Posted on 04/08/2012 6:22:16 PM PDT by neverdem
THE report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that one in 88 American children have an autism spectrum disorder has stoked a debate about why the condition’s prevalence continues to rise. The C.D.C. said it was possible that the increase could be entirely attributed to better detection by teachers and doctors, while holding out the possibility of unknown environmental factors.
But the report, released last month, also appears to be serving as a lightning rod for those who question the legitimacy of a diagnosis whose estimated prevalence has nearly doubled since 2007.
As one person commenting on The New York Times’s online article about it put it, parents “want an ‘out’ for why little Johnny is a little hard to control.” Or, as another skeptic posted on a different Web site, “Just like how all of a sudden everyone had A.D.H.D. in the ’90s, now everyone has autism.”
The diagnosis criteria for autism spectrum disorders were broadened in the 1990s to encompass not just the most severely affected children, who might be intellectually disabled, nonverbal or prone to self-injury, but those with widely varying symptoms and intellectual abilities who shared a fundamental difficulty with social interaction. As a result, the makeup of the autism population has shifted: only about a third of those identified by the C.D.C. as autistic last month had an intellectual disability, compared...
--snip--
But whether the diagnosis is now too broad is a subject of dispute even among mental health professionals. The group in charge of autism criteria for the new version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has proposed changes that would exclude some who currently qualify, reducing the combination of behavioral traits through which the diagnosis can be reached from a mind-boggling 2,027 to 11, according to one estimate...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping
They broadened the definition to include late talkers.
Too deep to dive into this pool tonight. Tomorrow is another day.
Teachers should not be diagnosing anything.
Autism and ADHD are ways to control kids that the teacher can diagnosis and get more money out of the system.
Both are serious or can be but have become catch all for laziness of authorities and drugging kids who are just active.
” and drugging kids who are just active. “
“Boys will be boys” - there’s a pill for that...
My vote is for more aggressive detection and categorization rather than a huge deterioration in the human condition.
I’ll check back on this thread after I get in a head-banging and rocking session.
They want boys to act like little girls.
The school systems get more money from the Feds for each kid they put in any form of special education program.
Then the kids lose due to the teachers telling them "That's good enough" instead of having them complete assignments & projects.
Didn’t they beat up Michael Savage for essentially saying the same thing?
More money for union schools... Can parents collect disability for kids who start talking late?
We were told my grandson had autism. Turned out he had Lyme Disease. Two articles for your information.....
http://www.lymeinducedautism.com/lymeautismconnection.html
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/09/27/doctors-find-link-between-lyme-disease-autism/
My neighbor is collecting money for ASD
Some children MUST be affected by their mothers running off to work shortly after birth. Science would never pursue researching the affects this has on babies and toddlers due to exposing the negative effects of mixing motherhood with their mandatory careers. Today’s lack of bonding between mother and child COULD be the trigger for autism. ‘Bonding’ is just as critical to formative years as food and sleep but it seems the emphasis today is on DAYCARE, food and sleep. I’d be curious to know what the prevalence of autism is in families with ‘stay at home’ moms, and especially in families with stay at home moms where the biological father is also present. Has anyone studied this or is this theory too ‘politically incorrect’?
“Autism” has a code in the DSM. People get paid for “treating” people who can be shoehorned into a code. Broadening definitions in a “code” means more money.
You can also increase the income of “mental health” providers by creating new codes in the DSM - like “Oppositional Defiance Disorder” or the now well-established, highly profitable and destructive “ADD/HD”.
Government schools also get a lot more money when they have to educate the “disabled”.
Anyone have info on the prevalence for this in Europe?
If it’s lower in other cultures then it could be a difference in child-rearing.
It’s all about the money. They get more money the more special kids they have. That and the power to play God and declare the fit and unfit according to their liberal religion.
My nephew’s preschool teacher tried to say he was autistic. Forget the fact that she was a piss poor teacher who couldn’t control her class, the woman was drunk with the power she had over those kids lives and tried to bully my sister with veiled threats.
What the teacher didn’t know was that my sister knew the principal very well and she put some black marks on that teacher’s record. It could have easily went the other way.
I am a mother of an Autistic Child. He has Asperger’s. Believe me, it is not due to lack of parenting skills. I am a stay at home mom. It is a severe social disorder in the case of my child. He can not read body language. He had to be taught. He had to be taught to understand allegories, euphemisms, saracasm, etc. He can not cope with large crowds and noise. IT is too many sensory inputs. He is however, sweet, honest, very smart, and loving.
