[dog breath]

I have a autistic son, who is now eighteen, I have been thinking hard about why there are so many diagnosed these days and part of it might be labeling. I think that the traits of autism have been in the human population for some time and only the most severe cases were taken notice of. What was dismissed as single minded, a little slow, odd, or eccentric children are now sometimes recognized as being in the autistic spectrum. Many of the more severe cases may of simply died as children in years past or in some cases of found a unique niche. I suspect that a mildly autistic person might make a fabulous animal tracker with their attention to visual detail, or might of been happy tending remote livestock with little human contact. I believe that there is a genetic link because it does tend to run in families. I recognize slight autistic traits in both myself and my wife that while minor by themselves might indicate some recessive tendency that came out in our son. It might also be induced by environmental factors in the same way that say the susceptibility to is triggered by different types of stress. If it is environmental, then it is either acting in utero or upon the parents genetic material.

[HamiltonJay]

I agree with many of your conclusions, but personally I think the high diagnosis rates are due to the incredibly broad criteria and levels that are not classified in this “spectrum”.

Was a time you had to be very severe to even think of being diagnosed with autism or one of the diseases in the spectrum. Now just being a little different socially can be enough to be classified as highly functional.

Some folks are and always have been different, weird, unique, eccentric, whatever term you care to use. Now most outside the norm can fit a diagnosis in the autism spectrum.

There is a huge difference between the severe cases and the mild cases, but yet they all show up as that 1 in 100. In reality I bet the truly severe cases are far far lower than that.. but its not beyond the pale that 1% of the population dances to a different drummer than most of the rest.

[federalist1]

I’ve told my 16-year-old son that if this were the middle ages, he’d likely be considered a genius, and I might be considered something of an imbecile. With our culture’s emphasis on sociability, communication skills, and, bluntly, faking emotions to fit it, he gets a diagnosis. It is partially cultural expectations, but it is also a neurological disorder of the frontal lobe. People with Asperger’s/Autism simply do not have the neurological connections that “most” people have. My son (16) and husband have Asperger’s, and although they are high-functioning, it is good that they know how and when their brain shuts down so they can live more comfortably in a full-color world in which they only see black and white.