First- I've considerably less expertise on this subject than I'm going to attempt to portray. My theory here is that the current boom of aspbergers on the baby market is an epigenetic reaction to the overstimulation of the information age. From what I have gathered, the environmental conditions one's forebearers experienced can determine which genes will be expressed further down the timeline. A previous period of famine might encourage a generation of people that produce fat more readily as long term energy storage or what have you. So perhaps the comparitive level of stimuli in these last few generations has the species scrambling to keep up however it can. Instead of a standard hierarchical model of perception that seems to break down all too readily under these external stressors, maybe the epigenomic architect is trying to build a wider structure to take it all in. The idea being that autism is sort of simialar to a person watching 100 channels at once, but unable to prioritize between the 1 showing a burning building and another showing carpet fibres. So I'm looking for responses to the possibility that the current prevalence of autism is a maladaptive mutation by the epigenome's search for a better coping mechanism. I have other potentially more offensive theoretical constructs along these lines that I may post in the future, so if anyone has hard data that can completely disprove this idea, please share it before I embarass myself again.
Oh, that's utterly brilliant! Please feel free to share in the future! Is there somewhere I could send donations to further your research? I look forward to a thread telling me where I can send all my money to make your life free of worldly cares!