Let me illustrate it for you. He could not possibly understand why people would be in jail. To his logic God gave us the Ten Commandments. They are the rules. To violate God’s Rules is unthinkable. Therefore why would people break the rules and end up in jail?
Another is the phrase madder than a wet hen. He doesn’t understand why the hen would be wet or why an animal would be upset about rain.
This is not some made up excuse for our child’s behavior. It is something that he copes with daily. Then add all the confusing messages he gets outside the house. Its rough on these kids.
You bring up an interesting point. If a baby is dropped off for 8+ hours at a daycare at 6-8 weeks then I could imagine that they are not getting enough stimulation and there are going to be problems in mental/social development. I had a good friend who managed a daycare and even though they did their best to interact with each child it was basically all they could do to make sure they were fed, changed and not being mauled by the other kids. No time for individual care and nuturing. We have millions of newborns being warehoused for most of their waking hours.
ping
Talking late....people just don’t understand averages.
I used to watch my neighbors child. He didn’t walk till he was 18 months, never crawled just got up one day and walked. Didn’t say two words till he was three, then spoke in full sentences.
Yet today at 30, he is a Special Forces Marine and highly decorated.
(((sigh))))
Yep, the money.
Glad you are protecting the child.
Has a lot to do with money lost to aborted Down’s kids.
Special Ed teachers had no purpose any more.
I was a stay-at-home mother, deeply bonded. I knew there was something wrong with my oldest when he was ten days old, even though I didn’t have much experience with babies - he wasn’t seeing the world right. When he stopped looking me in the eye when he was nine months old, when the babbling stopped, when he developed strange fascinations, when he spoke a word or two but stopped, I was terrified in my heart but it took another year for his pediatricians to see that there was something wrong and tell me what it was called!
And on the other hand, his younger brother is not in the least autistic, but he’s definitely a different-drummer kid with attention problems, and the school and a psychiatrist tried to tell us he was on the autistic spectrum.
Under-diagnosis and over-diagnosis - what a difference eight years and a family history makes.
Funny, Amish has an autism rate of 1 per 15000. Somalian refugees settling in Michigan, never dealt with autism in their homeland villages, suddenly have autistic kids born in US. Processed foods? Childhood immunizations? Radio waves from all the electronics around? Who knows. I think the Amish provides some clues. Younger Amish couples are starting to immunize their kids after seeing how severe some child hood illnesses can be. Be interesting to track how they do and any rise in autism rate among these Amish kids.
You’re right - it’s often nothing more than a numbers thing.
My friend's grandchild has been diagnosed as autistic...he's shy...and it takes some time to warm up but he's fine and chooses whom he likes....
Another friend had a supposed ADD kid. Parents told the school to go to hell. The young lady is now a doctor. God bless the parents.
There are truly autistic children, but not in the numbers that the current gurus claim. Like every other scam, it comes down to extravagant amounts of money for clients, researchers, teachers, parents, and anyone else who can grab part of the pot. If there is a real increase in real autism I would suspect something similar to what was discovered for the increase of asthma in children .... parents over dosing Tylenol.
I would think that nothing equals the bonding of a child with it’s biological mom. Just as pheromones AFFECT THE BEHAVIOR of humans so too would similar phenomena occur between a child and it’s mother. Lack of bonding time between babies and their moms MUST have it’s consequences, perhaps AUTISM. I’m not even sure it’s really about “quality time”.. That’s a politically-correct term or scapegoat to justify career women not spending ENOUGH time with their young ones!
Interesting point. Nevertheless, with highly trained education professionals and the “mental health” industry it is always wise to follow the money.
The latest research has shown no connect with immunizations. However, a double mutation on a male gene is a definite indicator that autism is present. We know many parents who have a child on the spectrum. We suspect that their is something in the environment causing this. We just do not know what it is. Believe me, we would love to know. We’re desparate to understand this.
As for the money. Let me explain something. There is NOT a whole lot out there for Asperger’s kids. We have fought and researched and dug and made ourselves exhausted trying to find services. And yes, we pay for everything, including very small private schools to educate our son. Its damn expensive too.
Your child gets grouped with the juvenile deliquents because the public school can’t really cope though they claim they can. IT can be a nightmare in many regards. My son could really play baseball very well, but quit Little League because of the crowds. If you don’t have a child on the spectrum, you can’t possible really understand how this permeates every aspect of your life.
In the case of autism, it is more often a shift in diagnosis, from “retarded” to “autistic”.
Today’s lack of bonding between mother and child COULD be the trigger for autism.
