OK, science fans: so how come we have increasing numbers of kids showing up on the autism spectrum?
due to better detection and reporting
Also due to the widening of the “Autism spectrum’. The definition of autism in the past was much, much narrower.
I also understand that in the past, kids with the most severe form of Autism were labeled as “retarded”. Kids on the other end of the spectrum were labeled as weird, trouble makers, anti-social…
FWIW after my niece had her triplets, being born premature and being multiples, they were a bit delayed in their development, talking and walking, and that is not unusual. They had two “Early Intervention” specialist who would come to the house once or twice a week, one for speech and one for physical therapy. Most of the were good and helpful but one tried to label one of the girls as being Autistic.
Why? Well when Lili got tired of her sisters taking her toys and sometimes hitting or biting her (toddlers are like that sometimes), she’d go off to a quiet corner and play by herself. She also liked organizing things, for instance she would sort blocks by color and or size or gather up all the animal toys and play with them rather than playing with a variety of different toys at the same time.
For these behaviors (the going off by herself to play and the fascination with organizing and sorting things) the one specialist told my niece that she thought Lili was Autistic and should get further testing and additional therapy.
I told my nice that I thought it was a sign that Lili was actually quite smart, and I was right, she is. Now 9 years old, she is not at all Autistic but she does march to her own beat, she’s a bit of a tomboy and seems to have inherited her father’s love of all things mechanical, and there is nothing wrong with that.