Even though I questioned if kids are different today, I especially agree with #5 and as you say I think a lot of this is being self inflicted by society and the way we are educating. While I may not have made my OP very clear on this, I think we are saying the same thing in this regard. What I was saying is I don't think there is a new "phantom" cause, like vaccines, diet, etc... I think we are causing the changes by the very way we are structuring society and education, doing too much to restrain kids rather than letting them have unrestrained free time. We are holding their hand 24/7, cutting back on recess, no lunch time play, etc...where I feel most social growth happens. Where kids learn to interact and to find their place in a group setting without adult hand holding and structure. I also feel like there is a lot more unfair expectations of boys to behave like girls and when they don't there is unfounded worry.

I think changing the very way we educate would create less kids needing to be sent in for testing.

Autism no doubt needs intervention, but it does begin to get rather gray when someone says "on the spectrum," even among professionals, it's a relatively new field of study and sadly these labels are used a lot in the education world between educators and parents even without an expert evaluation. Everyone is now becoming a "so called" expert.