What's there to notice for people if autism didn't exist as a label nor diagnosis? Being odd/reclusive is not even autism-specific nor unique. If there's no name for it, why bother?
We're very far away from the genetics now. And that was the reason why I'm here.

Name calling is pointless.
I'm trying to make a valid point.
Just because I was trying to be funny about it neither makes me a troll nor does it invalidate my point.

I firmly believe that autism has a physical aspect. Just because it hasn't been proven to exist, doesn't mean it's not there. I am not autistic because I have a psychological condition.

There are several people on this forum who were diagnosed late in life - they can tell you what a ridiculous load of hogwash that is. So could I, but I'm bored with this.

One of my favorite pseudoscientific hobby's is SETI.. but no one claims aliens exist. No proof has ever been found. The universe is a big place in terms of time and space. Still no scientist will say they (must) exist.
It could take billions of years..

You may belief what you want, but if there's no physical proof.. you're in conflict with your belief/the facts.

The genetics-argument 'we haven't found it yet' merely postpones the proof. It's a leap into the unknown.
That only makes sense if there are good leads, but there aren't.
How much time, money, autism scientists do we need? So many theories and so many studies didn't prove the genetic basis for a mental disorder.

On the contrary: Asperger is removed as a diagnosis in the DSM. LFA will be much harder because of the comorbidity, but would make sense too.

@Aspiesaurus
Serious question & I'm not trolling.

Do you believe that if words such as "autism" and "asperger's" were never made up, we would be NT? That autism wouldn't exist.

My arguments may be poorly made because I'm using English but that doesn't automatically make me wrong.

Don't change the setting - we were talking about the time pre-diagnosis, pre-label of autism. Hundreds of years ago.

Nowadays it matters ofcourse, because of many things. Society, psychiatry, etc.

Theoretical physics and pure math are 2 examples of good science which is accept yet no physical proof exists.

You mention that the removal of aspergers as an official diagnosis somehow supports your claim that autism is not genetic, that it is nothing more than a social construct?

Aspergers syndrome is merely being absorbed into the autism diagnostic criteria - people who are called aspies now are going to be HFA under the new diagnostic critieria - it is just the name that is changing. You are implying something very different.

People with Downs Syndrome used to be called mongoloid. Now they are not. The condition did not cease to exist.

That's more of a philosophical question and very tough to answer. I have no definitive answer to this.

Possible answers or thoughts:
- It would have been labeled differently. Maybe schizophrenia, or another word (maybe even a new word we don't use now).

- If society would be different in a positive way, it could be that Asperger would be a considered gift, rather than a curse/disorder (e.g. Tony Attwood congratulates people with an Asperger diagnosis
http://vorige.nrc.nl/achtergrond/article...ersyndroom [dutch] )
Vernon Smith won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2002 and stated that he won also because of his deep concentration/Asperger.

- Autism is on a spectrum already (see AQ-test by Simon-Baron Cohen) and will be on a spectrum as well in the next DSM-5, but then as a diagnosis. Seeing autism as a spectrum makes sense, but not in the way of a disorder.

- If certain words don't exist and if we don't experience any other difference by our sences (smelling, tasting, etc.) or in our head, nor are there any scientific facts contradicting us (e.g. we can't see infrared, but we can detect it), then I would say all autists and Aspergers would be considered NT. And NT wouldn't exist as a word in that way either. Our conception would be very different.
I'm not even sure we could talk with these people if they have no notion of autism or autistic traits.

- Ingroup/outgroup thinking exists for a very long time. This had its use when our ancestors grew up in an extremely hostile environment. Xenophobia is deeply wired into our brains, so anyone being different and/or requiring more help from 'the group' (or modern society) will be seen as a deficit instead of an asset.
But we're not on the African steppes anymore and the world is becoming more and more advanced and technological.
Depending on the context, time and group someone with more or less autistic traits could be of little or of much use. It's no wonder autistic traits are so common in Silicon Valley and Eindhoven: Both are areas with a lot of high tech companies/universities.
As Baron-Cohen said: The autistic mind is the ultimate systemizer. The analogy with a computer isn't that far off in my opinion.
It's one of the official reasons why Asperger is removed in the DSM-5: Sub-clinical Aspergers need no help, they just have specific traits.

That is the first time anyone in this thread has mentioned hundreds of years ago. It looks to me like you are having this argument on more than one forum and getting the answers mixed up.

When I was a kid there was no diagnosis of aspergers or HFA. There was no label for people like myself, Alison, Kevout2 and several others. But we still went to school every day and got the cr@p beat out of us for being "different". We had all of the same traits that would get a kid today diagnosed with HFA or aspergers. But we were treated as simply lazy, deliberately weird, retarded, and so on. We were teased about our enormous heads. And we didn't know that there was a reason for being the way we were, we got no support, we didn't know that there were other people like us. You talk about proof - my life is all the proof I need. And the scientific community agrees with me.

Math is a formal science, that's true. Being different than beta- or alfascience. There's not 1 general scientific theory, but the method is quite the same (theory, testing, falsification).

Theoretical physics is a nice example: E.g. The LHC is a big laboratory trying to prove claims by theoretical physics. These theories are not yet (generally) accepted, but can go as far as making very specific predictions.
But until these theories are proven, no one will say it's proven.

You are mistaken, it's not absorbed. See:
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pa...px?rid=97# under Rationale

Q.3.  If Asperger disorder does not appear in DSM-V as a separate diagnostic category, how will  continuity and clarity be maintained for those with the diagnosis?

The aim of the draft criteria is that every person who has significant impairment in social-communication and RRBI should meet appropriate diagnostic criteria.  Language impairment/delay is not a necessary criterion for diagnosis of ASD, and thus anyone who shows the Asperger type pattern of good language and IQ but significantly impaired social-communication and repetitive/restricted behavior and interests, who might previously have been given the Asperger disorder diagnosis, should now meet criteria for ASD, and be described dimensionally. The workgroup aims to provide detailed symptom examples suitable for all ages and language levels, so that ASD will not be missed by clinicians in adults of average or superior IQ who are experiencing clinical levels of difficulty.

There may be some individuals with subclinical features of Asperger/ASD who seek out a diagnosis of ‘Asperger Disorder’ in order to understand themselves better (perhaps following an autism diagnosis in a relative), rather than because of clinical-level impairment in everyday life. While such a use of the term may be close to Hans Asperger’s reference to a personality type, it is outside the scope of DSM, which explicitly concerns clinically-significant and impairing disorders.  ‘Asperger-type’, like ‘Kanner-type’, may continue to be a useful shorthand for clinicians describing a constellation of features, or area of the multi-dimensional space defined by social/communication impairments, repetitive/restricted behaviour and interests, and IQ and language abilities.

A personal argument is not very scientific (sorry). I'm sorry for what happened, but that's not HFA or Asperger specific/unique.
Would it be any different if there was a diagnosis at that time? Probably not.. bullies are bullies.

So read again: What's there to notice for people if autism didn't exist as a label nor diagnosis? That's more than a couple of decades ago.

"So read again: What's there to notice for people if autism didn't exist as a label nor diagnosis? That's more than a couple of decades ago."

Visual observation of me personally would be like watching someone with a bad heart. They might look normal or they might be having a heart attack. Bad analogy I know. Im more obviouse more often.
I know heart problems have known physical evidence but what about as you say several hundred years ago?