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

ok i try to go full ELI5 with this:

A long time ago, some people where just seen as weird, retarded or idiots.

Now we know why they behave different than most people and we know how to treat them better.

Those are the same people, we just know better now.