Continued Rise In Autism Diagnoses Puzzles Researchers, Galvanizes Advocates

sciencehabit (1205606) writes "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has raised eyebrows, and concern among current and prospective parents, with a new report documenting that the rate of autism spectrum disorder diagnosis in the United States jumped 30% between 2008 and 2010, from one in 88 to one in 68 children. CDC officials don't know, however, whether the startling increase is due to skyrocketing rates of the disorder or more sensitive screening, or a combination of both."

Comments

Education funding and excessive medicallisation

[NoNeeeed]

Part of the problem in the UK (so may not be the same in the US) is that there is additional funding and support for kids with diagnoses like ASDs so there is a big incentive for schools and parents to push for it. It's driving a whole approach of medicalising behaviour. Kids who in the past would have been simply regarded as a bit unusual and who a teacher would have had to just cope with are now being given medical diagnoses and possibly additional help.

As discussed in the article what would be interesting to see is more detail on the distribution of ASD diagnoses, in terms of where they sit on the spectrum. If there is an increase the diagnosis of severe autism (the kids who would reasonably have been diagnose as autistic 30 years ago) then that would suggest that there is some environmental factor at work. If, on the other hand it's mostly high functioning and borderline then it seems likely to be mostly down to diagnosis.

While I'm very much in favour of education being better able to deal with kids' differences, I'm not sure medicalising it is the way to go.

Re:Education funding and excessive medicallisation

[Anonymous Coward]

My grandparents clearly had autism. It was never formally diagnosed. They had all sorts of interesting personality disorders (DSM!) and unhealthy destructive relationships.

My parents clearly had autism. It was never formally diagnosed. They have all sorts of interesting personality disorders (DSM) and unhealthy destructive relationships.

I clearly have autism. It was never formally diagnosed. My parents dealt with it by physical punishment. They hit me with wooden sticks so they wouldn't hurt their hands. I grew up really fucked up. Imagine being randomly beaten for reasons you do not and can not understand. I spent 2 decades clinically depressed, actively trying to kill myself. I know what arsenic tastes like. I know what it's like to hold a knife to my wrist, a gun to my head, and want, more than anything, to pull the trigger and end my pain and suffering. Sometimes you hold on for just another day. Sometimes for only a few more seconds of life. You know how a child's mind works? I used to wonder if I had already died, and already gone to hell, as I couldn't imagine anything worse.

I got out of that. I got help. I spent almost another 20 years in psychotherapy, putting the pieces of my mind back together again. Unlearning the self-destructive behaviors I had unconsciously accepted. Not an easy thing.

Today, I'm in my fifties. Today, my children have autism. It has been diagnosed. I have them seeing some of the best doctors in the country, right on the leading (bleeding) edge of medicine.

Today we understand how layers of the brain's neural structure do not develop properly in autistic kids. How autism has many causes. Some kids will respond to gluten free diets. Others to dairy free diets. There are blood tests that can pick up on the antigens, telling us which kids can be helped by such alterations. It's known that their gut (intestines) are leaking proteins, causing the immune reaction picked up by the blood tests. It's known that these proteins can bind to neural receptor sites, and how they can act exactly like narcotics.

Today it's known how still others kids have problems with nuts, with artificial sweeteners, or with artificial colors. There are a many dietary problems, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Other kids have difficulties with heavy metals. Others have, well, the list of causes here goes on and on and on. Autism is a catch-all disease, describing symptoms with a great number of underlying causative factors.

Bottom line here is that there is a lot we can do to help these kids without fucking them up for life with depression or psychosis through abuse. If you don't deal with their problems, it is abuse. We assume control they do not possess. They can develop into great engineers, doctors, whatever. They're bright kids. Just different. They don't have to become monsters. We don't have to turn them into monsters!

Re:Medicalizing Normality

[MitchDev]

It's just a repeat of the "ADD" craze the medical industry was in in the 80's and 90's to make doctors feel needed and important....

Re:Shifting thresholds

[gtall]

Really? Ever see someone in their manic mode of manic depression? I have a sister with this as well as schizophrenia because many mental disorders rarely come alone, it is something like a smorgasbord. Anyhow, one evening she took exception to the wall-to-wall carpeting in Ma's bedroom while Ma was in the hospital. She ripped up that carpeting in the bedroom and an adjacent room, moving several pieces of large furniture out of the way to do it. I asked her how long it took, it took a few hours in the evening and a few the following morning.

She ripped up the carpeting with her bare hands. That's what can happen when she doesn't take her meds. And that was during a manic episode, the schizophrenic episodes are stranger.

Unless you've lived with someone with mental illness, you don't know squat about it.

Re:really? really.

[Jason Levine]

Actually, as someone likely on the autism spectrum* - albeit high functioning, I find it easier to communicate via social networking (and online in general) than face-to-face. With face-to-face, there are problems like needing to think of the appropriate thing to say in the appropriate manner, keeping appropriate levels of eye contact, getting the tone right, blocking out distractions like other conversations, and doing all of this on-the-fly in a short enough period of time. Often I have exactly the right words in my head, but they come out of my mouth all wrong (if they come out at all). With online communication, I can type out my reply, correct it five times to hone my message before sending it. (Like I've done with this one.) If anything, I've found that online communication has helped me with face-to-face communication, not "increased my autism."

* My son was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and everything that I read seems to describe me as well. I could seek a diagnosis but it would spend money we don't have and wouldn't help my son out. So I'm comfortable being "likely" instead of "definitely."

Re:Medicalizing Normality

[funwithBSD]

My son is autistic too.

With the right combination of Physical Therapy, Speech therapy, and Occupation Therapy over the last 7 years, he is almost indistinguishable from a "normal" person. He is not that much different from your average geeky kid, except his short term memory is like a database with broken indexing: it is all there, but he has to really work to get it out. If you supply a prompt, the data floods back out of him at a surprising rate.

So far, his only real social setback is he has NO IDEA that all the girls around him adore him. Kid is putting out some sort of weapons grade pheromone or something.

He came home the other day with some cool looking knotting thing going on. Asked him about it, turns out the girl who is the top of the social pecking order in his class saw his shoe untied. She offered to tie it for him at lunch, spent half of lunch break redoing the lacing.

I don't think he will have any problems passing on his genes.