So Obvious, I'm Probably Wrong

a not-quite-hypothesis about autism

Photo by Peter Burdon on Unsplash

I have a thought — a not-quite-hypothesis — that has been bouncing around my brain for awhile. It’s about autism and the astonishing rise in diagnoses over the last twenty-five years.¹

Autism is a ubiquitous topic at the moment, and has been for the last few years.

It’s in the news, in political debates, in the language people use to describe themselves and their kids. It’s all over TikTok. It shows up in everything from self-diagnosis memes to serious think pieces.

A recently-wrapped show that I enjoyed, Young Sheldon, clearly centers a character who reads as very spectrum-typical, even though the word is never used. In the last few years, it’s gone from being a specific medical diagnosis to something more like a cultural identity — or even just a personality type.

This came up again recently when RFK Jr. made comments about the rise in autism diagnoses — trying, clumsily but earnestly, to raise awareness of families dealing with severe, nonverbal, profoundly disabling autism.

The backlash was swift and loud, but nearly all of it came from people whose kids are quirky, verbal, high-functioning — maybe a little socially awkward, maybe annoyingly intense about trains or dinosaurs, but not what he was talking about. I’m not defending his exact wording, but I do think the reaction highlighted something real: the word “autism” now covers such a wide range of traits and experiences that we’re not even talking about the same thing anymore.

Add “autism” to the list of terms that Americans use so ridiculously that an excruciatingly precise definition is a very good idea if you want to have a conversation. Autism, Christianity, feminism, racist, Nazi — before long the list of words about which we still have a shared understanding might be shorter.

What Is Causing This?

I suspect that the prevalence of autism among little kids is indeed rising — that it’s not just better testing and identification — and I have a guess at one reason why. I’m not willing to guess at how big of a role this might play — I simply do not know what else might be at play here. So whether this is 5% or 95% of the increase? Your guess is as good as mine, and I don’t really care, anyway.

This is just one of those things that drives me completely insane because it seems so obvious to me, but I look around and see….literally no one talking about it.

Autism is, at core, a disorder of social and emotional development — a neurological difference that impairs a person’s ability to perceive, process, and respond to social cues in a typical way. It affects things like eye contact, emotional reciprocity, nonverbal communication, and theory of mind (the ability to intuit what others are thinking or feeling).

One way this can arise — not always, but plausibly and increasingly — is through a lack of consistent, fully-present attention from the adults around a child. All children, but especially male children, need warm, attuned responsiveness to develop the neurological architecture that supports healthy social-emotional wiring. Their brains are built in dialogue with the people around them. If that dialogue is impaired or inconsistent, their development can be too.

So imagine if you wanted to consciously create more autistic children.

One way you might do it: give all the parents and caregivers a constant distraction — little dopamine-producing machines in their pockets, say. Something that would be an ever-present drain on the adults’ attention, causing them to never — or at best, rarely — give the child their undivided focus.

Make sure the child was always getting mixed emotional signals: never quite sure if the parent’s body language, tone, or energy was about them — or about the people in the phone who had such a hold on mom or dad.

Create a lifestyle for the child where everything runs on multiple tracks, with part of the parent’s consciousness constantly siphoned off by a digital world that has nothing to do with the child, and that pulls the adult in more powerfully than the child ever could.

Yeah. That just might do it.

The Diagnostic Tools Are Crap…

Even if autism is rising in children, I still don’t believe it’s rising to the extent the statistics would suggest. Why not?

Because the diagnostic tools are crap.

Most of the tools identify me as anywhere from moderately to highly autistic — which is laughably false.

Yes, I’m socially awkward. But it’s not because I can’t read social cues — more often, it’s because I can. And I’ve learned to expect danger, manipulation, or rejection as the result of reading them correctly.

