Posted on 04/02/2012 4:56:37 AM PDT by dangus
According to latest figures, nearly one in 88 U.S. children have autism spectrum disorders. The report further urges national attention on the need for earlier diagnosis and treatment, especially in rural and minority communities.
Figures released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show a 23% increase in autism spectrum cases from 2006 to 2008, and 78% increase since 2002. The largest increases in autism prevalence were found among black and Hispanic children, who have lagged behind whites in previous counts. Numbers are higher for boys, with one in 54 8-year-olds now considered to have autism, Asperger's or a related condition, though no one knows why the condition is five times more likely to affect boys than girls. The CDC has a surveillance network around the country that has counted 8-year-olds on the autism spectrum every two years. The new numbers are based on tallies from 14 sites.
(Excerpt) Read more at news-medical.net ...
There is no doubt a genetic component to autism, as with most diseases and syndromes. But as with just about everything else to do with autism, the genetic component isn't simple.
In some parts of suburbia, like my sister’s neighborhood, it is cool to have something wrong with your kid. Almost all the kids in that neighborhood have some kind of condition... homosexuality, aspergers, ADHD, alergies galore, gluten intolerance, depression, etc. When I go over there for parties, that is all they talk about is their kids and their conditions.
There are four possibilities, not all necessarily exclusive:
1) The incidence is rising
2) Diagnosis methods are more accurate
3) The ever-changing definitions cover a larger set of people
4) It is being over-diagnosed
ASD is a pretty broad umbrella, and the levels of severity vary significantly throughout the spectrum. Without a deeper dive into the numbers, it's hard to tell if this is an increase int he "marginal" cases where changes int he way things are being diagnosed might lead to a mild ASD designation now that wasn't made before.
I’m a skeptic on this issue of vaccines causing autism, but allow for the possibility. But can you clarify: if rates are “skyrocketing” over the course of a couple of years, can that be attributed to vaccines? Is the rate of vaccination increasing? Are the vaccines being modified in any significant or substantial way that would cause an increase? If the answer to these questions is “no”, then it’s a matter of changing definitions and/or overdiagnosis.
This is an example of smoke and mirrors statistics. The headline says “autism” the article includes all “autism spectrum disorders”. By including Asperger’s Syndrome, a diagnosis which, in the hands of an over-zealous psychologist can be used to pathologize being a geeky socially-awkward kid (much as ADHD can be used to pathologize being a boisterous high-spirited kid), the significance of the rise in prevalence is diluted to basically nil.
My favorite hypothesis for the increased prevalence of autism is that it is a polygenetic trait, and that the genes for it, when not all present (or not present in the right, or wrong, combination, since it might not be a single cluster of genes) have all become adaptive as technology becomes more prevalent. In particular some aspects of “geekiness” have become cool and are no longer a detriment in finding mates. Of course, the real “cause” is probably just over-zealous diagnosticians and parents who have bought into the “therapeutic culture” resulting in more geeky socially-awkward kids being diagnosed.
Just wait until DSM-V redefines Asperger’s Syndrome as autism, the “rate” will sky-rocket and all sorts of nit-wits will run around wringing their hands and demanding the state do something.
“Most are probably nothing more than ill-disciplined and badly behaved. “
There is some truth to this. These people (adults, included) are just very immature (like a 3-yr old). Everything has to be their way and if they don’t get their way they show out in overt ways or passive-aggressive ways.
I’m not sure how much of this can be overcome by nurture. I’ve worked with these people and seen them up close in family members, and they are so rigid and inflexible it’s not even possible to explain to them what the problem is.
Just like a small child, they can’t be convinced they need to do anything differently. Maybe the right kind of training can fix that, I’m not sure.
. . . 3) The ever-changing definitions cover a larger set of people
4) It is being over-diagnosed
Let me repeat, I know six kis in my immediate social and familial circle who exhibit obvious behavioral and cognitive skills I had never seen in the same circle growing up in a heavily populated area
There is simply now way any overdiagnosis could ever account for it.
