Ancient autism

To a recent post AVI commented that autism didn't seem adaptive, and might be a recent development. I googled around, and in among the fever swamps of the vaccine-autism crowd are some suggestions: This paper suggests (cannot prove, of course) that folktales about changelings might refer to parents dealing with autistic children.

The new child—the changeling—is characterised by unresponsiveness, resistance to physical affection, obstreperousness, inability to express emotion, and unexplained crying and physical changes such as rigidity and deformity. Some are unable to speak.

Sometimes the fairies fancy mortals, and carry them away into their own country, leaving instead some sickly fairy child, or a log of wood so bewitched that it seems to be a mortal pining away, and dying, and being buried. Most commonly they steal children.

The parallels between changeling tales and autism, have been briefly noted by writers on the history of the disorder. Some of the features of these stories, including the initial health and beauty of the human child, the change after some period of “normalcy”, and the specific behaviours of the changeling (listed above) are well matched to symptoms in some presentations of autism.

This site also speculates:

Autism can be equated with the 'blessed Fools’ of old Russia, “who were revered for their unworldiness. The apparent insensitivity to pain, bizarre behaviour, innocence, and lack of social awareness that these “Blessed Fools” showed, suggest that they may have had autism. ” (Happe). Similarly in almost all cultures one can find anecdotes and folktales about foolish boys (note that it is a boy and not a girl as autism has always been more prevalent in boys) who take what their mother said too literally- word for word , rather than figuratively and metaphorically or idiomatically.

And quite a few people noted that in a small rule and role-bound village, Aspergers isn't a great handicap. Maybe things might get awkward at fairs, but most of the time you know your job and you just do it.

I can't see my way to the "autism advantage", but something like Aspergers might be advantageous in the right environment--some modern children with a bent for programming have proved to be quite focused and efficient programmers.