> This would explain why autism seems to “cluster” in upper class homes, where the parents work nonstop. The diagnosis of any mental health condition has causa

> This would explain why autism seems to “cluster” in upper class homes, where the parents work nonstop. The diagnosis of any mental health condition has causal factors outside of the presence and severity of the underlying condition. Specifically, there needs to be enough stress/maladaptation that diagnosis is sought in the first place, sufficient resources and access to care to seek diagnosis, and a support and care system that is otherwise unable to handle the patient. It's not as simple as "has disease" => "get diagnosis". Bill Gross, the "Bond King", was too busy running mutual funds to get an autism spectrum diagnosis until a psychologist mentioned Asperger's in a dinner party in his seventies, whereupon his wife commented along the lines of "yeah, you obviously have it". If you don't get demands placed on you that you cannot meet, you don't get diagnosed. Anyhow, my point is that upper class families are far more likely to A) place additional demands on their children, B) be able to seek professional diagnosis, and C) contract out childcare to workers in lieu of DIYing it and just putting up with their child behaving differently. This all is more than enough to predict the gap in diagnosis without any causal link between adult attention and autism. It's also the sort of thing to explain the correlation between diagnosis and low IQ - if you're autistic and smart, you're more likely to get enough pieces of your life right that nobody ends up putting in the effort to generate an official diagnosis. > I suspect that a lack of adult attention in the first three years of life is a principal factor in the rising autism rates we’re seeing in modern economies. My suspicion is that modern economies are a lot more atomized, and people suffer a lot more for not fitting into the square holes that are increasingly the only thing on offer. This also explains the rising diagnosis rates for other mental health conditions, especially ADHD.