Think back 100 years or more and consider how an autistic child would have been labelled at that time based on the behavioural traits we know of as "autism" today and it's associated co-morbidities. Consider also how that trait might affect the child's prospects for survival. In the developed world we now have healthcare and social support systems unheard of then. Given that even in our "enlightened" times, less than 1 in 5 autistic adults is in gainful employment, how would those children that survived to adulthood have been able to prosper? Only those who had sufficient intellect and ability to mask would be able to function in adult society, those we now label as Asperger's, HFA & ASD1.
Only a very select few with more pronounced traits, who were shielded by wealthy relatives, stood any real chance of surviving to be adults, and even then would be hidden from public sight. Others would have been institutionalised, imprisoned or permanently chained to the poor house. There were no social workers, support workers or benefits payments outside a fortunate minority who benefited from the extraordinary philanthropy of others.
This is true of almost all disabilities. People with visible deformations or abnormalities often became the subject of fear and fascination in circus sideshows. Still more were dissected and pickled in formaldehyde as medical curiosities, collected by the rich. For every "lobster boy" in the circus there were 100 "lobster child" samples in jars.
A non verbal autistic would just have been called "mute"
An autistic who frequently had meltdowns would be a "wayward child" or in adulthood a violent criminal, "madman" or "hysteric"
An autistic who descended into depression and shutdowns was a "melancholic"
An autistic who was synaesthetic would be regarded as insane or a heretic.
An autistic child with dyspraxia would just be "clumsy"
Even if they were lucky enough to be taught literacy in the first place, a dyslexic child would just be an "idiot"
An autistic who withdrew from the stresses of society and lived alone off the land would be a "hermit" and the same one who did so within a community a "beggar" or "vagrant"
The list goes on and on....
Many of the traits we now know to be associated with autism were bullied out of the child so they could function enough to survive, they died or they ended up on the scrapheap. Few lived long enough to reproduce and pass on their autistic genes, but some did. If there is any rise in the number of autistic births today, it is not because of any environmental factor other than social progress. More autistic people survive into adulthood and have children thereby continuing the mutation that led to our existence. Less dead or lost autistics means more newborn autistics. The survival of those genes for so many millennia, maybe back to our origins, is testament to their value to society. It was the bright eccentrics, the innovators, the inventors and the artists who had value to society so passed on their genes. Only the most capable and valued of us ever got the chance to do so. Society has changed for the better so we have flourished like never before.
Most of us who in the internet age exchange our views on this forum, would not have been talking about our autism were we born 100 years ago. We would be casualties of society.