Most of the tools tag me because I tend toward intense, narrow obsessions — the stereotypical autistic “special interests.” That part is true, in a way. As a kid, I escaped into books. I’d pick a topic and read every book in the public library on it. A summer on the Titanic. A school year on Booker T. Washington. Most of a year on the history of Star Trek. Two years on the Holocaust. A summer on Fermat’s Last Theorem.

As an adult, it’s less intense but still present. I have fairly rigid rituals around holidays and special occasions. I sometimes stay up all night solving number theory problems. I’ve been known to find a new author and read their entire bibliography in a month.

These are quirks. They can be dysfunctional if taken to extremes. But they’re not necessarily pathological — and they are not autism.

…And What That Might Mean

One reason so many adults think they’re “on the spectrum” is unresolved trauma. A lot of traits that get coded as “spectrum-y” or “neurodivergent” aren’t about neurology at all. They’re adaptations to chronic emotional neglect or childhood chaos.

This is pretty obvious in my own life. Holidays and birthdays were sources of trauma and terrible memories, so I now decorate extravagantly for holidays, and my birthday is deeply important to me. It always was — but surviving serious suicidality has made it more so. These rituals aren’t signs of rigidity in the autistic sense. They’re me building something sacred out of the ashes. They’re about owning my present and creating a contrast to my past — not autism.

And the “special interests”? That’s not a diagnostic flag either. That’s: wow, I’m allowed to enjoy things! Nobody is taking them away. Nobody’s hitting me for liking them. Nobody is mocking me, destroying them, or shaming me into hiding them. So I dive in deeper. Again, not autism. That’s me, unlearning terror.

Another trauma residue that often gets mistaken for autism — and even shows up on diagnostic tools — is a mechanical response to emotion.

Take this example from

Rob Henderson

’s memoir Troubled², about his own deeply traumatic childhood. He describes how the phrase “I love you” lands on him like “good morning” — a meaningless nicety. A verbal placeholder. That’s not neurological detachment. That’s a child raised in a world where “I love you” didn’t mean anything real.

A close friend of mine is similar. He doesn’t say “I love you.” He doesn’t even like to hear it. It hits him like a warning — a manipulation cue. Adults used to say it before beating the shit out of him. But he shows up. He’s steady. He can absolutely be counted on if you’re in trouble. That pattern — low on verbal affection, high on action — is exactly how a lot of autistic men are described by their partners. But my friend isn’t autistic. He’s a survivor.

I’m somewhere in the middle. I almost never let myself say “I love you,” because I’m afraid of what the response might be. But when I hear it, it hits somewhere between warm and wary.

Something like: I’m highly unlikely to betray, abandon, or attack you — at least in the next couple of weeks. It lands with a kind of hope that almost qualifies as a non-mechanical emotional response. Almost.

Fucked-up? Yep. Autistic? Nope.

But the standard diagnostic tools don’t differentiate.

Conclusion

Autism is real. Profound autism — the kind RFK Jr. was trying to raise awareness about — is a devastating condition that deserves serious attention and support. But the catch-all bucket we’re now calling “autism” includes far more than that.

It includes trauma. It includes quirks. It includes culture. It includes personality.

We need better diagnostic tools. Clearer language. And more honesty about the difference between a neurological disorder and the coping patterns of a brain shaped by pain.

According to CDC data, we’ve gone from 1 in 150 American children diagnosed with autism in the year 2000, to 1 in 31 today. That kind of increase isn’t just exponential — it’s seismic. And it can’t be explained away by better awareness or more testing alone.

Something else is going on. Maybe several something elses.

And in a generation of children who rarely, if ever, experience true emotional intimacy with their caregivers — who grow up without consistent, attuned, present-moment connection, thanks in large part to our collective smartphone addiction and culture of chronic distraction?

I don’t know for sure. How could I?

But if emotional absence on a mass scale doesn’t change how human brains grow…well, what would?

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1. From 1 in 150 American kids in 2000 to 1 in 31 American kids in 2022, per the CDC.

2. I reviewed it here.