I am puzzled why you cannot extend to us the courtesy to acknowledge that virtually all if not everyone, including of course Savage is talking about kids who have been misdiagnosed either due to lack of knowledge or on purpose.
This is getting out of hand as much as the ILLEGAL alien debate -- for years some FRpeers screamed "Bigot!" "Racist!" instead of having the courtesy to acknowledge that we were NOT talking about legal immigration and legal residents.
I think I understand that sentence.
High functioning autism is hard to diagnose and indeed there are probably kids who are mildly on the spectrum who are diaagnosed more severely just so they qualify for state aid. I am against that, because very high functioning kids do not profit from expensive treatments. However, we should "first, do no harm," and it does harm to families to have the public assume that because an autistic child is inflexible and prone to tantrums, that some kind of punishment that works on neurotypical children would function with that child as well. We need understanding and kindness, not approbriation from our society.