The ridiculous frequency of ultrasoography during pregnancy needs to be addressed. The industry won’t allow it. Women could stop allowing themselves to be so railroaded and just use their sense - bobarding the developing brain with intense soundwaves for no health care reason whatsoever is just silly.
. . . 3) The ever-changing definitions cover a larger set of people
4) It is being over-diagnosed
Let me repeat, I know six kis in my immediate social and familial circle who exhibit obvious behavioral and cognitive skills I had never seen in the same circle growing up in a heavily populated area
There is simply now way any overdiagnosis could ever account for it.
The ridiculous frequency of ultrasoography during pregnancy needs to be addressed. The industry won’t allow it. Women could stop allowing themselves to be so railroaded and just use their sense - bobarding the developing brain with intense soundwaves for no health care reason whatsoever is just silly.
In some parts of suburbia, like my sister’s neighborhood, it is cool to have something wrong with your kid. Almost all the kids in that neighborhood have some kind of condition... homosexuality, aspergers, ADHD, alergies galore, gluten intolerance, depression, etc. When I go over there for parties, that is all they talk about is their kids and their conditions.
**
As a mom to a 10 year old son with higher function autism, I can assure you it’s NOT “cool” to deal with what we deal with. Did you EVER consider that maybe something IS different about these kids, what they’re being exposed to that could result in these differences? I mean — I’d really like to know myself what it is, but our ESTABLISHMENT government/pharm/medical community seems to have no such desire.
Trying not getting any sleep for four years.
Try watching your kid be so constipated he can’t go for 2 weeks. Try putting him on a gluten free casein free diet and watching as his stools become normal for the first time in 4 years.
Try retrieving him from the middle of the road as he runs out the front door and into the street. Try apologizing to judgemental neighbors who are pissed because your kid crossed into their yard and is meandering around in their garage, their home.
Try surviving 45 minute meltdowns where you wonder if his head is going to explode.
Try managing schools, IEPs, your child’s educational progress which is PROFOUNDLY altered.
Try watching him as he doesn’t play normally or socialize normally with other children.
Trying watching as your child will NEVER participate in things as other kids do — baseball,soccer, any sort of team sport ...try watching as the kids socialize and hang out together, totally ignoring your child as he has very little social ability.
Trying watching a beautiful and otherwise normal child just decline before your eyes. You wake up one day and he’s flapping his hands in a corner, watching a little train set go round and around, over and over. And that’s all he wants to do.
I really hope that those who don’t deal with this and have the blessing of a normal child just sit back, keep it shut, and LISTEN to parents. God knows the pediatricians don’t. Researchers don’t.
There are 22+ vaccinations on the schedule now before aged 2. When my daughter, who is now 24, was growing up, there were only 11 before aged 2.
There IS something wrong with a lot of kids today. It’s terrible ....but if we were to admit that it was related to vaccines, the world would stop spinning on its axis.
Autism is hereditary.
**
I can’t buy off on this theory. No one anywhere in our family had any form of autism. We have traced our family trees way back.
No one had any problems with wheat or dairy.
I had two normal kids before my third, who has high functioning autism.
But I’ll tell you this — right after the MMR shot, which he received at 12 months, his behavior declined. He would have baseball-sized hard black stools he couldn’t pass. He became more irritable and would NEVER sleep.
By 18 months or so, I knew something was off, but just couldn’t put my finger on it. By 2, he woudln’t respond to us calling his name. By 2.5 or so, I’d take him to playgroups and he wouldn’t engage in any sort of imaginative play like the other children.
What turns a normal one year old into this by 2 years of age?
I’ll tell you one thing — doctors were clueless and could have cared less. He didn’t receive a diagnosis until he was 4 1/2, delaying a lot of therapy and early intervention he could have had.
