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CDC Reports 1 In 88 Children Now Affected With Autism In the US
An anonymous reader writes "A new government health report indicated that about one in 88 children in the United State has autism or a related disorder, the highest estimate to date, which represented an overall increase of 25 percent since the last analysis in 2006. The Centers for Disease Control reported on Thursday that the rate increased by 78 percent compared to the reported rate in 2002. From the article: '"The CDC’s new estimate of autism prevalence demands that we recognize autism as a public health emergency warranting immediate attention," Autism Speaks Chief Science Officer Geri Dawson said in a new release.
"More than ever, these numbers compel us to redouble our investment in the research that can reveal causes, validate effective treatments and guide the effective delivery of services to all our communities," she added.'"
Just like ADHD.
Autism isn't a new issue. It's been around for hundreds of thousands of years. It's just it wouldn't be diagnosed before.
How many cases of appendicitis were there 10,000 years ago? Would be rational to look at existing reported cases and conclude that all of this just started in the modern era?
I'm not saying autism isn't a problem. It's just one of many old problems.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I know you are trying to be funny, but autistic people are better people than those who lurk in 4chan.
Therefore, I find your comment offensive.
Doesn't it mostly depend on what definition is being used this month?
One of the ongoing problems with both medical and economic statistics is that the definitions of what's being measured changes on a time scale of a year or four. This confounds attempts to measure changes over time, since the statistics for constant things are often changing.
Here in the US, one of the ongoing examples is the changing definitions of "unemployment". This was made clear back during the Reagan years, when the military was changed from ignored to "employed". This lowered the unemployment rate by roughly 1% (and varied a lot by state). It also meant that unemployment rates before and after that change were incommensurable.
This is an old, and ongoing story. Both the political and marketing people like to change definitions periodically, so they can use the resulting statistical "changes" in their propaganda.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
... will be to end all vaccinations, and not to clean up the poisons that our kids breath, the crap that's in our food, and all the other potentially genetically damaging stuff that we do.
Check your premises.
General incompetence is increasing. People who are good at math get therapy until they aren't good at anything so they can be normal.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
It just seems strange to me there are so many children on heavy hitter psych meds. It can't be a total coincidence that their parent's generation started the trend toward better living through pharmacology. With their parents taking Zoloft, Seroquel, Zyprexa and Abilify like candy it just seems oddly coincidental that there are so many autistic kids running around.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Normal people know normal when they see it. But you knew that, right?
Here is the actual study and is annoyingly light on details to help answer that question. The total number includes people diagnosed with Autistic Disorder, Aspergers, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder–Not Otherwise Specified. They have tables that slice and dice the data between gender, ethnicity, locality, IQ, and other factors, but nowhere in the paper do the say what the split between these categories is. The closest is a table that shows how many people were diagnosed before the age of 8.
If the increase is largely in Aspergers, the I would expect that it is mostly due to increased diagnosis, since it didn't didn't even have an official diagnosis standard until the early 90's and didn't enter into mainstream awareness till about a decade later.
Without this information I have no idea how to react. If we are seeing a huge increase in the number of people with low functioning Autism, that is a cause for alarm. If we are mostly seeing an increase in the number of people with Aspergers, then that's a good thing, because it means that more people with Aspergers are receiving information that can help them live their lives better, and there isn't much to be concerned about.
Having children diagnosed with Autism, and fairly far out on the spectrum, I wouldn't call it a dis-ability, they're "differently-abled."
If all you care about is being able to sit in a room with 17 other kids their age, shut up and do what they're told - yeah, that's a problem, well into the disability range. Personally, I don't think that the ability to sit like a vegetable and follow basic instructions is the only thing of value that a person can offer to society.
In my family, at least, this finding goes a long way toward explaining at least some of our "abnormal" behaviors:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=mind-wandering-is-linked-to-your-wo-12-03-17
Define "normal".
Like me.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Fuckin-A right. Just like how all of a sudden everyone had fucking ADHD in the 90's, now everyone has Autism. In ten years it'll be some other bullshit excuse for why their kids are antisocial little fuckwits and there will be a doctor standing right there, ready to smile and nod and write a bunch of prescriptions and set up a bunch of testing that will bill insurance companies for thousands of dollars for another great big circle jerk...
