions like disrobing or running into traffic or poking a stranger or trying to enter an interesting-looking house are the canonical Autism. However, they constitute something, something almost completely different than many of the people I meet who claim to be autistic, and the language has progressively failed us in description.