Autism is Everywhere: Facts & Myths Over the Years

Neurodivergence isn’t new – despite the news.

Autism isn’t a modern ‘epidemic’—it’s an enduring thread in human history, from prehistoric artisans to today’s tech innovators. To suggest that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a recent phenomenon is to neglect the very recency to which targeted research has been conducted into the subject. I believe that this epidemically-aligned assertion comes not from a basis in scientific reality; rather, it is from the social advancement of neurodivergent people within our culture. Neurodivergence has always existed; however, diagnostics, autism awareness, and de-stigmatization, are dynamic variables which are likely attributing to this increase of uncomfortability and paranoia.

Processing Modernization

The majority of us have lived our entire lives in a world with mass transportation, high-speed communication, and a robust, global marketplace. We live with access to home computers, cell phones, and a vast array of digital productivity tools. The volume, variety, and velocity of information and sensory inputs that we receive on a daily basis is entirely different than it was a hundred years ago. Our collective digital chaos, and its massive overhaul of communication and processing within our modern society, uniquely highlights how society fails to account for neurodivergence.

A common axiom amongst older generations is, “We had people like that growing up—we just didn’t call them autistic.” It’s a revealing contradiction. On one hand, they acknowledge autism has always existed. On the other hand, they endorse the myth of a modern epidemic. This contradiction isn’t rooted in science—it’s rooted in fear. The fixation on “fixing autism” instead of dismantling the systemic oppression that harms neurodivergent people indicates that there is a greater interest, especially amongst the scientifically skeptical, to reduce the presence of neurodivergence in the world, rather than develop social tools which will support integration across neurotypes. But before we can build those tools, we must confront how decades of bad science weaponized ignorance.

The Conspiracy Cycle

The history of autism research reads like a graveyard of discredited theories:

1911:

• Psychiatrist Eugene Bleuler coins “autism” to describe schizophrenia symptoms (Evans, 2013, Hist. Hum. Sci.).

1940s–1964:

• “Refrigerator mother” theory blames autism on “cold” parenting.
• Bernard Rimland debunks this in Infantile Autism (1964).
• Result: Continued scientific focus on environmental causation for autism.

1972

• Michael Rutter’s genetic study redefines autism as distinct from schizophrenia (Rutter et al., 1999).
• Result: Decades of misdiagnoses and academic chaos.

1970s–2000s:

• Harmful “treatments” dominate:
  • Aversive shock therapy.
  • Zaslow’s “Z-Process” (1975)—forced rage to “create attachment.”
• Result: Families avoided diagnosis due to trauma and inhumane treatments.

Mid-1970s – Current Day

• Deinstitutionalization of facilities for “mentally retarded” and integration into new educational and social settings (Eyal et al., 2010).
• Result: Increased diagnoses due to social advancement and modern intervention.

This pattern of explosive claims and painful corrections created perfect conditions for what came next. When the MMR vaccine emerged in 1971, it entered a field still reeling from scientific whiplash, where every discarded theory left the public more desperate for answers. The stage was set for autism’s most damaging autism myth.

As housing facilities, medical intervention, diagnostic criteria, and social awareness were being upgraded, and as previous environmental causation theories were falling out of favor, this brand-new vaccine, one which brought with it its own set of modern medical anxieties, offered a “silver bullet” explanation for the rise in autism. Twenty-seven years later, in 1998, Dr. Andrew Wakefield published his findings in The Lancet, claiming there was a direct link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The study presented a case series—one without a control group, a control period, or even consecutive cases—a study inherently incapable of determining causation.

Shortly after publication, many of the supporting authors removed their names from the study, and the study itself was ultimately retracted. In the 12 years between publication and retraction, the study piqued the interest of autism skeptics across the globe. This included numerous athletes and celebrities who went on to champion the anti-vax claims and permeated the discredited findings throughout social consciousness. By the time the study had been retracted and further studies had dispelled the claims, the subject was deemed to be one of personal opinion rather than of scientific fact. As it is often said, “when there is a lack of understanding, then everything appears as a conspiracy.”

