After reading, "Sculptor raising autism awareness," (June 7) I must ask: Who diagnosed him? Was the sculptor's wife or the Internet the diagnostic tool? If so, there's a loose and expanding diagnostic criteria.

Why are most autistic persons diagnosed lately only as "high-functioning"? Or "Asperger's?" It's easy to fix or glamorize something that isn't broken.

Case in point: Jenny McCarthy.

Within five years, her child was diagnosed, cured, she penned a book, hit the talk shows, became a spokesperson and started a charity. That's not the face of autism. That's the batting eyelash of show business.

Yet another indicator of compromised criteria is diagnosed mass murderer Cho Seung-Hui. The guy was criminally insane -- not autistic. Apparently, some publishers and broadcasters have limited standards of analysis or understanding.

Incidentally, lumping Asperger's, childhood disintegrative disorder, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Rett syndrome, or God forbid, mental illness -- into autism is counterproductive. Even high-functioning autistics present symptoms specific to autism.

Autism begins at birth or within the first 2 1/2 years of life. Hallmark traits exhibited by the child include:

- Failure to initiate eye contact or respond to name (though not blind or hearing-impaired).

- Making little or no distinction between people, animals or objects.

- Not playing appropriately with toys.

- Severe deficits in communication (20 percent are nonverbal).

- Unusual and unpredictable behavior, mood and mannerisms.

- Self-injurious behaviors including head-punching, hair-pulling, eye-poking, biting.

- Extreme agitation, then suddenly sitting quietly in strange posture, silent, fixated on pictures, ceiling fans or moving water.

- Unusual motor mannerisms including hand-flapping, toe-tapping, twirling and various vocalizations.

- A marked neurological feature (20 to 30 percent develop epilepsy).

- Indiscriminate or discriminate (eats only pasta and peanuts, for example) eating habits.

- Difficulty processing sound, sight, touch, smells.

- Difficulty discerning dangerous situations (hot stove, traffic).

- Requires 24-hour protective supervision.

So -- why bring awareness to the definition of autism? Flash back to 2007, when a Medical News Today report showed, "Autism has numerous genetic origins." What a breakthrough. How did scientists discover this? I'll tell you. They avoided abstractions by limiting categories.

"This study permitted us to organize autistic children with similar features into small groups where gene linkages are more easily detected," said Rita Cantor, professor of human genetics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Keep it simple. Keep it similar. Keep it autistic. The more concrete, the closer we get to better treatments.

Kimberley Oakley lives in Valley Center. She is the mother of an adult child with autism.