BILL GATES: ‘I would be diagnosed with autism if I were a kid today.’

Bill Gates has claimed he would be diagnosed with autism if he were a child today*.

Gates has said that he believes his obsessive and socially-awkward behaviour as a child would have been labelled as a sign of neuro divergence if he grew up in today’s society.

The tech billionaire reflects on his “neuro divergent” behaviour as a young boy in his new autobiography, Source Code.

Gates, 69, said as a child he would miss social cues, often “rock in place” and was able to focus intensely on certain subjects.

Speaking to the Times, he said he would today be considered “on the autism spectrum”, adding: “My parents had no guideposts or textbooks to help them grasp why their son became so obsessed with certain projects, missed social cues and could be rude or inappropriate without seeming to notice his effect on others.”

His claim comes amid an increase in autism diagnoses, with a 2021 study finding a 787 per cent rise in the number of UK diagnoses in the decades between 1998 and 2018.

* Isn’t everybody these days? As the New York Post noted 2012: “America’s false autism epidemic…is in fact the latest instance of the fads that litter the history of psychiatry.”

More recently, Julie Burchill wrote, “Life was so much cooler before we made every little foible A Thing. When I was growing up, only soldiers had PTSD; now I’ve heard a girl claiming she started up a podcast after she got it when her gran died. Every day I hear that someone who I’d thought was just a bit annoying is ‘on the spectrum’ – the spectrum of what, from being mildly tedious to being an ocean-going bore? Like self-harm and transing, I can’t help but believe that a lot of ‘neuro-diversity’ is an internet-borne virus. Never mind, what today’s youngsters are lacking in the three Rs they’ll be able to make up for with the three As; ADHD, allergies and attention-seeking.”