AUTISM is not a sickness, but rather a different way of being.

 The history of autism as a set of characteristics is still very recent. Leo Kanner, an Austrian-American scientist, was the first to define autism in children in 1943. Dr. Grunya Sukhareva, a Russian physician, first identified autistic children in the 1920s, and a year later, paediatrician Hans Asperger in Vienna also identified comparable characteristics in children at his clinic. However, about 20 years earlier, in the 1920s.

As autism research advances, there is still much that scientists are learning about how the brain functions and the causes of autism.

The most noteworthy change is that autism is now seen as part of a wider spectrum and is usually overshadowed by other conditions including ADHD, OCD, depression, and even anorexia. Many people are finding out they are autism in their later years.

Girls and women have historically had lower rates of autism diagnosis than men, according to Happe. "Autistic women fight very hard to appear neurotypical non-autistic, frequently because they've been ridiculed or shunned because of their autistic tendencies," she adds. "They might, for instance, choose a female coworker who appears to be socially successful and copy every aspect of her, including how she walks, talks, what she talks about, how she does her hair, makeup, and what she wears. This is their attempt to disguise so that they won't draw unwanted attention."

When asked if society is becoming more understanding and tolerant of neuro-divergence, Happe replies that it hasn't happened yet. "We are not doing a good enough job at being accepting, really accepting of neuro-divergence because autistic people shouldn't have to be non authentic," she says. "We all have different ways of acting in different situations. For example, in a job interview, I'll act differently than I would in front of my family, but I can do that without feeling as though it undermines my sense of self. However, autistic people clearly have had such negative experiences with being labelled as autistic that they feel as though they just can't be their true selves."