1/20 children in Northern Ireland have autism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s going to get worse. I am a school psychologist and when I look at the younger siblings of students at the school I am at really worried about how many if them are in strollers staring at screens. Phones and tablets are an effective and cheap babysitter. It’s a low income school where kids don’t have the opportunity to get signed up for activities where they interact.

If there are kids on the spectrum who are borderline with a lot of socialization with parents, siblings, friends, quality pre-schools, attending story times, etc. they might not ever have enough symptoms to have issues or get diagnosed. Now add COVID lock down to that mix where kids didn’t socialize at all for a year not even with cousins. We are seeing kids who are coming in to K with lower language and socialization skills across the board. It’s really, really concerning.

I do NOT think though that you can screen time your way into autism. you can screen time your way into poor socialization, but not into the fundamental brain differences, visible on MRIs, that exist in the brains of true autistic individuals from birth.

That’s not how autism is currently diagnosed. If you don’t have a chance to socialized and have experiences using language and instead are staring down at screens almost all your waking hours then when given tasks in the ADOS-2 you are not going to do well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s going to get worse. I am a school psychologist and when I look at the younger siblings of students at the school I am at really worried about how many if them are in strollers staring at screens. Phones and tablets are an effective and cheap babysitter. It’s a low income school where kids don’t have the opportunity to get signed up for activities where they interact.

If there are kids on the spectrum who are borderline with a lot of socialization with parents, siblings, friends, quality pre-schools, attending story times, etc. they might not ever have enough symptoms to have issues or get diagnosed. Now add COVID lock down to that mix where kids didn’t socialize at all for a year not even with cousins. We are seeing kids who are coming in to K with lower language and socialization skills across the board. It’s really, really concerning.

I do NOT think though that you can screen time your way into autism. you can screen time your way into poor socialization, but not into the fundamental brain differences, visible on MRIs, that exist in the brains of true autistic individuals from birth.

That’s not how autism is currently diagnosed. If you don’t have a chance to socialized and have experiences using language and instead are staring down at screens almost all your waking hours then when given tasks in the ADOS-2 you are not going to do well.

you are completely correct which is exactly why many professionals believe the ADOS is deeply flawed.
again - autism is not 'just' a social emotional delay. It requires persistent challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication. while some autism like 'behaviors' can be caused by a lack of appropriate developmental play for a child, true 'autism' should not be conflated with that. Many many kids unfortunately experience neglect and trauma, they do not all have autism.
this is the big issue with autism it's a mess of a diagnosis at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s going to get worse. I am a school psychologist and when I look at the younger siblings of students at the school I am at really worried about how many if them are in strollers staring at screens. Phones and tablets are an effective and cheap babysitter. It’s a low income school where kids don’t have the opportunity to get signed up for activities where they interact.

If there are kids on the spectrum who are borderline with a lot of socialization with parents, siblings, friends, quality pre-schools, attending story times, etc. they might not ever have enough symptoms to have issues or get diagnosed. Now add COVID lock down to that mix where kids didn’t socialize at all for a year not even with cousins. We are seeing kids who are coming in to K with lower language and socialization skills across the board. It’s really, really concerning.

I do NOT think though that you can screen time your way into autism. you can screen time your way into poor socialization, but not into the fundamental brain differences, visible on MRIs, that exist in the brains of true autistic individuals from birth.

That’s not how autism is currently diagnosed. If you don’t have a chance to socialized and have experiences using language and instead are staring down at screens almost all your waking hours then when given tasks in the ADOS-2 you are not going to do well.

researchers are actually well on their way to using brain imaging studies to dx autism. they have already been using them to ascertain that there are in fact 4 distinct subtypes of asd, each with very different neuro mechanisms.

https://www.bbrfoundation.org/content/four-subtypes-autism-spectrum-disorder-are-distinguished-helping-explain-individual

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s going to get worse. I am a school psychologist and when I look at the younger siblings of students at the school I am at really worried about how many if them are in strollers staring at screens. Phones and tablets are an effective and cheap babysitter. It’s a low income school where kids don’t have the opportunity to get signed up for activities where they interact.

If there are kids on the spectrum who are borderline with a lot of socialization with parents, siblings, friends, quality pre-schools, attending story times, etc. they might not ever have enough symptoms to have issues or get diagnosed. Now add COVID lock down to that mix where kids didn’t socialize at all for a year not even with cousins. We are seeing kids who are coming in to K with lower language and socialization skills across the board. It’s really, really concerning.

