>>12863081There may be authentic cases of autism but I would say much like ADD and ADHD, it's overdiagnosed. Taking your kid to multiple psychiatrists for the diagnosis you want is popular because you get a pass on your lousy parenting that consists of signing your kid up for multiple activities that keep them busy into the night and out of your hair starting at age 4 or just park them in front of the TV. They'll get a pass on any bad behavior and probably some drugs, and any behavioral issues not solved by the drugs are someone else's problem, probably the teacher's or classmates' who have to put up with the awkward shit, because in the eyes of such parents, they've done all they had to.
The real issue is lack of proper socialization, either too much too early (putting your kid in day care or schools for 2 year olds) or not enough (using the TV or now likely the iPad as the surrogate parent, playmate, and nanny all in one).
Ideas involving chemicals or hormones in the water or food definitely deserve investigation, but a lot of that stuff was actually worse when autism was rare and the changes in how parents deal with their kids and how people socialize is worlds different from 30 years ago. My parents lived near factories in the Rust Belt (before it was the rust belt) producing all kinds of nasty shit and with disposal practices that would be illegal today, along with the town always spraying the trees with some chemical that would hang around like a fog, and autism and birth defects were virtually unheard of. They had intact families with mothers who mostly stayed home, television was like five channels at most, no cell phones or even computers, school begins at first grade (maybe kindergarten for some kids), and fun invariably meant going outside and meeting a couple friends. Today, forced socialization with only people your age and little contact with your mother can begin almost after birth, definitely by age 3 and you're staring at screens all the time.
