The Societal Costs of Autism

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I found this article and, in amongest all the analyst speak, I found this document - threatening:

The Cost of Autism: CLICK!

By itself it is a dry statistical report; facts and figures drawn from a wide variety of very well annotated sources.

The things that bother me about it:

1) Autism is just a lump term. Are all forms of autism just as expensive as each other? Are some more costly and others not so much so? Stating autism - all autism - as the primary focus raised immediate alarms in my head for the following reason:

2) What is the purpose of this report? It states that it is a statistical analysis for use by the professional communities that interact with autistic individuals and policy makers (my emphasis) for planning, development,blahblahblah... In the hands of those with an agenda, I see this report almost as a weapon.

I agree that individuals who are in need or want treatment or a cure should have access to them but, by lumping all forms of autism together under a single heading in this manner seems deceptive and the results skewed. I question the statistical generalizations also made. While something like - autistic individuals tend to have higher instances of ER visits and preventative medical treatments - how do you QUALIFY that? If reporters are saying 'yes, Johnny broke his leg and his has Asperger's' it is assumed Asperger's is the cause for the break of his leg when it may have been a tumble in the outfield at his baseball game and completely unrelated to his dx...

So, opinions? Is this thing just dry data or is it a report with an agenda? Does anyone know anything about it's writer; Micheal l. Ganz, PhD? I know it's a big, unweildy report and there is a good chance I'm just suspicious because I do not trust big industry of big government. Does anyone else see a fundamental flaw here?

Yeah, I saw an article similar to that yesterday about how this 'epidemic' of autistic kids was going to cost millions as they became adults, which is especially ironic to me since I AM an autistic adult and held down a career for nearly forty years.

Then today I saw this, which would make me feel better, except that I think "If there had been some prenatal test for autism, this kid might never have been born":


Autistic Child Prodigy<<<


So many people are convinced that having an autistic child is some unbearable, humiliating burden that a child like this kid could easily be just another bag of medical waste behind an abortion clinic.

Last edited by Avengilante on 04 Apr 2011, 3:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not questioning the costs - they will be higher. But money shouldn't govern moral judgement - all to often it does.

I saw that article... and, I must say, savants like him are rare. But I agree, I do not think that we, as a species can afford to throw that kind of potential away.

That 'medical waste' would never be dumped out back.. oh no... prenatal tissue is a valuable commodity. No, it gets sold to the highest bidder. It too, is just a business, like any other.

I does seem ominously worded. The data seems to be shown in a way that seems to maximize the cost at every possible turn. For example, a set of costs is for care, therapy and education. These are very labor-intensive things and people do need to be paid to do them. A fair point. But a few paragraphs down, they also say that a cost of autism is in parents quitting or going part time to care for autistic children and also autistic adults not holding jobs.

So.......


If people have a job taking care of/educating autistic individuals, their salary counts as a cost of autism.

But if people quit a job to care for/home school autistic individuals, their lack of salary also counts as a cost of autism. It is also counted as a cost of autism if autistic adults are unemployed.

These two things are added together but wouldn't they, in some cases, cancel each other out? Why does a salary count as a cost when paid to people in autism services but somebody no longer getting a salary also counts as a cost if they quit to care for autistic children? If somebody quits their job in autism services to care for an autistic child, how would that be counted? There are some WP members who hold jobs in autism services. Does this count as a cost of autism? (It does in one paragraph) or is it negating a cost of autism (because an autistic adult is employed?). Maybe they can make autism costless by employing autistic people in autism services, nullifying the cost.*

Dyscalcula is making my head spin. There may be a perfectly reasonable reason why it statistically makes sense to count both salary and loss of salary as autism costs. But math was never my strong point.

It does seem vaguely ominous that they don't give any goals for collecting this data beyond "used by policy makers". It could be used for good or ill- maybe to find a genetic test for abortion screening, but more postitively maybe to identify places where different procedures would lead to lower costs for care and more jobs for autistic people. It's hard to tell where they want to go with this and tht in itself seems ominous.

*Not a facetious suggestion. There are posters who have posted about their jobs in autism care, some paid and some volunteer. Also anbuend has done a lot of work in autism research. She posted about working with researchers at- I think- M.I.T. There used to be a poster age1600 who volunteered in a care home where she said she mostly interacted with the adults there. I've also read about autistic adults who have gone into preschool teaching at schools for autistic children. If it's so expensive to care for and educate autistic people and it's also so expensive to have autistic people unemployed, why not bring these two things together and see if working in autism services would be a good job for some autistic adults. Obviously not everyone. Many people would find these jobs just awful and very unsuitable. But since there are some posters here already in the field and people getting written up in articles, maybe there are some autistic people currently unemployed who would thrive in this work, thus nullifying some of these costs.

Those people do not have enough real work to do! Yet another waste of money research project.
My AS has contributed to the company I worked for for 40 years as a engineer and programmer.

If autism is the cause of genius and capability then establishment is wrong. If genius and resulting capability due to intelligence can coexist with autism then establishment is not wrong. Autism as a label is simply the disability for the most part and there is many more ingredients to the soup that make up a person.

Any opinion on the article, ci?

Reflective of some replies.

Good - it's not just me reading into to it if you can see it too! I don't deny their data collection - in fact it seems quite thorough which is what I think they are counting on. I question the premise of the data collected.



It's the circular logic of it that made me do a double take too. I think it lies in how they are defining 'cost'. I had assumed they were talking soley about the cost to society - aka taxpayers. But it is question like this one that make me question exactly what they are trying to pull with this. If caregiver service are a fact. But the stay at home parent? Are they assuming that all of these parents are receiving public assistance in some form? Or that their home care is subsidied in some way? What about the Jenny Mccarthy's who have plenty of money and can stay home and never take a cent of public money - are they counted in these numbers too? The fact that these details are not addressed in the research notes concerns me.



I am SO with you there - which makes it very odd that I was draw to this article in the first place.



I do believe the assertation that the report is just that - a factual accounting. The problem is, a good analyst worth his PhD can make those numbers say whatever it is he wants them to say. Even facts aren't unbiased so long as they can be manipulated. This accounting of facts feels very biased - probably towards the points whomever commissioned it wanted it to say. Follow the money - find who sponsored the report and you find the agenda.



I agree with this quite a bit and have actually been giving this some thought recently. Who better to end up being the autism whisperer than someone with autism. I honestly think new parents of newly diagnosed children would have some of their fear alleviated if they could see what the potential end result could be, or that there are clear distinct reasons for the behaviors they find so harrowing if they only could figure out what they were. Someone who shares the same issues as their child could be a roadmap to guide them through the maze of cause and effect.

Maybe we should get to work on that!

this is nazi.... fight it!! !!

This isn't really the point of this thread but I just can't help myself - I think I just enjoy arguing with you ci!

Savant syndrome is a clearly defined possible comorid, largely in Asperger's but in other forms of autism occassionally to. No one denies that it is rare. But it is clearly 'genius' - people having access to knowledge and recall of things they may never have been exposed to in their life. Not all of those with autism are savants but all savants are autistic. There are no NT savants. There may be NT IQ geniuses but they are not the same animal as a true savant.

All savants report that they need to pay a high price for their genius - they all acknowledge their disability along side the gift of their talent. They both exist at the same time - advantage and disability in one neat package.

The question becomes (and the one some people fear) are people willing to sacrifice this talent for its coexisting disabilites. Will people always choose to take the path which is easy or the path which is perceived to be hard? People like me have little faith in the human species... many of us are betting the majority will choose the easy path.

Middle.

Genius combined with hyper-focus and repetition traits can further genius.

^^^ Blazing your own trail! I LIKE IT!