Meanwhile having an autistic kid is the new "in" thing so now all the suburban housewives are rushing their kids off to the doctor and can't ever fucking shut up about it, and if that's not enough here's a goddamn magazine and a pamphlet and a group and a mailing list and a ribbon and a wristband and a bumper sticker...
Give me a break.
It's a lot more complicated than that. Everyday conversation is not the whole spectrum of human existence. A lot of clinically depressed people appear to be normal in short conversations—are you saying that they, too, are indistinguishable from 'everybody'? It's only because they work hard to fit in that they appear normal, not because there's no difference.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Whereas a trained observer may be able to spot it as they walk in the door, and it may be obvious to anyone given extended interaction (socially, professionally, family, whatever).
And in everyday conversation, people see the best behaviour, the greatest effort to pass as Like Everyone Else. They don't, as a rule, see the anxiety attacks, the stimming, the meltdowns and shutdowns, the continual gnawing fear that you're doing it all wrong and no-one will tell you, the desperate desire to go hide somewhere quiet and dark and alone, the continual rehearsing of social interactions in your head.
Just because you can't tell an Aspie when you pass one on the street, that doesn't mean they aren't suffering from it.
Trust me on this.
"This is a Hollywood movie: when it comes to the Laws of Physics, they're lucky if they get Gravity!" --- my wife
Or are we changing how we measure it?
Most probably, as the criteria for diagnostics have indeed changed over the years, but this is not the only problem. One issue is that the risk for autism increases the more a mother waits to have a kid. This is at least one of the reasons that kids with autism are appearing more and more frequently all over the country.
Medicine/contraception has been getting better. Education is getting longer. And families are waiting longer and longer to procreate. This is in stark contrast with the opposite problem of mothers who are still giving birth way too young, or giving birth to babies with the alcohol-syndrome...
Our society is now suffering from both types of problems, parents who wait too long and parents who do not wait at all, and an entrenched political system that seems to discourage and penalize middle-of-the-ground discussions over these topics.
This might be a stupid thing to do, but at this very moment, do something for me: read this entire comment I'm making to you with deep thought. I'll try not to be preachy and over-wordy.
In some ways, you are absolutely right. In some cases, there's over-diagnosing, and some people use it as an excuse instead of working with the diagnosis. You'll have parents who get their child diagnosed with autism and think "well, nothing I can do", whine about it then expect everyone to understand why their kid just knocked down an end-cap full of cereal boxes.
But that doesn't mean that the child isn't autistic. I myself believe I'm an undiagnosed autist, or at the very least AS, so when my son was diagnosed as autistic, I already had a grasp on what that meant. My world wasn't over, my son wasn't dying and there was plenty I could do about it. He was diagnosed early, so he was able to be enrolled in special programs that popped up in our public school system (free services, with the quality of ones you'd pay thousands for--we're never moving from this town). I'm a parent of an autist who easily and readily recognizes what is an autistic-meltdown and my son just being obstinate. When he IS being ridiculous which is connected to his natural, "I'm a nine-year old who WANTS SOMETHING!" self, I get right down at his level and say, "You know exactly what I'm telling you to do. You're smart and you know better. Now come on," then lead him away. Does it work every time? No, because he's autistic, and his threshold level is MUCH lower. But when my mom's tried justifying something he's done in public as "well, he's autistic," I've sat her right down and said, "He's not stupid. He knows. If it was an 'autistic thing', I'd tell them myself it was, but don't say that when it's not warranted."
Any parent needs to figure it out and know what their child can and can't handle, depending on where they are in the spectrum. My son is almost nine now, and we have worked extremely hard on getting him acclimated, while meeting him halfway. He will never "fit in" or be "normal", and there are times when he can't control his autistic-impulses. Those times, yes, you have to excuse. It exists. No rods or paddles will do anything for my son, and those like him. In loads of cases, it's not an excuse; the sooner you see that, the better.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
First off, I'm sorry... I had a small giggle, imagining you feeding your child diaries. I know that's so not what you meant: dairy. Got it.
Anyway, I don't doubt that dairy was a big issue for your autistic child. But people interpret the effect of taking the food item out as a 'cure', when it isn't. I don't know your son, but as MY son's also autistic, I know that if he was intolerant of a food his behavior would go haywire, too. That's because as a non-verbal autist, they can't say "my tummy hurts, Mom." Instead, they react strongly to the overwhelming, inner pain and over-stimulation and can't control themselves because of the stimulation. It's pain, they hate it, there goes the bookshelf/my good arm/etc.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin