"No Autistic People Fifty Years Ago" What?

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I was reading an article about the mistreatment of a child with ADHD and Autism which made quite angry but that's not the point of this post. Here, in case anyone wanted to read it.

The thing that caught my eye, apart from the usual "get 'special needs' kids out of mainstream education, it's not for them!" comments, were the

comments.

Now, I wasn't around fifty years ago, but I highly doubt this is true. In fact, I know it's not true.

Anyone care to discuss why people - the older generation particularly - seem to think this? Not just about ADHD, ADD, Autism, dyslexia, etc. etc. but cancer, unwed mothers and rude teenagers?

I have my own theories, but I'd like to see what other people think. (Also, feel free to discuss the article if you wish as well.)

Over 50 years ago they were known as scientists and inventors.

I kid.

There was a lack of awareness. The discovery of autism goes back to the early 1900s.

50 years ago it was 1962, so autism and ADHD were diagnosable back then. Obviously not the high functioning type of autism.

I find it funny how people throw numbers around when we eventually get to a point where 50 years ago actually wasn't that long ago. My most probably ADHD mother was born in 1959 and she's got it worse than me. Poor mum felt so different and lonely growing up in the 60's.

I'll have to find you a video about a young girl in the 1950s (textbook ADHD these days) and how the way she did possibly everything was wrong. It was a video to compare one perfect girl to another disorganised and impulsive girl.

Most of them would have ended up in mental asylums.

Oh yes, most of them would have been institutionalised. But really, it's just people's ignorance and arrogance. I barely read those comment boxes unless I want a good laugh.

People here even say that there was a trend to be diagnosed with ADHD in the 90's yet the child who needed it the most (me) never got diagnosed with it.

That's a bunch of baloney that person wrote. Of course there were but no diagnoses was made then. Autism diagnoses was rare back then. Most of them were misdiagnosed with other things. Now today I see people saying in the childfree communities how parents are getting their kids labels to excuse their parenting to to be lazy and to have excuses do their kids. They don't think their kids have genuine problems and the parents are just lazy and it hurts kids with real disabilities. We are hearing today about kids getting diagnosed with autism or Bipolar or ADHD, etc. and what I think is that has always been around, lot of kids didn't get diagnosed with it then until now.


People are just too ignorant to realize lot of kids weren't labeled then so they grew up being misunderstood, I even heard that back in the days, kids didn't get help with their school work when they needed it because they didn't help normal students then with disabilities so they would quit school or not go. But mom tells me school work was more concrete then and kids always helped each other with their homework so I would have gotten by fine she thinks. But I might have been disliked and an outcast so how would I even get help with my school work, I would need her. Maybe that was how aspies got by in school with no accommodations. Now with the environment having been changed, disabilities are more visible. With education being changed and got made more abstract, more learning disabilities will show.

And before scientists and inventors, they were quite likely shamans or somesuch.

And most people who talk about autism not existing before 1950s are most likely anti-vaccination wingnuts

People with challenges were sent to institutions and never heard from again. Families didn't talk about the Down babies or the autistic children or whatever disability they had. It was as if they never existed 50 years ago. Same with unwed teenage mothers. Dyslexia was not diagnosed (I have an older cousin with it that was never diagnosed). Cancer wasn't found until you were basically almost dead because they didn't have the technology to find small tumors. Rude teenagers existed to a certain extent, but they existed on the fringes of society and people had a heck of a lot more respect for others than they do now. People also weren't afraid to discipline others kids and kids didn't rule the roost like they do know which is a bloody freaking mess. 95% of the children I'm around now could do with a healthy dose of discipline and need to stop being catered to. We're creating a generation of spoiled rotten brats which are going to be in for a rude awakening in a few years once they get to the working world because I for one will refuse to tolerate or submit to their selfish behavior.

I think the lifestyle 50 years ago of kids playing all day outside definitely contributed to less instances of ADHD because they were burning off the energy. ADD kids were labeled "dreamers" and whatever else and basically told they weren't going to succeed so they became artists, etc.

I think to some extent it didn't exist in the prevalence it does now because the descriptions have become broader. AS didn't exist so to be autistic you would have had to be classic NV. AS people were simply the quirky nerds.

Because people don't really think it through.

ADHD was first identified explicitly in writing in 1798 by Sir Alexander Crichton:

http://adhdhistory.com/the-history-of-adhd-part-1-1798/

ADHD was also described earlier, going back to the Roman Empire at least (that I am aware of, although I forget the exact reference). Naturally, it was not described in that manner because it was not perceived in that manner. I won't try to die on this particular hill, however, because I can't find the reference right now.

Autism was around and diagnosed before Kanner and Asperger did their work, but it was identified under other names. Anbuend pointed this out to me at one point:

http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics ... detailed=0

There's text at the bottom in addition to the image and at the top of the next image. Referring to the definitions of "imbeciles":

I believe the "occasionally destructive and apparently cruel" bit refers to meltdowns. The rest are pretty apparent.

Last edited by Verdandi on 28 Dec 2011, 3:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

I was born in 1960, and I most definitely had Aspergers since very early childhood at least if not from before birth. However, high-functioning autism was not recognized in the USA until I was nearly thirty-five years old, so I grew up misdiagnosed and misunderstood, falling through cracks right and left, and frustrating not only my parents and siblings but everyone who came in contact with me.

Youngsters today have it so much better now that there is at least some public awareness of high functioning autism, that it is a real problem. I've heard that early diagnosis can lead to teaching the child some coping techniques, adjusting diet if necessary, and most importantly, letting teachers know what's going on so the kid has a chance to grow up at least a little closer to "normal" than I did.