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Good point!
Is there any chance that some of this can be linked to recreational drug use by the parents?
Plus these claims of all this money for the disorder is also bogus. The services for autism have been slashed. Everyone is fighting for an increasingly smaller services.
Its also crap that autism is on the rise due to mom’s working. I am very bonded to my child as is my husband and grandmother, etc. Most of the kids I know on the spectrum, they are to stay at home moms. Your child is different. Normal daycares are not even going to take them.
Find something else to blame other than the parents. This is like saying we wanted our child to be diabetic or have asthma. I see that some FR would like to blame this on cultural conditions instead of environmental or genetic ones, but there is absolutely no proof of this “bonding” problem being a cause for autism.
“He can not cope with large crowds and noise.”
Yep. OTOH, sometimes these kids do very, very well in one focused area—like math, or music, or computers. (Just not crowds!)
My 2nd grade teacher had gone to a conference of dyslexia the summer before I was in her class. While I would not call what she did diagnosing she did point out symptoms that led to the diagnosis. By 7th grade I was reading on a college level.
There’s a commercial running on TV right now for a new drug for boys with ADDHD. Actually, it is an ADDITIONAL drug to be taken with the first drug in case the first drug isn’t being as effective as it is supposed to be. My question, why take the first drug in the first place if it isn’t working, and keep the drugs coming to control the kids who probably just are acting normally.
They want boys to act like little girls.
Bingo!!!! And it takes a lot of drugs and punishments to achieve that wondrous goal.
and their parent(s) can get them on SSI disability, which makes everyone happy (but the child).
Because the drugs are trying to work on children whose brains and metabolisms are changing very rapidly. My son grew several inches in one year. The meds that helped him in school suddenly were totally useless.
Often one drug can help with distractions. Allow the child to focus more. However it won’t help with the OCD or with the social anxiety which can be deblititating.
You don’t just get one drug and it works perfectly forever. Its constant adjustments, dietary changes, etc. That’s why you must have a CHILD psychiatrist not just a psychiatrist who is willing to prescribe for kids.
Now, having said this I have also seen some very involved and engaged parents who have children on the autism spectrum and do everything they can to help their child succeed.....these children can succeed in the proper learning environment along with a supportive and loving home environment......
btt
our son is not on ssi. None of the kids in our private schools are. The parents make too much.
But hey, lets keep blaming the parents and greed. If it gives you buzz, obviously logic isn’t permeating these stupid excuses.
Many of you posting are showing absolute ignorance on the subject of autism. You’ve got assumptions which are incorrect. Enjoy your arrogance. One day, odds are, you will be touched by this and get a real education.
See: Crypto Sensitivity Syndrone
http://www.backlash.com/content/disab/2003/rvm1203.html
Asperger’s symptoms run in my family history for several generations. But, creativity does too.
What do you think of this symptom list?
http://www.backlash.com/content/disab/reference/CryptoSensitivitySyndrome.pdf
Yep, once they start you on a drug, they hook you for life. If a teacher, doctor, etc ever told me my son had ADHD, autism spectrum, etc, I’d want to punch them in the face.
This is actually very interesting. My son definitely fits this quite well from what I can intially read over. I am bookmarking this and will be doing more research on it.
I had heard that there was going to be more definition for High functioning autistics. I do think that there is a need because the challanges for them are different from the non functioning. For example, my son knows geography. Taught the teacher. He finally gave up and just gave him the tests for it after 2 days. He passed with high 90s two semester of geography in two and half days. It was amazing.
Thanks for the useful info!
I realize now after posting that remark that I should have clarified. I am not blaming parents at all as other posters have. But I do know that the Autism spectrum now contains 20,000+ diagnoses - far more than even 20 years ago. If a child has a serious problem, then parents should get all the help they need. My point, very poorly made, is that this is resulting in some serious abuses and more big-daddy govt. intervention. I still believe that there is a huge negative impact on babies with all the immunizations they get. Way more than when my kids were born more than 30 years ago. If I were having babies these days, I would be in big trouble - just give them the basic MMR and we’ll be homeschooling until that’s against the law, too.
I should have explained myself better. I was not referring to cases like yours. Sorry for not doing better on that.
I meant the prevalence of the ASD diagnosis for so many kids out there who are probably not actually on the spectrum. It’s so easy for people to assume that kids who show out have some sort of actual problem when they are just not disciplined. Obviously, this does not apply to your son, but I’ve seen lots of cases where there is pressure to label the child so he can be treated or medicated for a non-condition.
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