The apparent rise in autistic people in the last 40 years

Question

I’m curious as to the seeming rise of autistic humans in the last decades.

Is it that it was just not understood and therefore not diagnosed/reported?

Are there environmental or even societal factors that have corresponded to this increase in cases?

In: Biology

Answer 1

It was called something else. Tuberculosis is an ancient disease, but you won’t find any mention of it prior to the 1880s because it was called consumption. And was common enough that it was considered a personality trait.

There’s terms like Idiot Savant that started in the 1880s as well. Mental Retardation from around 1901. Imbecile entered English around 1550, but the meaning which transferred to English from French hasn’t switched meaning since Latin. Cretin from 1775.

In the 1980s terms like Mental Retardation were on their way out, but I remember being called “Slow” and being called an Idiot Savant.