Back in the early 1960s it was still common to blame "bad mothering" for autism. Even today there might be too much public awareness, of the wrong type, about ADHD and Aspergers. As others point out, in some cases these diagnoses are seen as excuses for lazy parents or obnoxious children. In the pharmaceutical based medicine of the west in particular, there seemed to be a rush to prescribe Ritalin or other drugs at the drop of a hat. Still there is hope for understanding more about these conditions. There has been a lot of neurological research done the past few decades, and with the growth of the internet the information is shared quicker than ever before.

I don't want a 'cure" for the good parts of my condition (encyclopedic knowledge etc.), but some of the bad parts (the sensory issues I have always suffered from, plus my not being able to connect with other people, ever) could be ameliorated somewhat and I sure wouldn't mind.

There were two ways one was treated. If they came out of a "normal" family, that is, parents were married, neither antisocial nor criminal, first the child was blamed and labeled as stubborn, unwilling, outcast, and they tried to change one's behavior with "discipline". There was harsh punishment, being slapped and belted in order to enforce a certain behavior. In other words, not only would they practically beat the s**t out of you, but also try to suppress behaviors such as stimming by holding one or punishing the unwanted traits. They would tell you "look at the other kids and behave like them." All kinds of humiliation and disparagement were part of the daily routine.

If "education" didn't work, they would sooner or later give up on their attempts and declare one as moron. Result was special education and being treated like an idiot. Depending on the personality, some of the concerned would become aggressive and display behavioral problems, which was named difficult educable. Others would withdraw and escape.

Compared to nowadays, the social rules were rigid and inflexible; difference was quickly stigmatized.

I will become 65 in a few weeks, and can state that the last two posts are right on the money.
The good news is that if you are sucessful in what you do in life you find that no one really cares and you just sort of fit in with the world such as it is!

Temple Grandin was born on August 29, 1947. That's 64 years ago.

Although, I admit that the idea that autistic people just sort of phased into existence 8 years before I was born is mildly amusing in a "did you really say that with your bare face hanging out?" sort of way.

I'm ony 47 and don't remember much until about 69 - 70 or so, but ADHD was around. It was just called "hyperactive" and a discipline problem. There were no autistic kids or special ed in the school I went to. (That we knew of, obviously, as the statement before is blatantly false if I went there) Probably autistic kids went to group homes or residential facilities.

I never paid much attention to autism or what it was until it was time to - here we go, I read all the anti-docor books too - immunize my first child. That's when I really read about autism for the first time. Of course I read about autistic kids who never speak or communicate, never go to school, never are able to do anything at all except sit in a corner and rock or line up toys, "all because of the shots" but we got the shots anyway. I held my breath. Everything was fine. Then one of mine had an allergic reaction to one of the vaccines, which we left out for them all from then on. It was a respiratory reaction, not a neurological one. I was allergic to a LOT of things when little, or too sick to get the shots, so I never had any.

Also, there were probably lots of other forms of disabilities back then that were more common than now. Mothers were encouraged to smoke during pregnancy to keep their weight down, because at the time they thought weight gain caused preclampsia instead of being a sign of it. They also didn't know about fetal alcohol syndrome and pregnant women were told to drink as much as they wanted. So, many kids were born with low birth weight (I was only 6-1 at 42 weeks) or FAS (my mother didn't drink though). I'm pretty sure that quite a few autistic kids who would have been higher functioning were effected by the low birth weight or FAS as well as the autism. It's just a theory, but it could have added to the autism, plus if you add in ignorance about autism itself, you end up with an institutionalzed kid.

None of it was ever talked about in polite society. It was all swept under the rug and made everyone uncomfortable. The closest we came as a society back then, where I lived anyway, to acknowledging it, is that we had the March of Dimes. It was all called "birth defects".

So, sure it was always around. People just didn't know how to deal with any of it or what to call it. And most were ashamed of it, sadly.

I'm only in my late 20s but my town is backwards. I had a doctor ask me why I didn't know as a kid this is what I had (since I told him that I think I have it). I never even heard of it until this year. Apparently they weren't even diagnosing it often until I would have been a pre-teen.

Anyway I went to a (pretty bad) public school. Looking back on my school pictures many of the children had special needs and we were all (everyone) in the same classes until about 3rd or 4th grade. Then my school got a trailer & put the "ret*ds" as the other kids called them in it. People would walk by & make fun of the kids in the trailer. One of my early close friends had (what I only now realize) may be something akin to down syndrome as well as blood clots all through her body. It's possible that a long time ago everyone was just put in the same classes.

My whole life I've been threatened into good behavior. It started in kindergarten. My school also had physical punishment for doing bad things during my early years (HUGE paddles). Someone also mentioned this type of thing above.

In the 60s, ADHD was minimal brain dysfunction. In the 70s, it was hyperkinesis. I think after that it became hyperactivity, ADD, and then ADHD with the DSM-IV in the 90s.

When I was 8, which was 1972, my mother's boss Eleanor had a son Scott who was my age. At all her work parties where family was invited, which was most of them, Scott and I were told to play together but my mother always said to me that Scott was hyperactive and blamed Eleanor for it. Maybe it was a regional thing, but both my mother and Eleanor were in the medical field. I remember lots of the ladies gossiping about how Scott acted.

Scott was kind of a brat though. He was mean as could be and always doing dangerous things and getting hurt. To this day I don't know if he was really ADHD and could have benefited from meds, or if that was just him.

But I definately remember her telling me he was "hyperactive" and not to do anything he said to do and that he was alwas in trouble at school, so not to try to be like him. - I always tried to be like any friend I made, and she knew that. I was a big copycat -