It being a real thing doesn't make it a disease.
Nobody is saying it isn't real, but calling it a disease is really neurotypical-centric thinking, and inaccurate. Currently, it is a bundle of symptoms that gets diagnosed as a disorder somewhere on the spectrum.

As you can see from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_autism, there are many proposed causes and it is likely that more than one of them is right. None of these proposed causes includes 'older mother' as far as I can see. It is not a disease. And it is not always debilitating or awful.

/soapbox
(Skittlemcfluff ......................, Tue 24 Mar 2009, 17:53, Reply)