Joan, Autism is a condition, present at or before birth. It affects the brain, but there is no medical marker or blood test that can detect it. Autism has always been a rare condition and often children whose autism showed up early, were institutionalized. Dustin Hoffman played an autistic man in an great movie (name eludes my feeble brain!) that came out a few years back. Understanding of why the man researched and wrote the book in question I have. What I don't understand is why it was published. Perhaps because autism is of interest to more people as the incidence of the condition has risen multi-fold in the past two decades. It is no longer a rare condition. Some people are trying to figure out if it's always been around and just accepted, or if there is something that is causing a rise in this condition among offspring. Anne At 09:05 AM 1/9/03 -0500, you wrote: >Why does anyone think Jefferson was autistic or had Asperger disease? And >by the way, what is that disease? I never heard of it. Anne Pemberton [log in to unmask] http://www.erols.com/stevepem http://www.educationalsynthesis.org To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html