Diagnosing in retrospect.

Autism belongs to the ages. I'm sure even some of the ancients had it. But the widespread awareness and understanding of it, that's very much a recent phenomenon. I consider it comparable to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s in that while not life-threatening or contagious, beforehand it was barely known and then BAM! Suddenly it was on everybody's lips and minds.

Since that explosion of public and psychiatric awareness in the last 20 years or so, retrospective diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders have been made of literally countless historical figures. Albert Einstein, Emily Dickinson, Glenn Gould, Marie Curie, Stanley Kubrick, Alan Turing, Thomas Jefferson, Adolf Hitler, Jane Austen, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and even Hans Asperger himself (above) are now among those speculated to have been autistic. Obviously we'll never really know if any were (although I'm myself convinced  Gould, Kubrick and Turing were) and while we should be careful not to give such speculation too much authority for that reason, I think it can help to inspire children and adults now on the spectrum (like me) and to trace the history and unlock the secrets of creativity, philosophy and maybe even identity. Even if many in those fields are not at all autistic.

And it can also help to answer the question of whether ASDs are hereditary. One example who has found genealogical links is psychotherapist Rachael Lee Harris, diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at age 37. She subsequently found signs in the behaviours of her father and paternal grandfather, and she now has a young son with Asperger's. (She covers all this in her splendid book My Autistic Awakening: Unlocking the Potential for a Life Well Lived.) And for privacy reasons I won't say who, but I now have evidence to believe one of my recent ancestors was autistic. However, the search for a conclusive answer continues.

Overall, retrospective diagnoses of autism shouldn't be taken as concrete. If their subjects really were autistic they shouldn't be remembered just for that anyway. But they are nonetheless a great source of positive inspiration (excluding Hitler) for everybody, whatever their brain's wiring.