I do NOT think though that you can screen time your way into autism. you can screen time your way into poor socialization, but not into the fundamental brain differences, visible on MRIs, that exist in the brains of true autistic individuals from birth.

That’s not how autism is currently diagnosed. If you don’t have a chance to socialized and have experiences using language and instead are staring down at screens almost all your waking hours then when given tasks in the ADOS-2 you are not going to do well.

researchers are actually well on their way to using brain imaging studies to dx autism. they have already been using them to ascertain that there are in fact 4 distinct subtypes of asd, each with very different neuro mechanisms.

https://www.bbrfoundation.org/content/four-subtypes-autism-spectrum-disorder-are-distinguished-helping-explain-individual

lol no, no such thing. it’s well known that brain imaging is a wild goose chase. https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/brain-imaging-do-over-offers-clues-to-fields-replication-crisis/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a combination of the broadening of the diagnosis and also real increases in children who are "really" autistic.

I have a premie and it is well known that white boy babies have worse outcomes than girl babies or POC babies. Boys are more fragile girls from conception on, more subject to disruption and more sensitive to disruptors. And our environment is more disruptive than it used to be.

Boys present "worse", are more severely affected by autism than girls. My two DSs are both ASD and ADHD and, while both of those run to some extent in DH (ADHD) and my (ASD) families, my kids are struggling a lot more than earlier generations did.

PS - I have a lot of Irish ancestors. While there's a lot of mythology associated with being Irish, this is the first I've heard that autism is part of it.

white boys are the standard for diagnosis, making it more difficult for girls and poc to get diagnosed. we get ODD, bipolar, anxiety, or told SES and lack of parental involvement is to blame for poor outcomes, deficiencies and struggles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s going to get worse. I am a school psychologist and when I look at the younger siblings of students at the school I am at really worried about how many if them are in strollers staring at screens. Phones and tablets are an effective and cheap babysitter. It’s a low income school where kids don’t have the opportunity to get signed up for activities where they interact.

If there are kids on the spectrum who are borderline with a lot of socialization with parents, siblings, friends, quality pre-schools, attending story times, etc. they might not ever have enough symptoms to have issues or get diagnosed. Now add COVID lock down to that mix where kids didn’t socialize at all for a year not even with cousins. We are seeing kids who are coming in to K with lower language and socialization skills across the board. It’s really, really concerning.

I do NOT think though that you can screen time your way into autism. you can screen time your way into poor socialization, but not into the fundamental brain differences, visible on MRIs, that exist in the brains of true autistic individuals from birth.

That’s not how autism is currently diagnosed. If you don’t have a chance to socialized and have experiences using language and instead are staring down at screens almost all your waking hours then when given tasks in the ADOS-2 you are not going to do well.

researchers are actually well on their way to using brain imaging studies to dx autism. they have already been using them to ascertain that there are in fact 4 distinct subtypes of asd, each with very different neuro mechanisms.

https://www.bbrfoundation.org/content/four-subtypes-autism-spectrum-disorder-are-distinguished-helping-explain-individual

lol no, no such thing. it’s well known that brain imaging is a wild goose chase. https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/brain-imaging-do-over-offers-clues-to-fields-replication-crisis/

That’s… not at all the takeaway of that article. Did you read it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s going to get worse. I am a school psychologist and when I look at the younger siblings of students at the school I am at really worried about how many if them are in strollers staring at screens. Phones and tablets are an effective and cheap babysitter. It’s a low income school where kids don’t have the opportunity to get signed up for activities where they interact.

If there are kids on the spectrum who are borderline with a lot of socialization with parents, siblings, friends, quality pre-schools, attending story times, etc. they might not ever have enough symptoms to have issues or get diagnosed. Now add COVID lock down to that mix where kids didn’t socialize at all for a year not even with cousins. We are seeing kids who are coming in to K with lower language and socialization skills across the board. It’s really, really concerning.

I do NOT think though that you can screen time your way into autism. you can screen time your way into poor socialization, but not into the fundamental brain differences, visible on MRIs, that exist in the brains of true autistic individuals from birth.

That’s not how autism is currently diagnosed. If you don’t have a chance to socialized and have experiences using language and instead are staring down at screens almost all your waking hours then when given tasks in the ADOS-2 you are not going to do well.

researchers are actually well on their way to using brain imaging studies to dx autism. they have already been using them to ascertain that there are in fact 4 distinct subtypes of asd, each with very different neuro mechanisms.

https://www.bbrfoundation.org/content/four-subtypes-autism-spectrum-disorder-are-distinguished-helping-explain-individual

lol no, no such thing. it’s well known that brain imaging is a wild goose chase. https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/brain-imaging-do-over-offers-clues-to-fields-replication-crisis/

That’s… not at all the takeaway of that article. Did you read it?

