Please, people. There are a lot of us here with children who have one or another form of autism. Let’s not pooh pooh the diagnosis.
What you from the outside might see as just a “boy who’s a little odd” is actually probably a guy with some specific disorder that can be helped as best as possible to have the best life as possible. Even kids with Asperger’s benefit from getting a diagnosis and learning to organize their lives appropriately.
If you are one of those old-timers wondering why there weren’t all these kids with autism back in your day, remember that the environment was different back then. We don’t know what causes autism to spring up (possibly from a genetic tendency): could it be all the plastics in every aspect or our environment? Could it be all the vaccines given to NEWBORNS - around 10 before the child is even 6 months old (with all the adjuvants, media, diseases, and preservatives in the vaccines)? We don’t know.
But autism is real.
And I certainly can tell that Asperger’s is a mild form thereof, so I reluctantly have to agree with the APA for once.
Yaelle, that was well written and I completely agree.