โIf autism isnโt caused by environmental factors and is natural why didnโt we ever see it in the past?โ
We did, except it wasnโt called autism it was called โLittle Jonathan is a r*tarded halfwit who bangs his head on things and canโt speak so weโre taking him into the middle of the cold dark forest and leaving him there to die.โ
Or โlittle Jonathan doesnโt talk but does a good job herding the sheep, contributes to the community in his own way, and is, all around, a decent guy.โ That happened a lot, too, especially before the 19th century.
Or, backing up FURTHER
and lots of people think this very likely,
โOh little Sionnat has obviously been taken by the fairies and theyโve left us a Changeling Child who knows too much, and asks strange questions, and uses words she shouldnโt know, and watches everything with her big dark eyes, clearly a Fairy Child and not a Human Like Us.โ
The Myth of the Changeling child, a human baby apparently replaced at a young age by a toddler who โsuddenlyโ acts โstrange and feyโ is an almost textbook depiction of autistic children.
To this day, โautism warrior mommiesโ talk about autism โstealingโ their โsweet normal childโ and have this idea of โgetting their real baby backโ which (in the face of modern science)ย indicates how the human psyche actually does deal with finding out their kid acts unlike what they expected.
Given this evidence, and how common we now know autism actually is, the Changeling myth is almost definitely the result of peopleโs confusion at the development of autistic children.
I think itโs worth noting that many like me, who are diagnosed with ASD now, would probably have been seen as just a bit odd in centuries past. Iโm only a little bit autistic; I can pass for neurotypical for short periods if I work really hard at it. I have a lack of talent in social situations, and Iโm prone to sensory overload or you might notice me stimming.
But hereโs the thing: life is louder, brighter and more intense and confusing than it has ever been. I live on the edge of London and I rarely go into the centre of town because itโs too overwhelming. If I went back in time and lived on a farm somewhere, would anyone even notice there was anything odd about me? No police sirens, no crowded streets that go on for miles and miles, no flickery electric lights. Working on a farm has a clear routine. Iโd be a badass at spinning cloth or churning butter because I find endless repetition soothing rather than boring.
Iโm not trying to romanticise the past because I know it was hard, dirty work with a constant risk of premature death. I donโt actually want to be a 16th century farmer! What Iโm saying is that disability exists in the context of the environment. Our environment isnโt making people autistic in the sense of some chemical causing brain damage. But we have created a modern environment which is hostile to autistic people in many ways, which effectively makes us more disabled. When you make people more disabled, you start to see more people struggling, failing at school because theyโre overwhelmed, freaking out at the sound of electric hand dryers and so on. And suddenly it looks like thereโs millions more autistic people than existed before.
Re: the last reply, I wonder if this could account for people discovering theyโre on the spectrum as adults. When I was a kid we had two channels on the tv and no one even imagined the internet would be a household thing someday. Life didnโt bombard me with one tenth of the artificial stimuli it does now.
