In this reading, the author talks about the early history of autism, in which he emphasizes how autism was treated with disdain. Autism is a disease that has a wide variety of symptoms. Due to this, people in earlier times were often confused at whether to label them as “idiots,” which was the term used for people with mental illnesses or disabilities at the time. In one case, a young autistic boy had a great musical ability, but was greatly lacking skills in things such as mathematics. Although, there is still some inequality between “normal” people and those with disabilities, their treatment has greatly improved since then.A s time progressed and we learned more about the disabilities, those with them were given accomondations such as education that was made to help people with such disabilities.