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.'"

Comments

Is this actually due to more indecents of autism?

[trunicated]

Or are we changing how we mesure it? How we define "autism"? Maybe it's because autism is more acceptable, and doesn't require someone to be locked in a basement until a group of 1980s teens decide that they need to find a treasure in order to save their housing development.

All kidding aside, I'd be interested to know how much the autism scale has changed over the years. I realize that highly functioning people with autism still count as having autism, but was that always the case?

"I had Asperger Syndrome. Briefly"

[Beeftopia]

I Had Asperger Syndrome. Briefly.
By BENJAMIN NUGENT
New York Times
Published: January 31, 2012

"FOR a brief, heady period in the history of autism spectrum diagnosis, in the late ’90s, I had Asperger syndrome.

I exhibited a “qualified impairment in social interaction,” specifically “failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level” (I had few friends) and a “lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people” (I spent a lot of time by myself in my room reading novels and listening to music, and when I did hang out with other kids I often tried to speak like an E. M. Forster narrator, annoying them). I exhibited an “encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus” (I memorized poems and spent a lot of time playing the guitar and writing terrible poems and novels).

The biggest single problem with the diagnostic criteria applied to me is this: You can be highly perceptive with regard to social interaction, as a child or adolescent, and still be a spectacular social failure. This is particularly true if you’re bad at sports or nervous or weird-looking.

But my experience can’t be unique. Under the rules in place today, any nerd, any withdrawn, bookish kid, can have Asperger syndrome."

Quest for a Cure, and other idiocy

[Cazekiel]

My son is autistic, and I can't stand it when people involve the words 'disease' or 'cure' when speaking of it. Autism Speaks goes so far as to use the word 'eradication', so I don't bother with them whatsoever. They want a cure for something, in my own opinion, isn't curable. It's the way you're made. There are no cures for Down's out there right now, are there?

And when it comes to the "OMG SO MANY AUTISTIC KIDS!" issue--I'm sure everyone here remembers the days back in grade-high school, where the special-needs kids were all dumped into one room. From Down's to ADHD, they resided in the basement where none of us "normal" kids ran the risk of running into them and giving us complexes. There were many, many children that were autistic, but they'd only get the colorful, cute euphemisms, like 'retards' or 'speds'. They were ALWAYS used with great care and kindness, of course. /sarcasm

Nowadays, more people are eager to look into each case specifically, instead of throwing a blanket over any kid that falls behind or shows some sign of disability. Therefore, we're all freaking out about how there are so many sudden cases of autism--to me, it's always been here. I myself am in the spectrum, but back when I was little, I was brought to 'retardation' tests to examine my issues (where they discovered that my IQ was actually strangely high). I consider myself an undiagnosed case until I learn otherwise. If you look around yourself, think back to all the kids you went to school with, the more you might realize that autism's always been there... we just haven't met it with the same speculation, sensitivity and care until now. Are there environmental factors? Perhaps. But I think that only delays our understanding of autism itself: we're looking for outside reasons, when it's inborn, 'just the way you are'.

My son is almost nine, doesn't use the toilet exclusively, speaks almost exclusively in echolalia (and in my exact tone and inflection, as I was his main caregiver growing up), has odd, brain-numbing routines (he'll sing the same three words of a song for an hour straight while hitting the floor over and over again in specific patterns)... but he is damned smart, scarily so. I work on meeting him halfway; he does, deep down, have great understanding, and as long as I accommodate the things he can't help, it works out. To be honest, he's one of the easiest kids I've ever had to deal with, and I was a preschool teacher for over ten years.

Re:Quest for a Cure, and other idiocy

[Cazekiel]

I was an absolute dork and not in the 'popular crowd', but no, that wasn't a factor (that I recall, at least). I was incredibly socially-awkward (or to be more accurate, socially-immature), but there were 2 or 3 girls that I'd play with on the playground that were as dorky as me, lol. If faced with bullying (which happened quite a bit), I'd end up getting really upset then do weird things, like picking the skin of my fingers and showing them, as if thinking "maybe they'll leave me alone if I show them this". I was easy to pick on, very sensitive and got taken advantage of by some of those 'friends', and when it came to recess and other "have fun" activities, I had a hard time containing myself. I'd put people off because I was loud, over-excitable, way-too-talkative, coming up with weird, imaginative scenarios that were all over the map, etc.... it happens NOW, as an adult. If I don't watch myself, I make people angry. What I do in those situations is take a cig break at work, escape to my car to relax, talk to myself and laugh at nothing if my emotions are overloading (I luckily work with people who accept me; I'm not that way every minute, but sometimes I really, really need to decompress and they get it, thank criminy).

The main testing came from my not being able to follow instruction/directions. My mom thought I was being defiant, when it really just felt like another language was being spoken when it came to certain lessons. I could read from the age of 4, but if you had a book on tape, I may as well be out of the room. That wasn't an attention thing, as I see it: I could sit for an entire day with a bunch of books, reading every one and being able to relay every detail--but one paragraph on a tape recorder and--"Huh? What?" I'm STILL this way.

I figured it all out once in college. Throughout my whole school history, I'd thought, "I'm bad at math and science." When I got to my first year in tech school and discovered I need not just Algebra I but II, I almost gave up. Then I was enrolled in a 'self taught' Algebra I course where I took the book home, studied each chap then went in to take tests in the computer lab. I didn't just pass, I aced it, while holding down two jobs at the same time. I went every night I could and accidentally fit BOTH I and II in one summer, as I'd thought we had to do the whole book when Alg. I was the first HALF of it. They let me finish the last month and a half with the second course--aced it. Two in one. I was half-elated that I'd discovered how I not only could do it, but find it ridiculously easy, half pissed-off that it hadn't been recognized earlier-on.

Wow, I'm Lil' Ms. McWordy, huh? Lol. By the way, I've seen your sig before and want to marry it. Where'd you get it? Can I haz one?

Re:Autism is bullshit

[Samantha Wright]

Suzuki is indeed and unfortunately more of a PR mouthpiece than a real human being at this point (much less researcher); perhaps it would be better to say he illuminates the opinion of the research community by exploiting it to his own shallow ends rather than anything else. And yes, "disease" is a bad word to use; both pieces are dated (the first by age and the second by shortage of recent exposure) and hence prone to what today would be considered something of a faux pas. Make no mistake: it is improbable that it has anything to do with junk food, and Suzuki should have been shot for suggesting that. More likely culprits would be air and water contaminants, or perhaps some cocktail of food preservatives.

The word "autism" is also hilariously broad, certainly. One reason the diagnostic categories are expanding is that researchers want to understand the whole spectrum of attributes that go into making the really dysfunctional cases what they are. As my boss likes to parrot, almost everyone has one or more traits that would be considered autistic if they appeared in the right combination with other aspects; in fact, the diagnostic questionnaires (which you've probably seen) are scored by adding up the 'autisminess' of the responses, so even that is a spectrum. Of course, it's hard to take the news from a psychiatrist that your son has a surplus of autistic traits when they explain it like it's a disaster.

There's another confounding factor, also, in how the population of diagnoses has grown, besides shifting definitions and older people getting re-assessed: better-educated (as well as more paranoid) young families are more likely to seek diagnoses out in the first place. In retrospect there's probably too much interference to say honestly if the rate of autistic traits is increasing or not.