Shocking new number in Autism numbers today!

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I dunno. If a kid is having problems and the closest possible label is autism, what're you going to do about it? You can't say "Uh-uh, no help for you", can you?

My perspective as a parent is that there are a lot of government paid early intervention (speech, OT, behavior, and classroom aides) that end with kindergarten. So there is pressure on parents to take their child in if they suspect anything. So on taking suspected children in to a professional they will be much more likely to diagnose a child with an ASD or anything that gets early intervention help like a classroom aide. And where we live you don't necessarily have to have have ASD to get early intervention. There is a boy in my daughters class who has been diagnosed with ADHD and he has a classroom aide as well. But as soon as the child is finished kindergarten they lose all early intervention. However, with all the early interventions my child has and is still receiving I think she will be fine by the time she is in grade 1.

Like right now the classroom aide is helping my daughter make requests like asking somebody to open something for her. Encouraging my daughter to talk louder and to make eye contact. We have already overcome a lot of other problems like transitioning between activities.

But my point is a lot of kids are diagnosed so young so the psychologist is almost guessing. A lot of 3 years olds who are NT can show autistic traits. But because the rewards of early intervention are so great it would not surprise me that some kids would be misdiagnosed.

Last edited by Gnomey on 22 Mar 2013, 4:08 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Yeah the diagnoses has widen up and shrinks dx it a lot more often.
It's next to ADHD their second favourite diagnoses in children from shrinks nowadays.

It's definitely not easy to get a diagnosis here in the UK for children or adults. I think because we have a cash strapped NHS it's different than in America where it's all private and paid for.

agree - I keep seeing in the threads and in this one that people believe its too easy to get a diagnosis . .. . my reaction is wtf? really ?

when the studies keep coming out about misdiagnosis in females with anorexia - the massive UNDER- DIAGNOSIS of females with AS ( because AS was just a male thing ...

erm, NO, men don't have exclusive rights to this disorder - their brains aren't that much different to ours ! --- equal rights to AS please.. (joke)

I would like posters to present us with some real stats about the rise in easy to get diagnoses
- because I have nothing to go on. To be constantly reading about this issue on WP, is unsettling - I thought we were supposed to have a love of all things science and logic amongst other stuff?

To me this attitude seems pretty unhelpful, it comes across as jumping on a bandwagon etc...and to people new to this disorder and to WP it must be a downright turn off.

I know I've already got a bit wound up by it. If you think its too easy to get a diagnosis, try getting one in the UK - this is what I feel like shouting to all the nay-sayers out there !

I had no trouble getting a diagnosis once I realised what the issue was. The problem in the UK is a huge lack of awareness of AS in adults. It appears to me that large numbers of people are self diagnosing and then pursuing a diagnosis wherever in the world we are. People who reach adulthood without a diagnosis often appear to be misdiagnosed or just treated as a nuisance if they seek help with mental health issues. In America it is fine if you have good insurance but lots of people do not have this luxury.

I think those figures are accurate.

Actually, I think the study they did in Korea that turned up rates of 1 in 38 was probably even more accurate.

The question is, What are we going to call autism?? What are we going to define as pathology, and what is perfectly acceptable human behavior???

Are we now so wealthy, so bathed in luxury, that we can afford to pathologize every single degree of deviation from the mode??

What does that say about us??

Read "The Giver." Then read "Gathering Blue," "Messenger," and "Son." They are all short. You will need something to do, because you won't be sleeping for a couple of nights after you get done with the first one.

O! Brave new world, with such people in it!

Frankly, if I didn't like the rule of law and absolutely LOVE antibiotics and modern dentistry and hot and cold running water in my domicile all for the flipping of a valve, and if I were all the way finished with my laying-by, the goddamn collapse couldn't come soon enough for me.

When Hubby finally throws me out, I am going to crawl as far up in the Appalachians as I can possibly get and live like the lilies of the field.

