How old is Autism?

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Just wondering. I mean, it's possible that it's been around as long as mankind, but then some people seem to think it's an evolutionary step foward (personally I think this is nonsense). I remember seeing a topic a while back about whether animals could be austistic, and if that's possible then it's also possible that it's even older than mankind. I, myself, think it's been around since humans became fully evolved. Still, if Autism is a genetic mutation or an "evolutionary step" it could well have first appeared at any point during human history (or possibly pre-history?). When I say Autism I mean the whole spectrum ofcourse, including Aspergers, but perhaps different variations began at different points in time. But like I said, I'm just wondering...

Anyway, what does everyone else think?

It could be as old as the first human tribes discovering how to make fire. Who else would be willing to rub two sticks together for an hour if they didn't already know that could start a fire?

Of course that's just my silly speculation. But all we have to go on is accounts of behavior passed down in stories. There are stories from medieval times of perfectly ordinary toddlers replaced by "changlings" who physically resembled the toddlers but behaved in ways consistent with regressive autism. Some stories of demonic possession sound like a meltdown, but could as easily be schizophrenia. I do wonder about witch burnings in medieval times because I think stimming would look like casting a spell and echolalia would sound like magical incantations. If you go farther back in time to Egypt in the time of the Pharoes, the description of the priests could be a description of people with Aspergers and the construction of the pyramids would be theoretically aided by people who "think in pictures" as Temple Grandin described.

The whole idea of " it's the next step in evolution" comes about from not really understanding evolution, so I won't speculate on that.

I think the biological circuitry that enables autism to happen has been there for a long time, i mean hundreds of millions of years, at least since mammals appeared. The thing with humans is that we feed everyone, so all the 'defective' get to survive. As one of them i'm not complaining, i would have starved to death 25 years ago if it wasn't for civilization, but you gotta ask yourself, how will this end? we are devolving into a sea of 'conditions'. Who is gonna do the feeding once the unable far outnumber the able?

It is not biological evolution by the way, but it is an important part of the evolution of society.

It's unclear for me, but I think it's always existed.

Janissy, I think I agree with you. Fernando, what you say theoretically makes sense, but then perhaps we are the civilised ones keeping the "defective" from starving
Although another question is when/will Autism ever end? (along side humanity I'd think)

"The history of autism goes as far back as 1911 with Eugen Bleuler a Swiss psychiatrist first coined the term. However that term applied to adult schizophrenia.
In 1943 Dr. Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins University described autism for the first time. He based his discovery from 11 children he observed between 1938 and 1943. What he studied were children who had withdrawal from human contact as early as age 1.
During the 1940's through the 60's the medical community felt that children who had autism where schizophrenic. This lack of understanding of the disorder lead many parents to believe that they were at fault
During the 1960's people began to understand autism and more precisely identify autism symptoms and treatments."

Source

Prior to the aforementioned dates speculation on the existance of autism remains, well... speculation.

If I understand biology then (assuming genetic mutations have some underlying pattern) then the genetic mutations possible (or at least likely to reappear in more than extremely rare instances) will vary as a species evolves. So it may be a new as whenever modern humans developed their current brain.

However, as I understand it these issues are controversial and involve much theorising that may turn out to be fairly flawed.

This topic is speculation. And I certainly wouldn't have thought it to be anything else. Do you have any thoughts on the subject at hand?

My apologies. Since there was no mention in the OP of "speculation" or- at the very least- theorizing on the history of autism prior to it's written (and one could say "official") history then I took the title and inquiry as literal (something I am prone to do ad nauseum).
But to answer your question, Prosser (if it was in fact directed at me- I can only guess): No. I rarely invest any time in guessing what might've been when the here-and-now consumes more than enough of my time and energy.
Suppose autism (in all it's myriad forms) has existed since the age of man- what would the purpose of that knowledge be?

Well, at first I just wrote this wondering the opinions of others on the subject. It just interested me slightly. Although thinking about it, to answer your question I think knowing it's been around since the dawn of mankind would tell us it's neither an evolutionary step forward or a genetic mutation. I guess it would also tell us that nature intended for autism to directly affect the survival of mankind. It would also let us now it's not caused by environmental factors. Finding out the origin of autism would tell us a lot about it but actually finding out the origin is unlikley. In conclusion it'd be the purpose of any given knowledge, to get a better understanding.

