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

Autism as a diagnosis wasn’t widely accepted until 1980 or so.  A number of things we now consider part of the autistic spectrum were labeled as other conditions until quote recently. Aspergers, now considered a relatively high functioning part of the autistic spectrum, didn’t leave the DSM until 2013 for example.  

Before that they were labeled as something else. It’s not new, just categorizing and treating it is.  

Modern mental health, as a full science with its own verbiage, official diagnoses, pharmacological tie ins, etc…. is only about a century old and is still developing rapidly.