"No Autistic People Fifty Years Ago" What?

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Weird, my ex was diagnosed with ADHD and he was born in 1967 and he was diagnosed with it in middle school and one of his teachers once told him, "I don't get it, you are not failing all of your classes." She couldn't understand how he could be diagnosed with ADHD and not be failing all his classes. He just had a learning disability so his writing wasn't his strongest point and he was a concrete learner too but he excelled in math.

This story makes me laugh. I can only imagine how she was trying to intimidate you (and I think threatening to abandon children is exceedingly cruel) and failing.

I believe a term often used to describe this is "warehoused."

He could have been diagnosed with ADHD, but it would have been called minimal brain dysfunction or hyperkinesis.

Misdiagnosis or a lack of knowledge and proper diagnosis had the potential for terrifying results, particularly in the case of something like current day HFA/AS diagnosed as schizophrenia, where one is medicated to reduce the effects of dopamine in the brain, when the problem could very well be the opposite.

Leading to the potential result of rendering a highly functional individual undergoing some type of temporary emotional crisis, into an individual incapacitated and possibly institutionalized for a lifetime. For some there was no opportunity for a trial or a jury, one person's subjective judgement call, in one slice of time in that individuals state of mind.

As complex as the psychological field has become in categorizing diagnoses in the last several decades, there was certainly a good reason for it.

I see it as a problem though now, how general practioners are quick to prescribe anti-depressants, for almost anything stress related, these days. It remind me of kicking a computer, to try to fix a software glitch. Or adding a quart of oil to a car that has an engine that is burning oil.

I was born in 1959 with many symptoms of autism but they did not call it autism yet because that wasn't known to the medical community yet. I was born a low birth weight twin a month premature with respiratory issues and had to stay in an incubator in the hospital for one month after I was born. In my early childhood, I was diagnosed with and was sick with asthma, allergies, flat feet - had to wear corrective shows, teeth growth abnormalities - required surgery to remove 5 freak teeth growing in the roof of my gums, chronic fatigue, joint pain in my legs, constipation issues,etc. My mother also complained that I was very hyper active.

Later on, I was slow to mature, did not start puberty until I was 15 yrs. old, then for years I suffered with severe, abnormal menstrual cycles, severe PMS, digestion issues. Then after that in my thirties, I continued with abnormal menstrual cycles, suffered from post pardon depression, digestion issues, lactose intolerant, kidney stones, chronic fatigue, asthma, allergies, etc. I have gone to doctor after doctor over the years and have been prescribed so many medicines. I realize now, I think I am really high functioning autistic.

I just ordered the book, "Breaking the Vicious Cycle" and I am putting myself on the Special Carbohydrate Diet. Right now I am taking St. John's Wort as an anti-viral. I do believe autism symptoms are caused by a virus. I will be making an appointment this week to start Ionic Foot Baths with a practitioner for detoxing myself from mercury and heavy metals. I have my first appointment on 4/26 with a holistic dentist to start having the Amalgam fillings removed from my mouth and replaced with porcelain fillings.

If anyone else can relate to me or is dealing with what I am dealing with, I would appreciate hearing from you because I feel very alone with dealing with this. It really gets me down. I love my family but I cannot discuss any of this with them, they simply do not understand.

Thank you for creating this website so I can vent about what I am going thru and thank you for taking the time to read my story.

Analiese

In all honesty, I am only 14, so I cannot give a most fantastic answer, but I do have some educated theroies.

Autism 'didn't exist' about 50-100 years ago because parents had the stress on them to raise 'perfect' children that would becvaome 'perfect' members of society. When an autistic or even mildly ADD child comes into play, they are treated like they were born out of wedlock. They keep the child and their 'defective-ness' as under wraps as possible, sometimes not even letting them go to school. While they didn't really have a name for the problem, they knew something was 'wrong' about the child.

Another theory is that many Aspergics/Autistic/ADHD/etc were never recognized for what they did. Their work may have been stolen by another, who then became famous for it be cause they were' more creditable' because they weren't 'different', or because they had better resources and social skills, and it was more believable that they had discovered it rather than the 'freakish ret*d' in the corner banging their head. The few Autistic spectrum people you've heard of are actually either quite lucky or very determined.

Another theory I have is that simply because Autistic were frwoned upon, even when it was discovered, the kids on the spectrum kept their head down and never did anything thatwould make them more than just another number in the world's population counter.

My final theory is that the person who said that 'No-one was autistic 50 years ago' is just an idiot. XD

Last edited by ThatKidInTheCorner on 08 Apr 2012, 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've heard this before and it's something that makes no sense (about how ASDs didn't exist years ago) to me. Most people were probably misdiagnosed or ignored. I remember my parents being told my brother was just a spoilt brat. (that was by so-called professionals) I've been misdiagnosed with all kinds of stuff and have had everything blamed on a diagnosis I have. It's only now that someone has realised this isn't the case.

