[Taltarzac725]

Autism Rate Increase Reported, Likely From Better Testing

This was interesting. I had been talking with my mother about my early development and she had mentioned because of her fever during my pregnancy, I had been diagnosed as autistic. I did remember a camp I had been in WI was I was about 5 which had other developmentally challenged kids.

Never thought I had been diagnosed as autistic though.

I had had some trouble with school work before being taken under the wing of a magnificent English teacher--Mrs. Mitchell-- in 1975 who saw something special in me and prodded me to challenge myself. This was a teacher at Wooster HS in Reno, NV. who also gave me a small Scholarship in the name of her recently deceased daughter, Michelle.

I graduated from the U of Nevada Reno with Distinction with two B.A.s.

[The Villager II]

Wonderful story and I hope everyone who knows of a child diagnosed with autism will copy and send this thread to them.

Thank you and GOD bless you.

[dillywho]

After hearing the report on TV about the increase in autism, I began to wonder if that has been the case in children previously diagnosed with ADHD.

[asianthree]

My son works with low and high functioning children and young adults with autism. The reason the numbers are changing is some states are now testing children and insurance is paying for the parents to get help for their child. Rough idea for the cost of a child with low functioning autism is around Sixty to Eighty thousand dollars a year. The average parent can't come close to the cost, so many in this field donates their time and does not charge the parent because they know without the structured lessons there is very little improvement. Most that choose this field know that their income will be low but the look on a parents face when their child signs for juice is priceless.

[blueash]

In large part the phenomenal increase in the diagnosis of autism is the greatly widened list of criteria which allow the use of that diagnosis. In the 1970's the diagnosis was only used to describe children who were profoundly symptomatic (can't comment on OP's diagnosis). This meant the essentially completely non-verbal child who stood in the corner flapping his hands and twirling in circles. Now the label autism spectrum disorder includes the high school basketball player we all saw shooting the lights out a couple years ago, and speculation that Bill Gates lives on the spectrum because he is kinda "weird". Schools have played a large roll in this in asking pediatricians to label kids as autistic, or what gets called "educational autism" because that label gets the schools extra money whereas just saying speech and language delay, or socialization disorder, or the almost disappeared label of MRDD did not mean extra money, just extra expense. In fact there is no increase at all in the number of children with what used to be called autism, just the add on of the kids with milder dysfunction. And now with more states mandating coverage for autism disorders, the parental pressure for that diagnosis will increase to get coverage for services which will not be covered with alternative labels. All this is not to minimize the seriousness of ASD's, just to point out the financial and cultural reasons which significantly underly the report from the CDC.

[renielarson]

...

[blueash]

Originally Posted by flipflopz

Please provide the published reports to support what you say. I disagree but won't go into details until I've read the statistics you are basing your comments on.

Acta Paediatrica
Volume 94, Issue 1, pages 2–15, January 2005

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005;159:37-44

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Volume 39, Number 3, 464-470, DOI: 10.1007/s10803-008-0645-

Epidemiology: January 2009 - Volume 20 - Issue 1 - pp 84-90

Journal of Child and Family Studies
Volume 18, Number 6, 662-669,


International Journal of Epidemiology
Volume 38, Issue 5
Pp. 1224-1234

Pediatrics Vol. 117 No. 4 April 1, 2006
pp. 1028 -1037

There are many more but this will get you the flavor of the pertinent literature