Well, I agree that AS -especially in girls- is underdiagnosed, but that it is supposed to be so difficult to get a diagnosis, I don't buy that. I am transgender, so that means that my sex I'm born in is female (I transitioned). So I got diagnosed officially being female at that time. Once even in GB when I stayed there and the others in Germany (more than once from different universities). I was diagnosed every single time, just got once "just" a suspicion because my mom didn't wanted to get interviewed again. I got diagnosed so often, because I was looking out for studies, so I even got payed once for getting checked and asked questions. So I got diagnosed once in GB with autism and 2 times in Germany with HFA, in addition one time with a HFA "suspicion" and one time with Asperger-Syndrome and one time with ADHD with autistic features.
All was done fairly easy eventhough I had once some trouble with the shrinks.
The first time I got diagnosed, I had to pay it by myself and I was still a student in Highschool and my parents didn't pay for it, but I still did it because I wanted to know for certain.

But getting diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder was terrible. I had(!) to go for two year in therapy and to several experts, just for a Gender Identity Disorder diagnosis, so I could get my operation.

Some people might have trouble to get diagnosed with autism or got missdiagnosed in the past (also happend to me), but seriously if you are truly autistic, I believe, there will always be an option, changing shrinks, getting a second opinion or something else and yes sometimes you might have to travel for that or something else. I even traveled to another country to get my stuff done with my Gender Identity Disorder. The bit of trouble I had with my autism diagnosis is nothing compared to that.

I agree and I get very indignant about this - probably because as a (shy) child and teenager my mother always pressured me to find friends and go out, have parties, drink alcohol, etc. because she thought that was normal. Sure it's normal - for extroverts, but not for the other ~30-40% of the population (a figure which is according to books I've read on introversion, though I suspect it's probably 50/50 and the remainder are the ones who have just enough of the extrovert about them to be "trained" into extroversion because that's what western society promotes). Other cultures have very different views on this and some are the opposite in regarding introversion more highly (because it tends to promote hard work and studiousness).

The diagnosis should only be made when there is significant impairment. It shouldn't be diagnosed if the introversion isn't causing the person any problems except natural shyness and I agree that it's ridiculous for parents to take their child to a psychiatrist just because they are introverted. On the other hand, my ASD diagnosed in adulthood is very much real and as a child being shy and withdrawn were my only major indications because it didn't cause significant impairment until I reached an age when more independence was expected of me. It would have helped me enormously to be diagnosed at a young age (though the diagnosis didn't exist then). So there is a balancing act here.

I also agree that since we seem to be finding that autistic people are less and less a minority, some consideration needs to be given to depathologising it - there comes a point where you have to say "this is so common that maybe it's not necessarily a disorder, just another way of being normal". Of course those with classic autism still need a great deal of help to manage in a society which wasn't built to accommodate them, so again, a balancing act.

Yes, that's why I "lost" my autism diagnosis recently or "autism in remission" if you will, because growing up and getting older, I've just some traits left and an AQ from 24.



Well, autism and introversion are NOT the same thing, eventhough they are highly overlapping. But there is also schizoid personality disorder and schizotypal personality disorder, avoidant personality disorder, social anxiety disorder and especially in children mutism. But nowadays -especially in shy children- behaviours are called way to fast "autism" from shrinks who have knowledge in this area. Children with mutism or OCD or some other problem are put way too fast under the autism lable. Shrinks very often only see that they are specialiced in.

Last edited by Raziel on 22 Mar 2013, 12:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What do you mean? More people have been diagnosed with a form of Autism? Or more people have a form of Autism?

I don't know if I believe the latter.

Yes. Considering I am ten times the Aspie of people diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. It seems that introversion is increasingly being mistaken for autism although I have no doubt I have both.

I'm with Meridian 191, introversion is now considered a "symptom" while extroversion is yet a praised personality trait. Extroverted personality needs to do things outside, while introverted personality needs to do things inside. The World is "outside", so it's obvious why extroverted people were who conquered it, although a lot of big things that improved our world were created or discovered by introverts in the solitude of their rooms.

You're not being dumb, that's complete nonsense. Clearly something got misquoted somewhere.

That makes more sense.

Without proof I don't buy it.