Comment Shifting thresholds (Score 5, Insightful) 558
I suspect a lot of diagnoses concern borderline cases, that would previously not have been counted as verified autism - so before, people would be classified as "odd" or "geeky" but not as someone who carries a mental disability.
The same thing happened with depression. In the old days, depression was virtually unheard of, aside from extreme cases of people constantly trying to take their own lives. Nowadays, everybody and their dog gets depressed at some point during the year, and prescribed medicine.