Isn't a spectrum limited to a single dimension? If yes, that doesn't sound like Autism disorders (Asperger's, ADHD, verbal, non-verbal, violence, exacerbated sensitivity, social abilities...). They all suggest that there are multiple more or less independent/orthogonal. dimensions. And everyone scores differently on the combination of these dimensions. Which puts us on different coordinates in a vector space. Is this still a partition?
I do think the word spectrum is most usefully applied to something that can vary only in a single dimension.
The partition I'm talking about is a set of sets of behaviors. I think the vector space you're talking about is a set of people (each person being a vector on the basis of the sets of behaviors).
So I think we're on the same page, just referring to different parts of the construction. I.e. everybody is somewhere on the verbal/nonverbal spectrum, and somewhere else on the sensitive/tolerant stimulus spectrum and so on for each dimension.
