When it was first diagnosed in 1943 it was rare. It is not any longer.
It is said that half a million people in the UK now have autism, including the spectrum of problems known as Asperger's syndrome. Cases among children and young people have risen 1,000 per cent in the past 10 years.
Does this mean there is a generation of young people growing up with a much greater incidence of this disabling and mysterious disorder? Not necessarily. It might just be that, for a variety of reasons, we are much more trigger-happy in labelling it.
Professor Priscilla Alderson, expert in children at London's Institute of Education, is sceptical about the rise.
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