Looking for explanations…O…M… G…..
Where do I start.
A lot of people who are not autistic are disabled in some way, sometimes intellectually. (Assessing intellectual ability/disability is not straightforward, but leaving that aside…).
A lot of people who are not autistic have problematic “behaviour disorders” or psychiatric illnesses.
A lot of people who aren’t autistic have significant physical disabilities &/or illnesses.
Some people who aren’t autistic have a horribly disabling mixture of such conditions.
Some autistic people are also significantly disabled, intellectually &/or physically &/or by illnesses & conditions which are more common amongst autistic people, but not exclusive to autistic people. Many autistic people are not significantly disabled in this way.
Conflating autism with other disabilities is just plain wrong and risks a return to the days when anyone known to be autistic was assumed to be intellectually disabled to a significant degree, resulting in lack of access to education, employment, relationships etc.
Some, perhaps many autistic people, are disabled as a result of their extreme sensory sensitivities. In some cases those sensitivities have been aggravated by traumatic experiences. In many cases, simple accommodations would reduce their degree of “disability” to an insignificant level.
And many autistic people, adults & children, have PTSD. This might be due to their sensory issues, bullying or worse at school, & harsh “discipline” or outright abuse by parents who have a limited understanding of autism, limited willingness to accommodate their autistic child’s needs, limited support & other stresses in their lives. (Or have been sucked into using approaches which basically bully children into masking their autistic behaviour, if they’re able to do so.)
This is not saying for a moment that all “difficult” behaviour by autistic children is indicative of unhelpful or outright abusive parenting styles. But sometimes…
Any such classification by authorities needs to be about autism AND other disabilities, not “profound autism”. People aren’t slightly autistic, or profoundly autistic, or something in between. But there are some autistic people who also have certain other neurodivergent traits that are outside of the autism spectrum, or significant intellectual or physical disabilities, conditions, or other illnesses, which make caring for themselves or being cared for by others extremely challenging. Those disabilities, conditions & illnesses need to be identified & recognised in addition to their being autistic.
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