My special needs brother predates autism. I was always annoyed with the question 'what's wrong with your brother' as if slapping a label on him would fix things. And big picture there isn't anything wrong with him other than a few deep deficits which no ones going to be able to undo.
My brother has a few friends with similar deficits, just different ones. That makes me dubious of the idea of autism as a particular 'disease'. In fact I find the disease model insulting.