My issue with that attempt to define a disorder is that it can medicalize mismatches with artificial environments. (That is, almost all environments humans live in.) It in effect defines all deviations from "normal" as defects.

Imagine you're living in a culture of subsistence agriculture. And imagine further that you are thin, quiet, nearsighted, physically delicate, and are inclined to spend all your time reading. You are basically unsuited for the available jobs, nobody wants you in a relationship, and what everyday activities are available are ones you don't enjoy. So the village headman decides that you have a disorder and need treatment, by which he means regular beatings. Of course, you might make a fine librarian, but that's not an option.

The same thing was done with gay people for ages. Or women; note how female hysteria was a medical diagnosis that eventually vanished: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria

As another example, quite a lot of American children end up medicated because they are inconvenient for overworked teachers in classrooms that follow industrial models of education. A friend of mine was once a substitute teacher in a class where every single student had been diagnosed with ADHD and was on medication. The daily life that their trait was interfering with is entirely artificial. At some point I think one has to wonder whether the problem is the trait or the constructed environment that the trait isn't a good match for.

I work in a Sudbury school where we have two kids diagnosed with autism. When they first arrived, they had some problems. But in the free environment of our school, they have become as amazing as all the other children in the school. I don't even think of them as being autistic.

We all have deficiencies. What we all need are environments that let us figure out how to cope with them.

Of course, it is all matters of degree and people need to be able to take responsibility for their actions and needs. Not all can and that requires something different.

This is by far the most relevant comment here. Any attempt to understand human reactions without also examining the environment, is absurd.

It should be noted that in kids nobody can say whether it will _always_ interfere with their daily life in a material way. Autism diagnosis in a preschooler usually (90%-ish?) means it will, which is amazingly accurate if you think about it. But it's definitely not 100%. So in little kids, the diagnostician is saying they _think_ it will interfere with daily life (and that it is interfering today, but saying that about a 3-year-old doesn't necessarily mean always and forever).

See also http://intellectualizing.net/2013/09/21/the-trouble-with-ove...

Another issue is that it's sometimes easier to have a personal difference interfere with school than it is to have it interfere with real life. That argument is at http://intellectualizing.net/2015/03/12/schools-are-disorder... Real life is more flexible than most schools.