Is there a correlation? Does exposure to technology do it? Recently Happy Console Gamer's child was born with complications and everyone is wishing them fast recovery but I can't help but think that another poor autistic or otherwise challenged person was born and how hard of a life they will have.

Can you give more examples than just 1? There are hundreds of thousands of streamers/YT people if not more and 1 constitutes so many? Also can we not paint a broad brush and look down at anyone autistic. Some are very high functioning and in many ways seem somewhat normal. Life can be challenging but some are very creative themselves. Some on the autism spectrum with Aspergers can be highly creative. Not everything about it is a downside. My mom had challenging kids and she is glad. Felt it made her stronger as a person. She was a doormat before that. Now one of the most mentally resilient people I know.

As for what causes it. Likely just genetics. Maybe some health issues with the pregnant mom. I don't see how a kid turns up with autism just because dad makes a weekly show about video games.

In this topic, 1 is many.

Honestly, there needs to be some more justification on this, or this thread may be locked.

As someone who used to work in the health industry... It's not so much that rates of "challenged kids" is on the rise in any particular demographic...
It's that being able to more accurately identify those issues earlier on has become more prevalent thanks to our understanding of these kinds of issues and the technology at our disposal that allows us to more accurately identify them.

Decades ago for instance, it was thought "ADHD" children just weren't disciplined enough... But fast forward to today, that just isn't the case, it's actually a real issue.

Now why it might "seem" to occur more often among gamers, youtubers and streamers is actually pretty obvious, those particular individuals spend a larger percentage of their time at home, generally where their children are also co-located, thus are more exposed to various issues in their children and then make the concerted effort to go seek assistance.

From my youtubers, Barnacules Nerdgasm and Metal Jesus Rocks crew member, but I constantly read about this on Reddit.

I worked in SPED for 5-6ish years, mostly as a teacher, until last school year. Before IDEA (and it's revisions) there were tons of underdiagnosed regions. Heck, even in the 2000's on television it wasn't popular to inform the audience that a character had a diagnosis (I don't believe anyone ever confirmed Brick from The Middle or Sheldon from Big Bang Theory or the guy in House had anything, for examples, and the characters simply refered to them as "weird"). It's hard to 100% know for sure as we can't go test people from decades ago, but I believe there hasn't been an increase in SPED related births, but rather awknowledged diagnosis of people.

For a long time they would just view people with these disabilities as weird, at best, and crazy and just lock them up or ignore them, sadly.

As a parent of a non verbal child I'd like to throw my weight in. I don't like hearing the "There's better testing now so numbers are higher" response. Talk about repeating what someone else said. We need original ideas or this epidemic will never be understood. I'm a healthy normalish person, there's no coincidence that my child may never speak in conversational sentences, it's purely a consequence. Of what? I may never no for sure. But I will speculate and no one better doubt that I have every right to.

I look at what are his behaviors, and what hereditary traits are there. A son is born in the state of the father. So what was I like the year leading to his conception? I avoided society.. I ignored my emotions.. I was in a fake relationship.. I overstimulated myself through online arguments.. I overstimulated myself on energy drinks and video games (alone).. I rewatched movies that gave me numbness just out of habit., I finished a computer science degree..

The Left brain is all math, reason, logic.. and the Right brain is all art, emotion, social intelligence. I had over exercised my left brain skills and let my right brain go to waste. I numbed out my feelings and lost my social skills. All thanks to my over dependence on screens/technology for the dopamine rewards. Is it any wonder that my son only gets dopamine rewards from screens and technology?

All the cities that have the most cases of ASD are all the cities with the most tech jobs. You can look that up. It's called the engineering disease because it predominantly happens to grand children of engineers. These are points that you can believe or disbelieve. But its worth investigating, if you care. If you don't, then just come up with something original and point to a solution. The situation we're in with neurodiversity isn't normal. Please don't normalize it.

Cause people mention it more or are acting like complete idiots about it to get that bit more attention.
I swear those people on twitter that give themselves 5 labels atleast and also have to mention they have autistic kids like they own a dog disgusts me.

There have always been neurodiverse people.

They just used to be called spastics, retards, weirdos, nerds, half-wits, or "wee John was a bit simple so we had him institutionalized/kept him in the attic".

Had I been born a fifty years earlier, I most likely would be ended up in a mental asylum.

Those engineers whose grandchildren were born autistic are likely autistic themselves, but were never diagnosed because of a lack of knowledge at the time and just had to adapt to society with great difficulty.

Snyps, thanks a lot for your input.