0olong

A big factor was the defining feature of Asperger's being a lack of language delay, which turned out to be poorly correlated with life outcomes. The categories were also used very inconsistently - a lot of people, and some clinics, thought the Asperger's distinction implied far more than it did on paper, but not everyone went along with that.

The existence of autistic schizophrenic people seems like a problem for the hypothesis that they're opposite ends of a continuum though?

For clarity, anything that pulls in your attention at any given time is an interest that's currently aroused.

It's not always overwhelming! I just think that whatever it is typically consumes more of a monotropic person's processing resources than for the average brain.