LA Times story on autism's rising rates
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Anonymous
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/autism/la-me-autism-day-one-html,0,1218038.htmlstory Autism boom: an epidemic of disease or of discovery? Autism rates have increased twentyfold in a generation, stirring parents' deepest fears and prompting a search for answers. But what if the upsurge is not what it appears to be? ......The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 1% of children across the country have some form of autism — 20 times the prevailing figure in the 1980s. The increase has stirred fears of an epidemic and mobilized researchers to figure out what causes the brain disorder and why it appears to be affecting so many more children. Two decades into the boom, however, the balance of evidence suggests that it is more a surge in diagnosis than in disease.... |
Anonymous
| spin-doctor article. |
Anonymous
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http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/02/the-next-really-big-lie-about-autism.html
"There’s never been study that could find adults with autism at rates even remotely close to what we see in our children. NOT ONE. All those who proclaim that there’s been no real increase have never bothered to look for the hundreds of thousands missing autistic adults. I can go into the special ed rooms at my local grade school, middle school, and high school and find the kids who don’t talk, spin in circles and flap their hands endlessly. I can’t go to the nearby nursing home and find residents like that. " |
Anonymous
| Oh stop. I could list several relatives who are adults and absolutely have ASDs -- they were never diagnosed as children because there was no diagnosis for high functioning kids. I can recall several kids whom I now think had ASDs but again, there was no diagnosis at the time. This idea that there are no autistic adults is total bunk. |
Anonymous
ITA! My mother for one! My dad thought she was just very cold towards my sister and me. After reading up on Aspergers because of my niece, he totally believes she has it. They did diagnose girls with it back then. She was just weird. Or they guy with whom I went to high school that only would speak in Middle English and wore a large red sash like Something out of a Franz Hals painting. Had to have been AS! |
Anonymous
^^meant to type "they did NOT diagnose girls" |
Anonymous
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I think it's sad that fully functioning adults would ever refer to themselves as "autistic". The autism that I see rising is the 1 in 10,000 children that were unable to talk or function in the 1970s without full support in their lives. They flap and stim and perseverate on things. THIS is the autism that has skyrocketed.
I could care less how many cold fish, child-bearing, married, capable and working adults are living with social quirks....society doesn't have to pay to support them and they don't have to be monitored by their aging parents. Seriously, that is not autism...it's not even close. What I care about is figuring out how the hell we're going to deal with hundreds of thousands of severly autistic adults in the near future. Apparently I'm going to have to find a way to live forever to care for my child, or leave a fortune and trust that someone will do right by him and take care of him in my absence. |
Anonymous
My brothers who have Aspergers are entirely disabled. They were never diagnosed as children and received no interventions. They cannot work. They have no friends. They lead very difficult, very marginal lives. Yeah they can talk, but they aren't saying anything anyone wants to hear. While it is not the same thing as Kanner autism I think you show an awfully cold heart to dismiss their disability. It isn't a competition. I get that you and your child have more significant challenges. But things can be very, very difficult at the supposedly high functioning end of the spectrum. Oh and adults with Aspergers have higher suicide rates. This is just being a cold fish. |
Anonymous
| I meant not being a cold fish. Wish they had an edit button here. |
Anonymous
Well said. Thank you. |
Anonymous
With your attitude, I bet you aren't winning many friends. So people with Aspergers or HFA aren't "autistic enough"?! I would suspect that your acceptable autism is skyrocketing because people with the milder forms have children who carry the gene and whatever environmental trigger has intensified thus increasing the numbers. |
Anonymous
| NP here. I think what people are concerned about are the posters in denial, don't want to hear the other side, take it personally and make endless excuses. Lake woe be gone helps no one, especially your child. |
Anonymous
This is a complete lie. http://pb.rcpsych.org/content/26/4/127.full |
Anonymous
You are an idiot. Children at that level of disability were diagnosed with infantile schizophrenia and retardation, prior to 1980. They were institutionalized. They weren't in the community. Many of them died very young because institutional care was poor, and special needs kids are frequently more susceptible to contagious diseases and other health problems. |
Anonymous
"An overall population rate of 7.7/10 000 for autistic disorder was obtained, which is a prevalence rate of 30% in those with learning disability. The prevalence rate was higher in intensive service settings. " autism is 1 in 58 boys. 1 in 100 children. I hardly see how 7.7/10,000 is anywhere near those figures. |