I first encountered autism in my attempt to do something for the children who were then excluded from education in the UK and who, without education (and without even health provision until they were seven years old) we're ending up in the back wards of what were then called
'subnormality hospital ' Anyone who has read Oswin's (1971) account of the 'empty hours' characteristic of the lives spent in such hospitals will have some idea of what that was like, although I think one needed to see it to fully comprehend its barbarity.