Jaswal & Akhtar offer evidence against lack of social motivation in “autistic people,” providing no further phenotypic details as to the autism spectrum disorder subgroups that they refer to. I will argue that given the extensive behavioral and neurobiological heterogeneity among people who receive the diagnosis, reference to “autistic people” is misleading. As a consequence, J&A's claims are difficult to interpret.

Writing systems encode linguistic information in diverse ways, relying on cognitive procedures that are likely to be general purpose rather than specific to reading. Optimality in reading for meaning is achieved via the entire communicative act, involving, when the need arises, syntax, nonlinguistic context, and selective attention.

This commentary questions the authors’claim that cognitive neuropsychology is defined by modularity and that other theoretical frames, that is, connectionism, are a priori rejected. It also points to the fact that whereas in genetic disorders there are developmental delay and asynchrony, there are few reports of deviant developmental trajectories that are never seen in typical development. It is suggested that the possibility that structure does not equal function in the developing brain, may be a viable option.