Yeah, it’s a spectrum but the spectrum doesn’t extend down to zero. You have to meet the diagnostic criteria, which is the floor for the spectrum.

I think a lot people hear about the spectrum and associate it in their minds with the gender spectrum. “Everyone is on the gender spectrum, so everyone is on the autism spectrum”. Makes a kind of intuitive sense, I can see why you’d think that.

But the autism or neurodivergent spectra are more akin to the “male gender spectrum” or the “female gender spectrum”. Yeah, everyone in those spectra are in a spectrum, but not everyone is included in those spectra.