It’s not clear that it is more prevalent today. Research suggests that historically somewhere between 1% and 2% of the general population has always been autistic.
Autism appears to be more prevalent today for several reasons:

• The changing concept of autism:
  • Up until 1980 children that presented with difficulties in social interaction were diagnosed with a variety of different conditions: dementia precoccissima, dementia precoccissima catatonia, primitive catatonic psychosis of idiocy, dementia, symbiotic psychosis, autistic psychopathy, and early infantile autism.
  • The 1978 Camberwell Study by Lorna Wing and Judith Gould established that these were all slightly different versions of the same underlying condition, which they said was best described by ‘Kanner’s autism’. They also suggested that autism was a spectrum condition rather than a rigid category.
  • The DSM-III in 1980 was the first to firmly distinguish autism from schizophrenia, which up until that time had frequently been referred to as ‘childhood schizophrenia’.
  • In 1981, Lorna Wing translated Hans Asperger’s 1944 paper into English and named the variant of autism he described after him, Asperger’s Syndrome, further strengthening the idea of autism as a spectrum.
  • Though never part of the official diagnosis, up until 1987 autism was strongly associated with intellectual disability. It’s only with the DSM-III-R that it was stressed individuals of average or even above average intelligence could also be autistic.
  • In 1994, the DSM-IV added Asperger’s Syndrome, PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified), and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder to Autism Disorder.
  • In 2013, the DSM-5 combined the four DSM-IV conditions into Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
    • When a condition, which had previously been split up among a number of other labels, is combined under a single label — ‘autism’ —the prevalence will appear to increase.
• Increased awareness:
  • Up until about 1990, autism was not commonly known about.
    The 1988 film Rain Man, with Dustin Hoffman playing autistic Raymond Babbitt, created a broader public awareness of autism.
  • In 1996, Temple Grandin published Thinking in Pictures and Other Reports from my Life with Autism, further increasing public awareness.
  • The number of characters specifically identified as autistic in film and television shows has steadily increased, from comedic caricatures to quite sensitive portrayals.
  • This means more and more people — general practitioners (GPs), teachers, paediatricians, parents of non-autistic children, and so on — are aware of autism and more likely to recognise the characteristic,
    • This has contributed to more people seeking an autism assessment.

Previous

Next