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Is Autism something old or has it been developed recently? (mgtowlemmy.org)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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[–] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You know how there's the old schoolhouse stereotype that there's always a "weird kid" in every class? There's a good chance that kid was an undiagnosed autist.

The current estimates for autism rates is around 1 in 30. Which means every classroom is expected to have 1 autistic kid. Matches perfectly with the "weird kid in class" stereotype. People recognized autism since forever. That's why the stereotype exists. It's just that they didn't have an actual word for it yet.

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  • [+] [S] 0 points 10 months ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago*

    I get what you mean. I've suspected it's a combination of factors:

    1. People have a name for it now. You can't announce or be prideful about something that you don't have a name for

    2. People are more accepting of autism now. You'd be more incentivized to hide autism if people thought it was a bad thing

    3. Autistic people tend to attract other autistic people. If you know one autistic person, you probably know a whole bunch of other autistic people too

    But also, I just think that a lot of people underestimated how many people were autistic back then. A lot of high-functioning autistic people can pass for normal until you really get to know them. For instance, I'm like 99% sure that both of my parents are high-functioning autistic, and nobody ever suspected they might be. I brought up the possibility to them and their response was just, "yeah, I figured."

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