Real figures can be much higher then official figures show and here is why. In nearly all the countries in the world one will only be put forward to be assessed if either when one was young one "Displayed" significent traits for someone somewhere to notice (Usually those who are not able to mask), or if one has some sort of crises or breakdown later in adult life or even when in school or college. Usually later in life when burnouts get more severe due to the mental effect of years of masking.
Now these official figures do vary from country to country. In the developed world leading countries the figures are as high as 2.5%, but in third world countries the figures are as low as 0.5%.
I watched a lengthy Ted talk given by a professor of psycology who studied autism as his leading subject. He started going round the world, country by country assessing people but using a different method. Instead of waiting for people to "Discover" they are on the spectrum and then assess them, he decided to start taking large groups of random volunteers who he did not know if they were on the spectrum or not, and put them all equally through the assessment process, and understandably to do this he had to have the help of local psycologists because certain countries peoples would display certain peculiarities which could be mistaken as autism traits by people who are used to a different culture, so he was very aware of this when doing his studies.
He went round the world country by country doing this, and to his amazement, no matter what tribe, race or countries people he assessed the percentages always came back as 6%.
He cecked the figures and did many further random volunteer groups who were not initially told that they were being assessed for autism (As he wanted the people to be completely random "Off the street" type volunteers so the results would not give any false readings), and he tried small groups of a hundred and large groups of a few thousand, and they gave the same approximate 6% final figure... And it was the same rigt across the world.
Now are we missing at least four percent of the population who are very likely to be suffering and not knowing why? This potential 4% who do not even know that the social difficulties they are daily facing has a name and that they are not the only ones who are suffering? A four percent who can be helped and prevented from having breakdowns and burnouts later in life just by making small adjustments to their lives had they known!
So whenI hear figures being quoted by well known autistic organisations quoting things like "There are one and a half percent of the population who are on the autism spectrum" I think to myself "No. There are one and a half percent of people who have been assessed because they have either hit crises point in their lives where someone has correctly diagnosed them, or they are the fortunate few (Some say not so fortunate) who have been assessed as a child because they were unable to mask their traits". We are not assessing everyone so we have only a small percentage of the real population out there who could and are very likely to be on the spectrum if this professors research is true.
I am often looking at Youtube. When I first found out a clue about autism, I started hyper studying all Youtube things I could find on the subject. I hardly slept for days and one could be forgiven if one thought I had watched every single Youtube clip about autism (Actually I did about the subject of prosopragnosia (Faceblindness) which was a major clue that pointed towards autism along with many other "Jigsaw pieces" along the way. I watched every single prosopragnosia youtube clip I could find and it took me three whole almost non stop days!) I don't remember the professors name or which Ted talk it was, but if I do come across him again I will include his Ted talk on this thread as I found what he said fascinating.
So to conclude. The official figures and the true figures are very likely to be very different simply because we tend to only assess those who have personally "Discovered" what autism is, or who have had autism discovered for them. It is very likely that the majority are out there suffering and simply don't know!
28 Sep 2021, 6:36 pm