If you think that article shows brain imaging is “well on its way” to anything useful … well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s going to get worse. I am a school psychologist and when I look at the younger siblings of students at the school I am at really worried about how many if them are in strollers staring at screens. Phones and tablets are an effective and cheap babysitter. It’s a low income school where kids don’t have the opportunity to get signed up for activities where they interact.

If there are kids on the spectrum who are borderline with a lot of socialization with parents, siblings, friends, quality pre-schools, attending story times, etc. they might not ever have enough symptoms to have issues or get diagnosed. Now add COVID lock down to that mix where kids didn’t socialize at all for a year not even with cousins. We are seeing kids who are coming in to K with lower language and socialization skills across the board. It’s really, really concerning.

I do NOT think though that you can screen time your way into autism. you can screen time your way into poor socialization, but not into the fundamental brain differences, visible on MRIs, that exist in the brains of true autistic individuals from birth.

That’s not how autism is currently diagnosed. If you don’t have a chance to socialized and have experiences using language and instead are staring down at screens almost all your waking hours then when given tasks in the ADOS-2 you are not going to do well.

researchers are actually well on their way to using brain imaging studies to dx autism. they have already been using them to ascertain that there are in fact 4 distinct subtypes of asd, each with very different neuro mechanisms.

https://www.bbrfoundation.org/content/four-subtypes-autism-spectrum-disorder-are-distinguished-helping-explain-individual

lol no, no such thing. it’s well known that brain imaging is a wild goose chase. https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/brain-imaging-do-over-offers-clues-to-fields-replication-crisis/

That’s… not at all the takeaway of that article. Did you read it?

If you think that article shows brain imaging is “well on its way” to anything useful … well

Sorry but I think you are being slow here.
Autism never was one single thing. The idea of ‘autism’ is a construct we made up bc we couldn’t think of anything better/ didn’t know better yet. The purpose of mris in autism research is to find out what brain differences correlate to what behavioral difference. Them not finding one singular autism mri marker is the whole point. Of course it isn’t surprising there isn’t one. Of course ‘autism’ isn’t just one thing. The whole point of all this is to find out what all these things actually are and then solve for the subjectivity and random bs and actually use science

[Anonymous]

my best guess is the rise in autism is a result of environmental pollution. We are a few generations past the Industrial Revolution. 100 years in, we are gradually killing off all forms of life.

I don't know about intergenerational trauma theory. Human history is full of horrid intergenerational trauma and child-abuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s going to get worse. I am a school psychologist and when I look at the younger siblings of students at the school I am at really worried about how many if them are in strollers staring at screens. Phones and tablets are an effective and cheap babysitter. It’s a low income school where kids don’t have the opportunity to get signed up for activities where they interact.

If there are kids on the spectrum who are borderline with a lot of socialization with parents, siblings, friends, quality pre-schools, attending story times, etc. they might not ever have enough symptoms to have issues or get diagnosed. Now add COVID lock down to that mix where kids didn’t socialize at all for a year not even with cousins. We are seeing kids who are coming in to K with lower language and socialization skills across the board. It’s really, really concerning.

I do NOT think though that you can screen time your way into autism. you can screen time your way into poor socialization, but not into the fundamental brain differences, visible on MRIs, that exist in the brains of true autistic individuals from birth.

That’s not how autism is currently diagnosed. If you don’t have a chance to socialized and have experiences using language and instead are staring down at screens almost all your waking hours then when given tasks in the ADOS-2 you are not going to do well.

researchers are actually well on their way to using brain imaging studies to dx autism. they have already been using them to ascertain that there are in fact 4 distinct subtypes of asd, each with very different neuro mechanisms.

https://www.bbrfoundation.org/content/four-subtypes-autism-spectrum-disorder-are-distinguished-helping-explain-individual

lol no, no such thing. it’s well known that brain imaging is a wild goose chase. https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/brain-imaging-do-over-offers-clues-to-fields-replication-crisis/

That’s… not at all the takeaway of that article. Did you read it?

