Do you believe there is different types of autism?

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I do think that was a very good observation. When I hear "autism," I think of the genetic disorder people are born with. When I see kids in the media labeled with autism, but clues suggest it might be something else that's similar to autism (like the example in the original post), I consider it to be a technical misdiagnosis because it wouldn't be autism unless they were born with it right? So let's say too much mercury in the vaccinations causes autistic symptoms, well then it wouldn't be autism.

Imagine if the medical community diagnosed the same way psychology does. Patient walks in. Symptoms: fatigue, feels like he has the flu but no real flu symptoms, throat is fine, temp fine, ears fine, little nausea but not too bad, heart rate normal, etc. Doc A diagnoses with Chronic Fatigue. Doc B decides the flu is forming and soon other symptoms will develop. Doc C says it's depression and immediately prescribes antidepressants. Doc D diagnoses AIDS. Doc E says the patient is pregnant. Without bloodwork, nobody would realize the patient actually has mono.

Really, that's what psychology does. Then they confuse things more. Depression is not only a diagnosis, but it's also a symptom. Same with anxiety. How do they know the difference between aspergers and other social disorders? By mixing up all the "symptoms" most of which are pretty normal to have on occasion. It's normal to be sad. It's normal to be happy. It's normal to be nervous. Fear is normal. Anxiety, normal. Then they decide, well it's not normal to have anxiety in social settings, but we can't be positive that it's the social settings causing anxiety. And then to make matters worse, they base all this on the patient's word.

IMHO, I don't think it really matters until they discover a way to test for these things like blood work or something. When that happens, if that happens, then it will move from psychology's realm of unknowns into a normal medical realm. But, they should seriously consider this concept in attempting to find ways to test. It would help at the very least if patient walks in with symptoms of autism, and they say, well first, I want to rule out other possibilities by testing for ..... (too much mercury in the brain, anti-siezure mechanism issues, strokes, etc.)

I certainly think there are different kinds, probably more than 2. In the class I took after my son was diagnosed, the parents described their children as very different. Here's a sketchy outline of the different variables that stuck out the most.

1. Onset - either it was perceived as always being there and a part of the personality, or as something that "hit" the child before 2.

2. The clingy need for physical closeness or the absolute rejection of it

3. Hyperactivity versus "aloof" daydreaming

4. Empathy - they either seemed indifferent to the feelings of others or almost over-sensitive to emotional contexts

5. Fear- either too much or not enough

This group only consisted of the parents of 8 children so it's obviously not research material. A couple of these features seemed to correlate - Being fearful, clingy, sensitive and daydreaming, or the exact opposite - like a soft and a hard type.