Its all about MONEY. The gubmint has been pushing the Medicaid and SSI program called “Crazy Kid” which gives the “parent” cash each month (and the skool district too) if they can get their kid to act nutty or dirt stupid during the evaluation. Lots of Holder’s People signing up. Apparently now there is a way even if the kid don’t act crazy enough.
Just another reparations program, with little concern for the poor kids self esteem of being ID’d as mentally defecient.
Its all about MONEY. The gubmint has been pushing the Medicaid and SSI program called “Crazy Kid” which gives the “parent” cash each month (and the skool district too) if they can get their kid to act nutty or dirt stupid during the evaluation. Lots of Holder’s People signing up. Apparently now there is a way even if the kid don’t act crazy enough.
Just another reparations program, with little concern for the poor kids self esteem of being ID’d as mentally defecient.
Where is Sparta when you need it?
Sorry for the double post of unedited stuff.
I just get so ticked.
There was never this level of behavioral and cognitive findings until now.
Parents just fool around with doctors’ recommendations.
When my OB doc said he was going to schedule me for an ultrasound and amnio because of advanced age, I asked him why. He was insulted, to begin with (and people do need to get past doctors’ attitudes, by the way, in taking care of their families’ health), and I refused the “treatment”. I told him it was unecessary as I had no plans to kill the baby whatever the outcome.
I had an interview with the prospective pediatrician. He showed us a list of vaccines for the first hour after birth. We had quite a session of bargaining.
People need to be informed and take control of their family’s health.
We have a nationwide conversation going on now regarding “women’s health care”. There is absolutely nothing about artificial birth control that provides health care to anyone.
Most people don’t even know that BCPs (the pill) is in the same category of causing cancer as asbstos and cigarettes.
We leave our health care in the hands of a pro-abortion group (the AMA).
Silly.
They are finally counting the numbers, as opposed to guessing.
That's not in increase in anything but accuracy.
Of all the Federal agencies I have ever encountered, the only one I can give high marks to, is the CDC. When I worked with them, they were highly dedictated to true public health, sans agenda; they were very professional and extremely educated in hard science (Hard science people tend to be less liberal, as well).
Sure, I saw some slackers and ne'er-do-wells, but you get those people in any large organization. On the whole, pretty good grades for the CDC.
It’s all about upping the special ed funding. By today’s standards, my four year old is on the “spectrum.” And it’s changed nothing with how I deal with him or work with him. But if he were in school, they’d be thrilled to fill out all the paper work and demand more funding. Ten years working special ed, I know that this whole autism thing is just about the money.
I should clarify. Of course autism exists and is a truly challenging condition. But the extremem rise in autism spectrum disorders, I find to be bogus. That’s where the funding comes in. Kids on the “spectrum” can’t compare to truly autistic kids. So very often, it’s like adhd, teacher didn’t want to deal with their personalities and the fact that they don’t learn well in a classroom designed for right handed girls.
Autism is a “Spectrum Disorder”: At one end of the spectrum is the worst case ever seen, and the other end is the most healthy, most non-autistic person ever imaginable.
Imagine, if you will, that in recent years huge programs and expenditures have been created at all levels of government to “treat” or in some other way “deal with” the “problem”. Imagine, if you will, that the funding (and prestige) for individuals who diagnose, study and “treat” the disorder will go up if the cut-off point along the continuum is repeatedly nudged towards the super-normal end of the spectrum.
Imagine, if you will, that in recent years the parents of youngsters have become increasingly Narcissistic, and as a result place their own self esteem squarely in the control of their offspring, who must be perfect in order to reflect positively on their parents. Imagine, if you will, the demands of such parents - entitled to have a “perfect” child, or be compensated if they do not - for the various levels of government to “do something” to make their (perhaps, only VERY slightly) “odd” child reflect better on them.
Imagine some silly-ass but heavily promoted “No Child Left Behind” attitude developing societally out of these conditions, funded of course by taking taxpayer money to solve the “problem”. Just imagine.
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