Is early detection really crucial?

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Almost everything I've read about autism stresses the importance of catching it early, but I'm a little confused as to if there's actual value to diagnosing early, or if it's more for saving the family worry.

Less stress for the child, less chance of developing further mental health problems such as depression. Not crucial, but helpful.

agreed. just to make life easier for all concerned. not really about a cure perse more about knowing what is going on.

Moving forward, it will be come more and more important to detect things early. I believe that educational techniques will be developed to help people deal with various aspects. For example, if there are deficits in recognizing emotions on faces, then people could be taught to do so using videos or computer games. If kids take things ultra-literally, then they could be taught about figures of speech and how to parse the words of others. This would be survival skills to help kids get by with less hassle. It wouldn't erase the aspergers. But it would be good for them.

I'd like to think that if I had known when i was younger what I do now about myself I would have not dropped out of highschool when I was 16.

The earlier it's diagnosed, the earlier it can be treated. It's easier to fit in and make friends if you receive help with social skills when you are younger. Also, it's easier to cure autism if treatment is started right away. One cause of autism is PKU. Autism can be prevented by avoiding phenylalanine in individuals with PKU. If mercury is causing autism, vaccines can be avoided and chelation started to cure autism before it gets worse.

I don't know anything about autism, but since the ambiguous thread title lured me here, I'll post up what I was originally going to.

I think I definitely would've been better off, had my AS been diagnosed in my childhood (I'm 36 now, and was diagnosed 10 months ago). I think I would've then felt more empowered and positive about myself. Instead, I was too afraid to participate in anything the schools had to offer, and generally felt overwhelmed all the time because I didn't have any place that was free from NT bullying. I could've instead chosen to spend my teenage years living with a relative who had no children my age, such as my grandfather, which would've been sohhh much better for me.

I see great improvements in my charges. They do better with early intervention. I have learning disabilbities, wish I had gotten help from the get go. School wouldn't have been so hard. I wouldn't have felt like such a freak.

My AS was diagnosed pretty early, but I don't think it was much help. I suppose a diagnosis doesn't do any good if no effort is made to act on it.

I really only discovered what my diagnosis was a few years ago, and I wonder if things might be easier if I had known earlier.

I was experiencing all my difficulties before ADD or AS had really been heard of...councellors and principals really didn't know what to do with me.

I was obviously not ret*d...but I had learning/develpomental difficulties.

It allows the education system to work around the individual, rather than the individual being forced to tread places where an autistic individual cannot.

I don't know about "mild, mild" cases, but for those like me with "mild" autism, mainstream schooling isn't productive or helpful.

it's hellish.

I wasn't diagnosed until last summer, and I'm 18. My school had previously concluded that I had some kind of developmental "delay" (despite the fact that I was reading 5 years ahead of grade level) but never made any accommodations or provided any real assistance. So, for my case, early vs late diagnosis makes no difference. Although I am somewhat glad I didn't have a diagnosis until recently, so I've never had the opportunity to use it as an excuse.

The earlier the diagnosis the better for one simple reason.

Children on the Spectrum are still able to be assisted in whatever they need and can respond. Adults on the other hand are much less capable. It all boils down to life experience. A child still at school hasn't been "poisoned" (for want of a better word) by the adult world generally.

Not only that, if the theory I presently follow is right - the earlier the DX the more likely triggers for meltdowns can be prevented. Meltdowns need to be avoided - and if an early diagnosis is made the chances of that increase immensely.

And then there's the prevention of bad habits.

Early detection wouldn't have been possible in my case because when I was little my sense of self was always a sense of us. At home I was the same as my sisters and brothers, and at school I was the same as my best friend. I didn't cause any trouble for anyone, including myself, and I didn't play with anyone else except when there was a large group of children that I/we were part of.

My problems started in my teens when my sisters and brothers broke off and became autonomous, and I had to form relationships outside my "self". I couldn't, and when I got tired of tagging along I had to go my own way.

I don't know if anyone could have helped me. My teachers used to be scared of me because I was so smart, I don't know that anyone else would have felt more comfortable talking to me.