You may be right. I haven’t studied Asperger’s.
My sons have “symptoms” like developing academic skills at different ages (reading at 4, writing at 8), talking to invisible space aliens, getting angry when they don’t get what they want, and so on. None of them would be considered “autistic” by a reasonable adult - they look people in the eye, make physical contact voluntarily, and engage in sensible conversation at times.
However, if the school system found them to be a nuisance, they could be “diagnosed” for the system’s convenience. “Hey, look at all these autistic children - I wonder what’s causing this all of a sudden!”
I do not think it is new, but was an unnamed disorder until recently.
People who suffered from this were called “different” or “odd”.
I have an uncle and a nephew with symptoms similar to my son. All 3 are 2nd child, and male.
Regards,
Texas Fossil
I think the Cornell study that linked autism with a big rise in TV viewing has some merit.
The growing brain can be over-stimulated and that can result in autism.
I spent my childhood in the jungles of SA, we had no TV and I never saw a single child who was autistic.
http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/faculty/profiles/waldman/autpaper.html