Why autism and ADHD is on the rise

There’s been a sharp uptick in the number of children diagnosed with autism and/or ADHD since a few decades back. Some try to find a cause in various conspiracy theories, but the general consensus is that this is an artifact from us simply being better at picking up the signs earlier and getting the kids into the healthcare system.

I’m a GenX undiagnosed high-masking-father-with-autistic-traits to two children with level 2 autism and ADHD respectively. My partner, with diagnoses running in the family, is a psychologist evaluating and diagnosing people with autism and ADHD.

I posit that we’re not just better at diagnosing today; there are more children affected by these disorders and as the distribution grows wider the severity for some also goes up. But no, it has absoutely nothing to do with vaccines or aspirin. It is however indeed caused by human innovations, starting with the bicycle.

… yes, you read that right.

These neurodevelopmental disorders are strongly hereditary . For most of human evolution, someone on the spectrum likely married within the same village (or not at all, in some cases) and the partner was not very likely to also be on a similar place on the spectrum.

My grandfather rode a bike for 120 km (75 miles) to meet with my grandmother. My father rode a moped the same distance and I … well I just moved away from those rural parts altogether. The point being that with increased human mobility our ability to find suitable partners has increased substantially over the last century. Since the advent of the Internet we can now also prune the dating pool even further, making sure our potential partners also fit our adventurous persona. Or not being the outgoing type. Or having the same niche interests. Or …

We’re thus concentrating all those biological factors that seem to be responsible for where on the spectrum our children will fall in a way never seen before during all of human evolution, and that’s why we’re seeing kids that are unable to pass through our current educational system - and struggle finding a profession that suits their needs.

We’ve changed the children. Now society needs to follow.