I realized that the increase in the rate of Asperger's/autism was not just of more children being on the spectrum, but of fewer children being neurotypical, because of later childbearing, and perhaps other factors.
Mid-Twentieth Century, there was a compression of active childbearing years into the maternal age range of 20 to 30 years.
Which probably suppressed the rate of autism for a while, but then there was a shift toward older parents. I believe a correlation has been shown between paternal age and Asperger's.
So now we have not just a low birthrate, but also not nearly as many children being born to parents in their twenties, and also more children being born to parents in their forties than there were a few decades before.
One more factor: associative mating, which may concentrate Asperger-ish genes so that the next generation is even further along the spectrum than their parents were.
This is playing out in our society all over the place. Many trans people are on the spectrum. Many others on the spectrum are on the far right. A lot of propaganda is targeted at each side, attempting to convert and weaponize them.
God's word on this seems to be Psalm 119.
A boomer apologizes, albeit without much clarity.
"It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs," Jesus said; Matthew 15:26.
I recently understood that I am spending my life in rebuilding spiritual and practical foundations that had been foolishly undermined by previous generations.
Several months ago I was reading a nonfiction book by Christian author Paul Tournier, and made it about three-quarters of the way through before being drawn away to other things.
When I picked it up this last week and finished reading it, I found references to about a dozen Bible passages that had come up in my daily Bible readings in the interim, mostly obscure Old Testament personages with a variety of afflictions; Tournier was a Swiss doctor famous for connecting his Christianity with his medical practice.
I also read a Christian fiction book this last week: Deadline, by Randy Alcorn. One day, what I read in the book mirrored my morning Bible reading on that same day.
"A work of creation was three-fold, an earthly trinity to match the heavenly; the Creative Idea, timeless and passionate, which is the image of the Father; the Creative Energy, begotten of the idea and working in time, which is the image of the Word; the Creative Power, the meaning of the work and its response in the individual soul, which is the image of the indwelling Spirit."
-- P. D. James, summarizing Dorothy L. Sayers' description
