"Autism's Rise: Researchers Look At Why Cases Are Incre

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http://news.yahoo.com/autisms-rise-rese ... 51888.html

how do we know what part of it is better detection versus genuinely increased occurrence of autism?

Thank goodness Autism only afflicts children. Once the patient turns 22, they instantly outgrow the condition. (Yes, that's some heavy sarcasm.)

The percentage of children with autism worldwide has increased in recent years, but it's not clear whether this rise is due mainly to changes in how doctors diagnose autism and report cases, or if there is some factor in children's environment that is affecting autism rates.

Coffee all over the mobile.

I think one of the reasons is society has changed it's expectations on how people should act, and special education has a wider net to cast.

I believe the amount of spectrum people is constant.

I grew up in the late 60s to early 80s. Special education was for the blind, deaf and the physically disabled.

Kids with Downs Syndrome or anything else that looked like you had a mental impairment was considered ret*d. You were shipped off to a state boarding school to learn how to do stuff, like fold laundry or some other repetitive task to earn a living.

If your had Aspergers, depending on how much you could "pass", you could still make a living. Work on the assembly line, office job filing, there were plenty of non social butterfly jobs out there. People married and didn't expect there spouses to be their ultimate soul mate.

You could survive with a lot less social skills.

Now you need the social skills of a politician to make it. Women don't need to be married to survive or have children. Jobs want "team players" and "must possess excellent interpersonal skills" for something like coding.

In this present world, being introverted, lacking social skills and problems with fast paced multi tasking stands out like a purple elephant.

I could make the same argument for ADHD too.

Finally someone gets it. I have been saying this often but it's been like talking to a wall. I guess unless you grew up around then and were Autistic it is not even thought that would enter your brain. Yes I agree that much different diagnostic standards have a lot to do with it but also there are loads of ASD people who would have been functional then who can't be now. A couple of statements often made by people that not Autistic drive me nuts. The vaccines are the cause people say "Where are the 50 something Autistics?" I know where we are, we are dead because we could not make it, in an mental institution or jail or despite everybody yelling "over-diagnosis" undiagnosed miserable wondering why life went so wrong. Those of us here are lucky ones who were able to find out the truth about ourselves. The other thing they always say is they put a label/pathologze everything these days. Frustrating thing is they are not 100% wrong but wrong in a damaging way. They are invalidating us by saying we are normal but with flawed character. Many of us survivors need be pathlogized/labeled because we have difficulties functioning. We did have labels put on us then back then, just very unflattering ones.

I think 9/11, the phenomenon of people "going postal"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_postal, school shootings and a much more litigious societies are the reasons for the any difference and particularly non "team players" becoming a reason for exclusion.