(2017-12-14, 11:10 PM)Reece Wrote: People can look it up for themselves and see if they can buy that "autism has always been around."
But what is definitely around now is a commercial interest in maintaining that it has been . . . so we get the, "crazy people back then were autistic." People can even look around at their own life and see how much that adds up. Growing up, I don't even remember the word "autism" or anyone at all fitting the characteristics of autism. Probably the first time I met an autistic man was in my twenties, then I met another (younger kid) in my late twenties. Then, suddenly, they seem to be everywhere by my mid thirties. Were they simply everywhere before, these "crazy people," who are now more specifically labelled "autistic?" I think not. Autism has a very specific, unmistakable (once you know them) set of characteristics.
You're saying you don't remember anyone on the autism spectrum when you were young? Are you sure you understand what the autism spectrum is?
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/a...ndex.shtml
~~ Paul
If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from its nonexistence, we say that thing does not exist. ---Yahzi