Whilst my mum did mention to me last year that she and my sister do believe I'm Autistic, I have a feeling mum didn't bother trying to get a diagnosis due to the issues she had getting one for my brother and her trying to get doctors to listen to her regarding medical issues I've had.

Whether or not the author meant the statement to be taken literally, I would not. It's a statement made from that person's perspective. I believe what they're tying to say is "I never knew anyone with either of these conditions."

Aspies are known for taking things literally at times when not taking things literally might serve a better understanding of what's really being said.

If I take it as a statement of personal perspective, there really is no argument against it. If I took it literally, I'd be fuming at its inaccuracy and tempted to argue with the speaker of the statement.

I don't see the benefit for me in arguing over it. I guess I feel I have better things to do.

You can't believe everything you read.

I'm 52. As a girl, I was categorized as a highly intelligent and difficult. Man, what I could have done with the knowledge that my difference was Asperger's. Instead, I spent most of my resources trying to fit in, with mixed results.

Like others say, there was a lack of awareness. The social consciousness hadn't been informed.

Back then, kids weren't mainstreamed. Parents were paranoid of having their kid tagged a freak.

I grew up with plenty of kids who had ADHD but the diagnosis didn't exist so these kids were punished and shoved unsuccessfully into the mold. I remember how many ended up self-medicating and ending up in prison or dead. A few have gotten properly diagnosed, but only because their parents had stronger wills than they did.

An interesting side note. I lived across the street from a few kids who were used in studies at UCLA where they made the discovery of ADHD in the late 70's. They actually biopsied brain tissue for the study. The whole family was whacked. Mom and Dad were alcoholics and the kids were all defunct in some way. The daughters were all sluts and the sons became violent criminals at an early age.

Not really, to all. I was born in 1944, with Asperger's, when Dr Asperger was doing his early work in Austria. WWII was going on, and his work didn't make it to American diagnostic machinery for years: until 1995, in fact, with the DSM IV. I was just as Aspergic (more so, in fact: fewer traits masked) in 1950, when I was six, as I was when I was diagnosed, and the memories of that six-year-old got me diagnosed just a couple of years ago, after my daughter figured it out. I don't think they started diagnosing "Autism" until the seventies: I remember reading about it as an adult. Really low functioning autistics wound up in asylums, yes, and were even "sorted" together, but that wasn't the diagnosis. Some called it "childhood schizophrenia", or "mental retardation", and nobody knew what to do for them to help them learn to take care of themselves. See Temple Grandin's story: her mother, and some cutting-edge people, figured out how to teach minimal-or-more "fitting in" so we could be independent. In my case, I was sorted into the "very bright kids" category, as probably most Aspergians were, those of us who weren't getting into so much trouble that we were sorted as "troubled".

But all of us were always there: there were just not the labels, or even the knowledge that Asperger's fitted into the Autistic category.

But yes, there were unwed mothers and rude teenagers as long as I can remember. Most of the unwed mothers, at least of the middle and upper classes, gave their babies up for adoption, so they weren't labeled once the child was gone. I once read something translated from Ancient Egyptian about how rude, etc, the young were, and how the world was going to hell in a handbasket because they were the first generation like that....

Autism rates were 1 in 10000 in 1943. So they did exist not very many at that time because technology wasn't as advanced back 75 years ago as of this post.

I have only read the OP, not the whole thread but I was around 50 years ago. Temple Grandin is older than 50. There are people in the Bible who show strong characteristics that make us believe they were Autistic. History is full of people whom we know now were Autistic. The first Autistic people that were called Autistic were called that way earlier than 50 years ago. The person who wrote that article is just plain ignorant and stupid.

This thread is seven years old. Born in 2011, and it died in April 2012

But since someone carelessly revived it just now, and now that its roaming the countryside looking for "brains" we have to put up with it until it returns to the grave. Lol!

I think that we all agree (agreed seven years ago, and still agree now) that the person whom the OP was justifiably angry at was an idiot. Fifty years before this thread was started, and fifty seven years before now, was the early Sixties. The diagnosis of autism, and aspergers already existed then. So that's one kind of stupidity exhibited by the person who claimed that "nobody had autism or ADHD" then.

But even if that person had said "100 years ago" instead of "50", which would placed it prior to the time of Kanner,Asperger, and that even earlier Soviet lady in the 1920's, (the pioneers who first chronicled aspects of what is now called the "autism spectrum") it would be like claiming that "the American continents didn't exist until Columbus discovered them", or that "Planet Pluto didn't exist until American astronomers discovered it in 1930".

A second kind of stupid.

The OP posted an article which he/she found to be stupid. The OP disagreed that there was “no autism 50 years ago.”

I actually have people in my life who have developed that special kind of stupid. One relative thinks that I only became Autistic when I got diagnosed almost four years ago and that all of my Autistic issues that I have had my entire life are because of my own bad decisions or laziness. This person believes that had I not been told that I was Autistic, I would have never researched what it meant, never gotten the diagnosis and thus would have never become Autistic. This person really believes that I became Autistic because I researched it and got the diagnosis.