Mine was in Louisiana, which, at the time, barely even considered autism to exist and still mostly just labelled kids as "retarded, next question" instead of specifics. I think we only got it because of a bunch of stars aligning at the school he was at having a pretty high tier staffer noting him.

Regardless, every autist I've met to this day I think could have been fixed with a belt and having a real father (funny how single motherhood correlates so well with it!) as a kid.