If you think that article shows brain imaging is “well on its way” to anything useful … well

Sorry but I think you are being slow here.
Autism never was one single thing. The idea of ‘autism’ is a construct we made up bc we couldn’t think of anything better/ didn’t know better yet. The purpose of mris in autism research is to find out what brain differences correlate to what behavioral difference. Them not finding one singular autism mri marker is the whole point. Of course it isn’t surprising there isn’t one. Of course ‘autism’ isn’t just one thing. The whole point of all this is to find out what all these things actually are and then solve for the subjectivity and random bs and actually use science

That’s all interesting and will soak up research funding, but it will not produce anything translational to actually help people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s going to get worse. I am a school psychologist and when I look at the younger siblings of students at the school I am at really worried about how many if them are in strollers staring at screens. Phones and tablets are an effective and cheap babysitter. It’s a low income school where kids don’t have the opportunity to get signed up for activities where they interact.

If there are kids on the spectrum who are borderline with a lot of socialization with parents, siblings, friends, quality pre-schools, attending story times, etc. they might not ever have enough symptoms to have issues or get diagnosed. Now add COVID lock down to that mix where kids didn’t socialize at all for a year not even with cousins. We are seeing kids who are coming in to K with lower language and socialization skills across the board. It’s really, really concerning.

I do NOT think though that you can screen time your way into autism. you can screen time your way into poor socialization, but not into the fundamental brain differences, visible on MRIs, that exist in the brains of true autistic individuals from birth.

That’s not how autism is currently diagnosed. If you don’t have a chance to socialized and have experiences using language and instead are staring down at screens almost all your waking hours then when given tasks in the ADOS-2 you are not going to do well.

researchers are actually well on their way to using brain imaging studies to dx autism. they have already been using them to ascertain that there are in fact 4 distinct subtypes of asd, each with very different neuro mechanisms.

https://www.bbrfoundation.org/content/four-subtypes-autism-spectrum-disorder-are-distinguished-helping-explain-individual

lol no, no such thing. it’s well known that brain imaging is a wild goose chase. https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/brain-imaging-do-over-offers-clues-to-fields-replication-crisis/

That’s… not at all the takeaway of that article. Did you read it?

If you think that article shows brain imaging is “well on its way” to anything useful … well

Sorry but I think you are being slow here.
Autism never was one single thing. The idea of ‘autism’ is a construct we made up bc we couldn’t think of anything better/ didn’t know better yet. The purpose of mris in autism research is to find out what brain differences correlate to what behavioral difference. Them not finding one singular autism mri marker is the whole point. Of course it isn’t surprising there isn’t one. Of course ‘autism’ isn’t just one thing. The whole point of all this is to find out what all these things actually are and then solve for the subjectivity and random bs and actually use science

That’s all interesting and will soak up research funding, but it will not produce anything translational to actually help people.

Aside from the fact that the study you shared was only looking at one specific brain difference among many many many they are researching as markers for all kinds of asd traits, do you honestly think this is as good as it’s going to get? If you think in 100 years, we’ll still diagnose neurodiversity with a human in a room essentially guessing you are crazy (and also why you seem to want that to be the outcome is bewildering)
We are in the infancy of our understanding of all this and we are totally failing right now. I for one will celebrate a time where this gets a hell of a lot better

[Anonymous]

I have a theory there’s a connection between autism and lack of vitamin D. Curious how rates in sunnier countries with similar medical infrastructure and SES compare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s going to get worse. I am a school psychologist and when I look at the younger siblings of students at the school I am at really worried about how many if them are in strollers staring at screens. Phones and tablets are an effective and cheap babysitter. It’s a low income school where kids don’t have the opportunity to get signed up for activities where they interact.

If there are kids on the spectrum who are borderline with a lot of socialization with parents, siblings, friends, quality pre-schools, attending story times, etc. they might not ever have enough symptoms to have issues or get diagnosed. Now add COVID lock down to that mix where kids didn’t socialize at all for a year not even with cousins. We are seeing kids who are coming in to K with lower language and socialization skills across the board. It’s really, really concerning.

I do NOT think though that you can screen time your way into autism. you can screen time your way into poor socialization, but not into the fundamental brain differences, visible on MRIs, that exist in the brains of true autistic individuals from birth.

That’s not how autism is currently diagnosed. If you don’t have a chance to socialized and have experiences using language and instead are staring down at screens almost all your waking hours then when given tasks in the ADOS-2 you are not going to do well.

researchers are actually well on their way to using brain imaging studies to dx autism. they have already been using them to ascertain that there are in fact 4 distinct subtypes of asd, each with very different neuro mechanisms.

https://www.bbrfoundation.org/content/four-subtypes-autism-spectrum-disorder-are-distinguished-helping-explain-individual

lol no, no such thing. it’s well known that brain imaging is a wild goose chase. https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/brain-imaging-do-over-offers-clues-to-fields-replication-crisis/

That’s… not at all the takeaway of that article. Did you read it?

