I'm almost 50 and I never even considered it would be a possibility until much later in life, the autistic kids were at the deep end of the spectrum and in special classes, that couldn't be me. I was just a weirdo, luckily there were some other weirdos, mostly they were the punk and alternative kids, later ravers. All things considered I had a pretty decent growing up but I could have been a lot more successful in school. One of my teachers in HS said straight up I was a loser who would never amount to anything.