Recent USA and UK Studies on Increase in Autism

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I found two recent articles about studies in the USA and the UK on the rise in the number of children with ASD.

The article on the USA study gives numbers, the article on the UK study doesn't.
I wonder what the numbers will be in parts of the world outside the USA.
The article on the UK study states that the rise is caused by diagnosis, experts say;
the article on the USA study says that the researchers are studying the cause of the rise.

Here's the two articles:
1 in 110 children have autism, study finds
People affected by autism believe increase is 'real', not diagnostic

Edit: Here's another article about the US study:
Rate of Autism Disorders Climbs to One Percent Among 8-Year Olds

Last edited by Scientist on 18 Dec 2009, 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Nice find. I wasn't surprised to see the difference in opinion between researchers and laypeople. I've noted that in books on autism I've read (from Paul Offet to Jenny McCarthy). I'll follow the experts, since they have both a methodology for confirming or rejecting their ideas, and the training to do so.

Wired Magazine had an article years back that posited another explanation for the perceived increase. In the article, the author pointed out that people with AS (or HFA if you prefer) are marrying and having children more so now than ever before in history. The article had few examples of demographic research to back up this idea, but the idea itself is intriguing.

There is no real way to tell (since we didn't even begin to understand autism until the 1940s, it wasn't included in the DSM until 1980 & Asperger's Syndrome wasn't added until 1994.)

I know that I've had AS my entire life - even though I wasn't diagnosed until early this year. My diagnosis after 50 years of life doesn't indicate a sudden increase in autism for me - it just means I finally have a name for the condition that was at the cause of my life-long social impairment.

The article about the British study even starts out with "There has been a major increase in the number of children diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders over the last two decades..." So if you consider how long we've actually had the option of diagnosing ASDs - the "spectrum" itself has only been recognized for less than three decades. Have we even reached the point where we can say that we've identified a baseline against which to gauge a change in the rate of diagnoses? And what about the rise in adult diagnoses? When an adult is diagnosed, do we go back & add them to the statistics for the rate of ASDs at the time of their childhood? And what about adults on the spectrum who are discouraged from getting an official diagnosis, since there is no real "treatment" available?

I think we're not even close to having enough data upon which to base a valid conclusion about the causes for the increased rate in diagnoses. (But my gut tells me that autism has always been around at the same rate - we're just getting much better at detecting it.)

I don't get the 'Wired' idea: why would people who are diagnosed with ASD now, make more children (all together)?
Because that is what their explanation means...
It's not really an explanation.
If they say that, they'll have to explain why people diagnosed with ASD now, make more children.
I think it's just because there are more people diagnosed with ASD now.I agree, that's also why I agree with the experts, that the increase is diagnostic.

I wonder how the US researchers study the cause of the increase and what they will come up with.

I think we can only know the real prevalence of autism in history if we know everything about the genetic basis for autism.

The Wired article makes sense, more people who have talents in technology, coming together to work. Before that the Universities were a hotbed of intellectual sex.

Research shows, as always, the need for more research, and to count heads is more important for funding than to figure out what it is, what could be done to improve lives.

That all people are not alike is shocking to some. Everyone is the same because of Diversity!

Being no deep thinkers they wish to apply legal equality, first with social equality, then with genetic equality. When they find out that not everyone fits, they of course find fault, and want to cure them.

The Human Genome Project was a study without application. There is no such thing as The Human Genome, there are lots of them.

The path is not to study those who can be labeled, that is starting from a wrong answer, and looking for a problem.

Only a broad study of all people could show the spread of traits, and what might be called Autism now could just be a double dose, from both parents, of an important trait, the ability to think, which sometimes works in humans.

It makes little sense that one condition, Autism, is LFA, with sub IQs, and HFA, with some of the higher IQs. With such conflicts within the grouping, a study will look at the range between without looking at the other people between. The idea that common behaviors have common causes is doubted.

A broad study would show that behaviors used to describe Autism are in fact common in the non-autistic.

Behaviors seen as female lead to the same as the DSM, Autism, unless another condition is present, such as female. They were ignored because they are more social and talkative. There is a whole line of social and talkative Autistic males who are also left out.

Introverted, shy, reclusive people are included, who are not autistic.

Any study of the brain from within will show that, put forth enough effort, and all the socially accepted patterns start falling apart.

Grad Students show limited social interaction, and excessive focus on one tiny sliver of knowledge, and Post Doc Studies are hardly passable as humans. Learning in any direction causes a loss in others.

The DSM only calls for one strong trait in each of three groups, two and you are not autistic, four and you do not get extra points.

The twelve to twenty traits used do exist in the general population, and one or two to excess is common.

The first thing to study is the traits one at a time, learn something of their range, and the effect of their absence.

You have a Syndrome, a cluster of unstudied traits, is not helpful, or science.

When all the traits are studied, tests devised, and a metric that places me in a dozen traits, +100,-100, with an explanation of what other people with the same degree of that trait show, I would have something to work from.

Just like clusters of traits make mechanics, Engineers, IT workers, or Psychologists, religious people, or used car salesmen.

I was tested as a child, that information was to go in a Psycholigist's files, with copies sent to my School, School District, State Education, my mother was given a lay explanition, nothing, the boy is different. The only person left out of knowing was me. It was used as an excuse to exclude me from from education, even thought he law said I had at least two more years coming.

So my Medical Records were kept a secret from me, and used as a weapon against me, and were spread all over.

I have come to the conclusion that some fields, take an impaired sense of ethics.

I think the rate's probably about always been the same; the only thing that's changed is the diagnostic tests. In fact, in about 10 years, we'll probably see that some people were even 'misdiagnosed' for some more exotic name.

We're different, but we're mainly different in the same way...