I actually did a talk about nuclear fission in grade school... using the science pages of a comics magazine as my source. The teacher was impressed. The pupils probably preferred my talk about jet engines, using a balloon taped to a straw travelling along a string to demonstrate action and reaction.
I might be on the spectrum. But I was born in 1972; my teachers weren't aware of autism. They were simply happy with a quiet kid who got good grades.
Thanks for helping to spread awareness. We've come a long way in understanding ASD, and knowledge spreads slowly. I once bought a pile of dictionaries from a retired translator. A medical dictionary from 1955-1969 only mentioned Syndrome of Kanner: autismus infantum in the last edition (Kanner's first report was published in 1943). In the original version, it defined autism as a type of egocentric, unrealistic behavior in schizophrenia.
I don't like it when people say: "In the good old days, we didn't diagnose every kid". Yeah, kids with dyslexia were called stupid or lazy, and kids with ADHD were probably beaten instead of medicated when my parents' generation went to school in the 1940s.