<p>@bigtrees and benny1: I think both your posts show a real ignorance about what asperger’s and autism spectrum disorders actually are, and are somewhat brusque and cruel. As with any problem there is some mis-diagnosis, but anyone who actually understands this issue knows that recently there has been an explosion of autism and autism spectrum children born in the US. This can’t correctly be attributed to mis-diagnosis. There is an actual huge increase and because we don’t know what causes autism, we don’t know what has caused the large increase. Part of it is definitely a better understanding of what autism means, and what it entails, which has helped identify autistic and asperger’s sufferers who were going untreated previously. But part of it is definitely an unexplained increase. </p>
<p>And bigtrees, your analogy is extremely faulty. There is no way to have a person in a wheelchair work on a submarine without a complete re-design of the sub. However, there is a way for a person with bad organizational skills due to an illness to succeed at college witih very minimal effort on behalf of the school. It doesn’t require a whole re-design of education, it requires some single rooms and a very small disability services office.</p>