Dr. Alok 'Dr. K' Gupta

I'll use a hammer, I'll use nails, and if everything works the way that it's supposed to, I end up with a typical house.

Now, how would that house end up differently if I started making changes to the materials that I used?

If I used, let's say, foam instead of wood, or if I used a hammer that was a little bit lopsided, how would that house end up looking?

And what we see in autism spectrum disorder is that there are probably all kinds of little things that when they compound over the course of the development of our brain result in this autism spectrum picture.

The second thing about autism spectrum disorder is that it is a spectrum.

So I know this is going to sound kind of weird, but autism spectrum disorder is not one disorder.

It is actually millions of individual disorders, individual pictures that we all lump together because they in the ballpark look the same.

So if we go back to our house analogy, we have a typical house, a cookie cutter suburban house that is built the same way every single time.

That's what neurotypical is.

But if we think about all of the ways in which a house can be atypical, if I mess with the measuring tape, it'll be crooked in this way.

If I mess with the nails, it'll be crooked in this other way.

If I use a different kind of wood or if I use wood instead of concrete, it'll be vulnerable to other things.

And so this is what autism is.

It's a high degree of variability.

And since it's not all one thing, it is not caused by one smoking gun.

And we also see this over the course of the spectrum, right?

There are some people on the autism spectrum who basically are very high functioning and can essentially lead normal lives.

And there are some people whose houses are very, very atypical.

The walls don't even support the roof and they struggle immensely.

Now that we understand the neurodevelopmental process, let's get back to Tylenol and autism.