Not everyone in those generations turned out capable, happy and healthy. People just don't hear much about the people who didn't. You're right though, that we don't need these frameworks. They do help though (or at least the one I have dealt with does, when used well). I don't think it just comes down to if we need something. If we can improve something and that makes life better in some way, even if maybe it isn't at the point of being needed, we should do it. Sometimes we might stuff up and make stuff worse, but the worst thing we can do is not try to move forward. If a child is struggling socially for example, if intervening helps them with that issue earlier than they would solve it themselves and saves them years of struggling to make friends and maybe even being bullied, I think it is worth trying to help and prevent that harm even if they would have solved it themselves by one point, but later than if we helped. If we could successfully help them with those skills earlier (or alternatively find out there's a deeper reason for the struggle they are having), the journey would be a lot nicer for them and the journey wouldn't have hurt them along the way as much. They might still reach the same endpoint themselves where they work the social stuff out (they might not too) so you could say it isn't needed, but maybe they took a longer time to get there and they suffered socially and emotionally during the time it took to develop those skills. In that case, helping would still be the right thing to do, even with the same end result (for those skills - the end result mentally will still be different if they copped a lot of bullying etc along the way).

Also worth noting is that a lot of adults have struggled with things and then their kid get diagnosed with an actual disability or disorder and they discover they have it too, and for some finding out about themselves is the best thing that ever happened to them as they understand where their struggles come from now and they know it's not just a personality trait flaw etc and a lot of help and support (therapy, medications, psychology etc) can come to child and parent in this situation, so that shows that labels definitely can help at the disability level and also that not all adults are finding life easy and feeling capable, happy and healthy. It also doesn't help when people think certain disabilities don't even exist or only affect certain groups of people too.

I think we definitely need labels as a label can be what turns a life around for the better. As for the frameworks, we don't need them but they are a useful tool. We should be aiming to improve on things, either way, regardless of what tools we use.

I think things worked okay in the generations that are now adults, but I also think there is a lot of room for improvement. Things can work, but they can also work really well.