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Wasn't the spectrum expanded in the last 20 years? That in itself would raise the numbers. If I may play Devil's advocate, a level 1 or even a level 2 autistic person back in the day may have been seen as a bit eccentric or weird, but would overall pass for a neurotypical person and manage to hold a job, have a normal life if with some difficulty. So boomers probably knew quite a few people on the spectrum but just thought of them as just odd but good people.
I grew up in a place where the word autism isn't even in the vocabulary and thinking back, there's at least a few people I can now look back on and say they were autistic, even if we didn't know the term then.
Yeah, back then "autism" was a full-on disorder. It had to be so strong that it impacted your ability to participate in society. Now we realize that it's more a character quirk with individual strengths and weaknesses, that it's worthwhile to be aware of, even when you manage to navigate society.
Not just that, but IIRC the very first person to be diagnosed as autistic is still alive.
a level 1 or even a level 2 autistic person
Lol
Edit: Ouch, I'm apparently bad at being autistic, had no idea there were actual levels, thought it was a poor approximation of the spectrum by applying levels to something I thought of as more complex than that. My bad.
Still funny. So have you leveled up recently?
Y'all are levelling up?
I must be slacking 😔😔
Actually I kind of have lol. I guess I don't have an expert on hand to tell me it's because of my being on the spectrum but I do require a lot more support the past few years. Possibly related to COVID?
Level 70 elite autist
Sorry, had no idea, see edit. I arrogantly thought you were speaking from an uninformed perspective, I apologize.