More autism in IT?

This is the fifth post in a series for autism awareness month. Three years ago, I created a channel called hashtag #autism on my company's Slack. I wasn't sure what to expect. On the first day, about 20 people joined, roughly one in six of the company at the time. Four personal testimonies came in within hours. Dozens more wanted to understand better. I later renamed it hashtag #neurodiversity to be more encompassing. That wasn't a trend. That was a room full of people who had been waiting for the door to open. So: is there more autism in IT? Or does IT just make it easier to be autistic? Probably both, and they're not contradictory. My wife worked for years as a psychologist with autistic children. Shortly after our second child was born, she started noticing patterns in him that she recognized professionally. It took ten years to get a formal diagnosis. When the psychiatrist finally explained why our son was on the spectrum, I remember thinking: he's describing me. That's not an unus