There is an entirely open-access special issue of The Psychologist magazine devoted to the subject of autism and one of the articles deals with myth and reality of autism.

What are the misconceptions tackled in the article:

• Not everyone with autism is a genius
• The most hurtful myth: People with autism do can be friendly and caring
• People with autism do not have a broken mirror neuron system

But maybe a myth that is also important to tackle is the possible explanations one hear for the ‘autism epidimic’:

“It’s true the number of children being diagnosed with autism has increased hugely over recent decades. There was a five-fold increase in the UK during the 1990s alone, although there’s evidence this rise had plateaued by the early 2000s (Taylor et al., 2013). According to the National Autistic Society, the prevalence in the UK is now around 1 in 100, although they warn that this is an approximation. In March 2014 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US declared that the prevalence in that country is now 1 in 68 (this compares to a prevalence estimate of 1 in 150 in 2002).

The dramatic increase in rates of autism has led to scare stories about possible causes (see box on MMR vaccine), and research into possible environmental causes, such as air pollution (Volk et al., 2013). However, the reasons for the rise are currently subject to debate, and many experts think it is probably almost entirely due to a mix of broadened diagnostic criteria and greater awareness of the condition.

Such an argument was supported by a study published in 2008 by Dorothy Bishop and her colleagues. They studied 38 adults diagnosed with a developmental language disorder (but specifically not autism) in their childhood, and found that 12 of them would meet contemporary diagnostic criteria for autism or autism spectrum disorder.”