You know, this is so obvious to me, as a person diagnosed as autistic late in life, that I forget people don't know about it.

I'm 62 years old now, and in the first grade, my school referred me to some sort of mental health services for an evaluation. I wasn't learning, and my teacher told my parents that my social skills were were deficient enough that she was worried about me.

I did a few sessions with a child psychologist who diagnosed ... nothing. She told my parents I was smarter than average, and she told the school I must need extra support.

I wasn't diagnosed as on the spectrum until I was about 50, and it retrospect, given the broadened definitions, it seems pretty obvious.

It was obvious to my first-grade teacher too, it's just that nobody had a diagnostics label for it yet.