I just hope at least some of that made sense...

Once again, I know only so much about biology but unless I'm highly mistaken that is all wrong. If by dawn of mankind you mean when humans took their modern form then it could easily still be a genetic mutation, just one which has not become dominant. It could easily also be environmental, maybe still with the same cause today or if something today is particularly responsible then perhaps it is far more prevalent than in the past. I don't see how it could ever be an evolutionary step forward unless it become dominant or we become a seperate species, things that have not happened and almost certainly will not happen. As for nature having a role to directly affecting the survival of mankind, no, it merely could be a genetic mutation.

The changeling idea is interesting. The only old culture that I know anything about is Irish, and there is quite a bit of anecdotal stuff that I heard when I was growing up about changelings. In Ireland people who are autistic or who have autistic traits are described as being "fey", "away with the fairies" or "touched by the fairies".

Right up to the nineteen-fifties (possibly later), in the west of Ireland boys were dressed as girls with long hair and in dresses to disguise them and protect them from the fairies. I had a schoolfriend whose father was dressed like that until he was 7 or 8. I met my friend's grandparents and they told me the stories and showed me photographs. The story was that the fairies sometimes came to steal babies, usually healthy strong boys, and would replace them with girls or with boys who were weak, disabled or "fey".

This might sound like a silly superstition, but along with some of the other superstitions concerning fairies, there may be a strong folk memory of a real situation. The word fairy is used to translate the Irish word "sidh". The Sidh were a group of Celts who went to Ireland during the early iron age. They used iron weapons and rode horses, and were admired and feared by the native population. There are lots of stories about the Sidh.

Another protection against the Sidh was to place iron tools such as fire pokers over a baby's cradle, and to hang an iron horseshoe over the door. I think these "superstitions" may have originated as a way of warning any would be child-thieves that the household had iron tools available. In an age of transition from soft bronze to hard iron, the threat of iron and especially of iron shod horses would have been a useful warning.

I do think that these traditions stem from a genuine risk of child theft, and where a community living hand to mouth put parents under pressure to find a healthy sturdy child to replace a weak one, it's easy to see how the parents might react by trying to find a good home for their own child by leaving him or her in the stolen child's place.

It seems interesting to me that the Sidh seem to be closely associated with autistic traits rather than another disability. And the tradition of dressing boys as girls right up to age 7 suggests that if child thefts did really go on, then it was up to the age at which autism becomes apparent whereas most other disabilities are obvious sooner. It seems reasonable to think that a community who developed new technologies such as iron smelting at the start of the iron age might have had a high concentration of autistic people.

Are their changeling myths in other societies? And do those myths refer to particular groups of people like the Irish stories?

And to answer WritersBlock's question about how useful it would be to know if Autism always existed, I think it helps to understand the nature of the condition and the causes. If it's a new thing, then what brought it about? If it is merely a variation of normal development then an interesting question is what has its incidence been over time and in different societies. Do autistic people do better - and reproduce more - in some cultural settings than in others? There apparently are genetic causes of autism and also, apparently, environmental ones too. And then the manifestation seems to be affected by how infants and children are cared for.

Does that answer the question? I've got more immediate things to think about to, but this was SUCH a refreshing escape from them!

Intresting post AuntyCC. This "Fey" business sounds a bit too vague to definatley say it refers to autism but I think you may be onto something.

And oppositedirection, I'm not convinced by your post. I wouldn't have thought genetic mutation would happen as soon as an evolutiony step has been taken but I may be wrong ( im no biology expert myself ) . When I mentionned environmental factors I was thinking of how some blame autism on modern vaccines or mercury poisening or some other nonsense. Since autism can affect people from different cultures and backgrounds from anywhere on the planet, a contributing environmental factor would have to be one that can be found in any society on Earth ( if that makes sense...).

And y'know, It wouldn't surprise me if Autism was natures way of culturally advancing. It's certainly possible.

Or could autism simply be the neurological equivalent of having naturally curly, red hair; a super-rare recessive gene trait but just another expression of the human physiognomy?

As a disorder/sickness/disease, the 1930's or so. But, it has likely been represented in human populations for at least a few thousand years. I'm speculating here, of course.

I'm also glad that so many people are disabusing themselves of the idea that evolution has "steps forward." Selection doesn't have a particular direction.