If you think that article shows brain imaging is “well on its way” to anything useful … well

Sorry but I think you are being slow here.
Autism never was one single thing. The idea of ‘autism’ is a construct we made up bc we couldn’t think of anything better/ didn’t know better yet. The purpose of mris in autism research is to find out what brain differences correlate to what behavioral difference. Them not finding one singular autism mri marker is the whole point. Of course it isn’t surprising there isn’t one. Of course ‘autism’ isn’t just one thing. The whole point of all this is to find out what all these things actually are and then solve for the subjectivity and random bs and actually use science

That’s all interesting and will soak up research funding, but it will not produce anything translational to actually help people.

Aside from the fact that the study you shared was only looking at one specific brain difference among many many many they are researching as markers for all kinds of asd traits, do you honestly think this is as good as it’s going to get? If you think in 100 years, we’ll still diagnose neurodiversity with a human in a room essentially guessing you are crazy (and also why you seem to want that to be the outcome is bewildering)
We are in the infancy of our understanding of all this and we are totally failing right now. I for one will celebrate a time where this gets a hell of a lot better

I think we are throwing scarce research dollars into areas that give professionals career advancement but will never result in any therepeutic benefit. This is unfortunately how a lot of medical research goes - and it’s even worse for social science research that cannot be conducted through a RCT. Just look into the history of Alzheimers research.

Taking a step back, a lot of this research isn’t intended to help people with autism at all. It’s intended to demonstrate how they are different, an oddity of human development, not how they can be helped. All geared towards a deficiency model.

Finally, autism is a social-communication disorder. It is *always* going to be diagnosed with reference to clinical impairment and symptoms, not biomarkers.

To the extent you are bullish on biomarkers, what do you think they will be used for? Prenatal diagnosis and abortion of autistic fetuses. If I’m wrong and we develop good biomarkers, then we will abort all of our future engineers, most creative artists, and out of the box thinkers.

[Anonymous]

Yeah it's because quirky/nerdy/introverted people are being diagnosed as mild autism.

I also think a lot of this is that kids don't have friends anymore the way prior generations did. Kids used to spend afternoons and summers with their friends. They had close bonds. Now there is just a lot of screens and planned activities. Kids might see each other on the baseball field, but they don't have time to talk to each other before being shuttled to the next activity. I live in a kid neighborhood, with social kids and it's like pulling teeth to get playdates. When kids have no friends they just turn to screens.

I'm an extrovert and I'm sure people would say I'm NT, but I have a lot of social anxiety. I have to force myself to make small talk, shake hands, look people in the eye. It doesn't come natural. I also feel little to no emotion around things that so many people find traumatic- like miscarriages. I have 3 kids I love more than life (and I had infertility and did IVF), but those miscarriages I had? Didn't bother me in the least. I struggle to understand how other women are as affected and I wonder what's wrong with me. I often wonder if I'm autistic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah it's because quirky/nerdy/introverted people are being diagnosed as mild autism.

I also think a lot of this is that kids don't have friends anymore the way prior generations did. Kids used to spend afternoons and summers with their friends. They had close bonds. Now there is just a lot of screens and planned activities. Kids might see each other on the baseball field, but they don't have time to talk to each other before being shuttled to the next activity. I live in a kid neighborhood, with social kids and it's like pulling teeth to get playdates. When kids have no friends they just turn to screens.

I'm an extrovert and I'm sure people would say I'm NT, but I have a lot of social anxiety. I have to force myself to make small talk, shake hands, look people in the eye. It doesn't come natural. I also feel little to no emotion around things that so many people find traumatic- like miscarriages. I have 3 kids I love more than life (and I had infertility and did IVF), but those miscarriages I had? Didn't bother me in the least. I struggle to understand how other women are as affected and I wonder what's wrong with me. I often wonder if I'm autistic.

You’re not autistic if the attributes don’t cause clinical impairments.

I think what you note about social opportunities for kids is true, but doesn’t cause autism per se. It makes it worse, and maybe tips some kids from “no clinical impairment” to “impairment.” It may also cause some misdiagnosis of kids who actually can socialize but don’t due to lack of opportunity.