I have known I have autism for over a decade, though in retrospect it was always pretty obvious. I fit many of the stereotypes of a so-called "high functioning" person with autism, though the "functioning" label is not one I personally care to use. It carries with it a smack of utilitarianism that puts me off. (I'm not big on utilitarian morality philosophy either, so there's that.)
After I was diagnosed and I told my best friend, they said, "Oh, are you finally figuring that out?"
Stereotypes are tricky things. Certainly your young friend's micro awareness of her learning process is not atypical of people with autism. We often exercise micro focus on something, though we don't always turn that inward. It's complicated to talk about, because autism is not a single condition. It's a group of behaviors that have been classed together under a single umbrella, some of which almost certainly spring from common causes, some of which probably don't.
Is autism a disability?
When I was a young Air Force intelligence officer, I committed the entire Soviet Air and Air Defense forces order of battle to memory because I was microfocused and intense about it; so disability was probably the wrong word, in a professional context anyway.
My personal life was another story. I felt lonely and isolated quite frequently, even though I learned years later that two of my casual friends were trying desperately to communicate to me that they were interested in pursuing intimate relationships.
They thought they were being blunt and obvious, but my inability to read normal social cues blinded me to their blandishments. I got much better at that over the years, but not the way neurotypical people get better at it. I didn't develop instincts for reading people, I microfocused and learned hundreds of specific cues that I had to think about intellectually, and which I still have to think about intellectually. I can't just read a face in some blinding flash of AI recognition the way I think neurotypical people do it. (I have a hard time recognizing faces too, which is part of my autism but not part of everybody's autism.)
Anyway, those are just a few thoughts I wanted to share.