The Shadows of Stigmatization

The point here, however, is not to discredit quack theories which have already been more sufficiently discredited by academics more knowledgeable than I. The point is to isolate the root cause of autistic invisibility: stigma. Just as prison-like institutions and inhumane medical treatments created an atmosphere of danger for autistic people to seek diagnosis, so too is that the case when it comes to disclosing autism in a hostile world.

I believe that, even today, the greatest oppositional force to autistic advancement is the stigmatization of neurodivergence. Much of this stigma is subtly baked into our cultural fabric. Rain Man. The puzzle piece. “Go Blue for Autism.” Forrest Gump. Segregated classrooms and workplaces. The Big Bang Theory. Even the very notion that autism is a contagious disease that has the capacity for epidemic is a function of this stigma. The word “autistic” is widely used as an epithet.

In 2009, the multi-Academy Award winning director Alfonso Cuaron partnered with Autism Speaks to release, I am Autism, a short PSA styled as a Blair Witch-esque footage horror that portrayed autism as a deadly, incurable disease similar to cancer, AIDS, and diabetes. These imposing narratives of stigmatization do not exist in a vacuum. They have created exclusionary stereotypes, influenced public understanding, discredited nuance, and eroded the confidence of autistic people to safely disclose their neurotype.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that only 3 in 10 autistic workers disclose their condition to HR (auticon, 2023; SHRM, 2023). When social sentiment frames autistic people as incapable—or worse, ‘”strange” or “contagious”—what incentive exists to disclose openly? Is there truly an “autism explosion,” or have institutions simply forced neurodivergent individuals to mask?

For decades, successful autistic people were erased or pressured into silence, but history tells a different story. Dr. Michael Fitzgerald (Trinity College) notes that figures like Einstein, Newton, and Mozart exhibited traits consistent with ASD—proof that neurodivergence has always driven innovation, even when stigmatized.

Splitting Neurons

These historical examples expose a paradox: society fears autistic traits despite greatly benefiting from them. The line between neurodivergence and neurotypicality unsettles us. It forces us to question societal norms, even our own self-perceptions. And when humans get uncomfortable, we crave villains. Blaming a shadowy “autism epidemic” is easier than accepting neurodiversity as part of the human condition. We’ll gut scientific progress and human connection just to satisfy that itch for a simple answer.

There’s no single cause for left-handedness, yet no one’s suggesting it’s contagious or culturally burdensome. However, I’m certain that there’s no shortage of empathetically exhausted elders eager to inform me just how much better things used to be when we forced the lefties to use the right-handed desks.

Autism isn’t new, and it isn’t a monolith. It’s not Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas. It’s not Julia, the autistic muppet on Sesame Street. It’s not misbehaving children. It’s not quirky mathematicians. It’s not train-obsessives or gamers or introverts. Autism is an infinite spectrum of human experiences wired through a different operating system.

Ditch the Fix

If autism is simply another operating system, why do we insist on “debugging” it rather than upgrading our societal hardware? Autism doesn’t need a cure; it needs a system that doesn’t treat it as a glitch. Many of the modern comforts we enjoy are thanks to autistic innovators, researchers, and entrepreneurs, just as with any other minority group. What if we stopped pathologizing difference and started redesigning society to work for everyone? What if we embraced the friction that comes with integration, knowing that doing so would help us build environments designed for all neurotypes?

We may never know all the contributions autistic people have made throughout history. For every great achievement, there is also failure. This isn’t to suggest autistic people are more altruistic, selfless, or motivated than neurotypical people, but by simply changing the attitudes and beliefs we hold toward autism, we can elevate the conversation from conspiracy to common sense.

Autism is everywhere. It’s in the grocery store, the schools, our workplaces, and the products we buy. It’s baked into social media algorithms and infused in art and media. It’s as fundamental to the human experience as the neurons firing in our brains, as inherent to identity as the color of our eyes or the sound of our voice. We can’t “cure” autism any more than we can cure left-handedness, personal preference, or introversion. Our discomfort with autism blacklights the parts of society that fail to serve humanity. Autism reveals injustice, inaccessibility, systemic bias, and the inefficiencies we’ve long ignored.

We will never be able to “fix” autism, but autism may just be able to fix us.