When did you first hear about autism?

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As in, when did you first discover that autism exists? For me, it was when I started watching a show called "My little pony; friendship is magic".

I came across a fan theory about a character named Fluttershy, about her having autism. Before then I'd never even heard of the term, and Fluttershy was (and still is) one of my favourite characters, so naturally I was curious to learn more.

Many fans disagreed with the theory, pointing to the "shy" in her name, and argued that her behaviour could simply be explained by extreme shyness. It's not uncommon for cartoon characters to have exaggerated traits, especially if it's for comedic effect.

Others argued that it was actually another character, Twilight Sparkle, that showed more signs of autism than Fluttershy. The basis being that at the beginning of the show, her teacher straight up sets an assignment to make friends, as a not so subtle "Hey, you need to get out more and be social".

But Twilight was never socially inept, she just didn't have much interest in meeting others, because she didn't see the point.

Whereas Fluttershy was incredibly shy at the beginning of the series. In the scene where she first meets Twilight she is practically unable to speak, and usually only seems to communicate with other animals, there's also a lot of awkward body language and avoiding eye contact. The only point she starts speaking to Twilight is when she sees that she has a dragon, and all of a sudden she won't stop talking, much to Twilight's dismay.



How about you? When did you first come across the term?

I think I heard it mentioned when I was a child in the 1960s.

There was a public service message about autism on TV about 1970. It showed a rocking autistic boy. At first, I thought they were calling the boy “artistic.”

I was diagnosed autistic in about 1964, though I didn’t know that until relatively recently. I did know I had a “brain injury” from very young. “Brain damage.”

Makes me think of that scene from the IT crowd where Ross mishears his girlfriend, and thinks she said that he's "emotionally artistic" and "emotionally on the artistic spectrum", which confuses the other characters for most of the episode.

From overhearing doctors and therapists talking to my parents about me when I was little.

In 1980 or 1981, soon after the DSM-III was published in 1980 and included Infantile Autism as a diagnosis. I remember that ABC News television broadcast a report about children with autism in New York. I was considerably intrigued about autism and told a friend at the time that I thought I had it. The friend had spent years unknowingly teaching me to use self-modeling and other activities to improve my selective mutism. I owe her a lot.

The funny thing is, despite knowing much about autism based on reports of the time, I knew nothing about Asperger syndrome. I had to ask a friend what the differences were between autism and Asperger syndrome when screening tests showed that I probably had Autism Spectrum Disorder.

about my own, various kid shrinks said I either had it, or some type of schizotypal/schizoid thing going on. I did not find out about the AS until my early 40s when I picked up Lorna Wing's book and thought, "hey, that's ME they're talking about in there!" . I first heard discussion of autism on the tv news programs of the early 70s, and the odd tv special about it.

I started hearing about Aspergers in the 1980s.

I read Tony Attwood’s works in the early 90s. They rang a bell with me.

can you tell me, por favor where in the 80s you heard about AS? I was amazed when I read that dan ackroyd was dx'ed with it in the late 80s.

Ackroyd could not have been formally diagnosed with Aspergers until 1994.

Some shrink probably told him he had features of it in 1989, and he ran with it.

I might have read Lorna Wing. Her work was published in 1981.

hmmm, I guess I shoulda looked up the copyright date of wing's book. thanx

When my mother was dying, my sister was still trying to get a normal motherly response from her, and rather distressed about it. I did some more 'net surfing to try to figure her out, and hit a description that made sense of both our lives. This was ten years after we made it to the DSM, during most of which I had been working with people on my "dysfunctional family" issues, and AS was never mentioned, even to a blatant nerd.

Some surmise that Dan Aykroyd had some "dumb luck" in finding a diagnostician who had read Lorna Wing's writings or heard her presentations about Asperger syndrome. If true, it would still have been subclinical, but enough to comport with Aykroyd's claim that he "was told" that he probably had Asperger syndrome in the early 1980s. Many clinicians make suggestions without actually diagnosing. Now, the idea that he was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome at the time is almost certainly not accurate.

This all brings me back to my opinion that celebrities who claim to be autistic are obviously able to afford a diagnosis. Perhaps some avoid such a diagnosis because it might not turn out as expected, but for most, it would seem to me to be beneficial to those who make the claim.

My parents started sending me to shrinks when I was maybe 8.

But no shrink ever mentioned the word "autism" in connection with me ever until around 2004 when my family brought it up TO the lady shrink I was already going to.

I first heard about autism in the early Sixties. Found out about it at the same time most of the world found out about it when it first became part of the popular lexicon. I remember listening to radio talk show about autism, with experts, and parents talking about their kids of the autism.

But this was shortly after Kanner coined the term and long before they expanded the spectrum beyond the extreme low functioning type of autism. Only what today would be called Type 3, or LFA, were diagnosed as autistic then.

After listening to this talk show it actually occurred to me to wonder if there wasn't "some kind of mild form of autism, and I wonder if it isn't what I have?" But then I rejected the idea. And it never occurred to me to connect myself autism again until the 21st Century.

In the early 2000's our family suggested to the lady shrink I had been going to that I might have aspergers. Even though this was ten years after aspergers had been officially recognized in the DSM the lady shrink said that she had "never heard of the condition before" and read up about that night, and then agreed that I probably had it.

I had a friend in the late 60s/early 70s who had an older brother with severe, Kanner autism. I might have heard the term “autism” in association with him.

Most of the time, though, the kid’s mother stated that “he didn’t have enough oxygen in the brain when he was born.”

One of my teachers at my primary school talked to me about it when I was about 9. I was at that sort of age where I was becoming more aware of things, so they wanted me to know about my condition.

I think that remember being in the car with my mom in about third grade, somewhere between 92-94, heading to a hospital for something related to possible ADHD. At some point during the drive she said, "I think you might be a little bit autistic". And I said something like "of course I'm artistic".
She corrected me and went on to clarify what she said and explain it a little bit, but I don't remember that part of the conversation and we basically dropped it then.

When my little sister was very young, doctors figured out that she's autistic. I think that would have been about 98-00. I wasn't around much then, so other than knowing that she's autistic, that was about it.

About five years ago I watched the movie Mary and Max, that was the first time I heard of Asperger's. I didn't really identify with Max too much, but ended up looking up Asperger's on the internet and had a jaw dropping moment. I was pretty convinced then that I have Asperger's, and told a friend of mine about it. She made me feel like I was rude and insensitive for thinking so and basically convinced me that it couldn't be a possibility.
Took about four more years to stumble onto an article about Asperger's again.