No, it has always been around. It wasn’t diagnosed as Autism. I knew some growing up. Some were called Idiot Savants. There was one in my wife’s hometown that sold art he painted from a wagon downtown.
They generally were confined to asylums. My aunt worked in one (St Albans). I remember in college there was an old guy in a nursing home that played the piano while we sang to them.
“It wasn’t diagnosed as Autism.”
I can remember some kids who probably had Asperger’s.