i know somebody who knows somebody who is autistic, but me personally don't know of anybody.

@Tanya@revelife - In a very personal opinion on that myself, I don't think the 'increase' is statistically viable.  It's a projection, much like they make in population studies or retail sales.  Given these current variables, this rate of whatever, and a certain projection of time, the probability of this and that yada yada.  Remember about ten or 15 years ago, ADD suddenly became prevalent?  Something like 10% of the world population, regardless of culture and location.  What most people don't understand is that cultural anthropologists see ANY phenomenon with as high as 10% prevalence to be ~functional~ for society as a whole.  In short, people with ADD are 'doers', they are creative and busy.  But they don't fit into the *classroom*.  So there was this big witch hunt that went on over whether it should be considered a mental disability, whether it should be medicated, whether these kids should be forced to be like the other students, even though it was not in their cognitive capacity to simply sit still.  Well, the same thing is happening now with autism and Asperger's.  It's always been here.  But we are now medically defining it.  Even as little as 100 years ago, half of all babies were more likely not to survive to adulthood, education still wasn't evenly spread among the masses, and MANY children were apprenticed out, given up for adoption, or institutionalized.  You didn't even have to have much reason to institutionalize people back then.  In the last 100 years we've had an awakening to "psychological health" and a new freedom of consciousness never before seen in humanity.  And now everyone's got disorders galore.  I don't mean to sound trite, and I do believe it's a good thing to help people with difficulties, but I believe our modern society is getting a little too caught up in rapid diagnostics, specifically so these children can be 'caught' before they enter school systems and channeled through various programs, most of which involve govt funding to the schools.  And then there are pharmaceuticals.  Always follow the money.