Why is the world so behind regarding Asperger's?

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It seems like the we're at least 20 years behind in Asperger's awareness, knowledge, and acceptance from other people compared to other disabilities and minorities. There's still a lot of active discrimination, people don't realize our strengths, "autistic" gets thrown around as a slur and people don't seem to care, whereas if "gay" is thrown around nowadays, people don't tolerate it as much. Other minorities receive multiple layers of protection and are often hired because of these to fill out quotas, whereas we are often turned away despite our abilities that can transcend those of neurotypicals. I can see a lot of comparisons to past LGBT treatment in particular in that people didn't understand them and they were treated as people who were damaged in some way, much like many of us are treated currently. But this also compares to disorders like bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia. There's a club at my school called Active Minds, and it talks about reducing the stigma behind mental disorders, but they mostly talk about the aforementioned ones, and Asperger's is never mentioned. It seems like everyone is gaining awareness, knowledge, and acceptance except us, and I don't understand why this is.

It does seem like the world is always behind on Asperger's and autism in general, yes, I was recently shocked to come across this article:

http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/14951115.This_mum_is_fighting_for_equality_after_being_told_her_autistic_son_is__TOO_disabled_/

Most shocking was that the Royal London Hospital all but treated this woman's autistic son like he was a case of ebola, clearing the ward just because on a previous visit his "loud noises and sudden movements were labelled a “health and safety hazard” and he was turned away." From the article it sounds like neither his schools nor a hospital he went for a medical procedure knew what to do with him. And this is the UK in 2016.

Aspergers is not even an official diagnosis anymore here in America where the OP is. from. Offhand I do not know of any diagnosis that was added then taken away just two decades later. Aspergers has always had clinicians that did not believe in it either because they thought it was regular autism or not "real autism".

Now that Aspergers is a colloquial term people can define it as they like. Fake disease, an excuse to be rude, spree killer. Not only is it stereotyped, but the stereotypes are often polar opposites, for one person Aspergers genius special snowflake brat, next person just plain old special, the next person ret*d. If you challange the fake disease and related ideas, they can come back with the experts rejected it, stop whining and toughen up like like rest of us.

This situation has consequences. It is one reason why suicide ideation is higher amoung Adults diagnosed with Aspergers than those with other disabilities.

I imagine one reason is that in a culture constructed around extraversion that a condition that often renders someone silent and socially awkward has a built in problem. There are too few voices to be heard above the rabble. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. Plus a lot of those other groups have been struggling for generations to gain awareness and acceptance. The current understanding of ASD is relatively recent and there simply hasn't been enough time yet to penetrate that deeply into the culture. If it doesn't affect you directly, it's not likely you're going to pay much attention to it.

People are behind for the same reason they are always behind: they don't know about things outside their life experience until people who do know get their attention and inform them.

The autism/Asperger's awareness movement(s) began relatively recently, so lots of people still aren't informed.

Besides that, people with Asperger's cannot be identified visually, so even people who have some awareness may not apply what they know because they don't recognize the people with whom they are interacting as having Asperger's.

Furthermore, education doesn't necessarily create acceptance and respect. Some undesirable behaviors are not caused by lack of information but by lax social standards. For example, many people are informed about gay people now, but it's still socially acceptable to use the slur "fag" in some places.

Autism is not considered a mental illness. It's considered a developmental disorder and has different rights under the law than say bipolar disorder (in the US). If my husband had kept his schizoid personality disorder diagnosis, his company could have out right fired him after 6 months when he started his leave of absence. Because he was finally diagnosed with level I autism, the company could not fire him after 6 months and he was put on long term disability.

It would be like a person with Downs Syndrome being mad that their issues weren't discussed in the Active Mind group. Or blind people being upset that their unique discrimination problems weren't address. (my state lumps blindness under a developmental disability)

Where I live, Autism, especially level I wasn't really diagnosed until 2011 with any ease at all. Really low kids got diagnosed. The kids who could pass might get an ADHD diagnosis. Forget any thing regarding level I adults. Supposedly people out grew Aspergers or learned enough coping skills to deal, so no need for help.

My husband's attorney says level I job cases are hard, because he has to piece through

-How much does having autism contribute to the job issue.

-How much does the person's personality/disposition contribute. You can be an as*hole and still be autistic.

-is the job even a good fit? If you can't do cold call sales, no amount of accommodations will make that doable.

I think society is still trying to decide what make of with autism. Do workers always need scaffolding, and every thing that goes wrong is directly related to autism? A person's personality or temperament plays almost no roll in work place issues. Or is it like bipolar disorder, where I lost a s**t load of clients during a mania? The company said get your s**t together or you are gone. You have some control over you illness/disorder.

When so many questions aren't even being asked, it is impossible to come up with good solutions that all benefit from. You don't want to be treated like a toddler with no free will, but no one wants to be tossed to the wolves either. When schools can't find that sweet spot yet, no way in hell is society going to do it.

Also, there really isn't a recognizable front about autism. That makes pushing agendas hard too. Autism Speaks is really about children, not everyone with autism.

I think people with disabilities, not matter what the disability actually is, feels the same way. I'm sure people in wheelchairs feel very left behind as well. As do people with depression, or any other limiting factors in their life.

I don't know about other countries, but the last 20 years has been a lousy time for anyone wanting to do scientific research that doesn't lead to a good monetary return on investment in the USA. There was a time when there was plenty of resources for such research--you had a relatively small number of older academics teaching the baby boomers. No more--even academics are under scrutiny for the rising cost of education.

There is also the practical issues of studying autism versus mental illness. Mental illness typically strikes in early adulthood--which makes it easy to find research subjects right where academics work. Not so easy for them to study young children. One could do studies differentiating autism from mental illness with an 18-26 year population, but that is hard.