The idea that an ill children tired and with less energy than usual would behave better is not a total surprise.
You present autistic children like they are all little Sheldons from the Big bang theory, when the reality couldn't be further from the truth.
Autism is a spectrum where a certain percentage of kids are as you say, but many can't do anything without the help of an adult and certainly aren't going to have 'uncommon hobbies' or 'cleverness'.
NT people are so broken in your own ways: relationships with parents, relationships with spouses, relationships with children, relationships with the environment: you don't get any of them right. You are all so broken and unhealthy! Why are you all on anti-anxiety meds, why are you all on anti-depressants? Every NT person I know makes so many weird decisions, against their own interests, against their own emotional health. You are broken in this world.
But for some reason it becomes so important that ASD people just "act more normal". Whatever.
But, putting that aside: these problems you're describing are all things that ASD people also have to deal with. People with ASD have strictly more problems than people without it, since they have all the "normal" problems, and then some other ones that only they suffer from (like the aforementioned sensory hypersensitivity.) The only differences that exist stem from people lowering their expectations of how people with ASD will perform on e.g. social tasks. Those tasks still need to get done; people on the spectrum just don't get the choice to be the one to do them, because other people make that choice for them. (Just like nobody asks a deaf person to transcribe audio for them, or asks a paraplegic to deliver a package for them.)
> But for some reason it becomes so important that ASD people just "act more normal".
I don't think anyone wants people with ASD to "act" any way that's hard for them. The point of the development of ASD treatments is to enable people to have the opportunity to choose how they want to be, rather than being locked into one part of behavior-space without having had such a choice.
To put it another way, by analogy to another community of sufferers: people with hearing can choose to put in earplugs. Deaf people cannot choose to put in hear-plugs. Because of this, being able to hear is a strict improvement over being deaf: you can choose to use it, or not, at any point.
But more importantly... nobody is asking ASD people to act “normally”. It’s just being noted that they tend to act in particular ways and suffer from particular stimuli and are generally more difficult for NT people to relate to.
My daughter, every time she has a cold, which since daycare is almost always.
Now they are older, and fever starts to knock them out sooner. Fever suppressants make them bouncy again still (so no rush to give them until 38.7-ish, as long as they drink well etc).
Normal male mice fight. You enter in my zone, I'll bite you and chase you off. Normal female mice are more tolerant with relatives and pups, but not with any other female. They can fight also with strange females.
This is the rule for the species and the definition of perfect and normal communication. "pacifist" or mesiah mice is anomalous and probably would send a really confusing message for the other mice.
"I'm too feverish and tired to fight right now, so let me alone" is common among animals and not necessarily related with autistic behaviour.