Rates of autism diagnosis in children are at an all time high, CDC report suggests

[admin]

A 2020 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder among 8-year-old children is the highest it's ever been.

Rates of autism diagnosis in children are at an all time high, CDC report suggests : Read more

 

[NerillDP]

Having zero professional standing in the subject area, suggest that you take my comments as only those from a curious bystander. However, I do have education and experience in statistical analyses.

With above in mind, one has to wonder at what percentage of a trait, is something considered as "normal" albeit but not a large number. With up to 4% of boys on the "autism" scale, which, I assume, includes those with "high-functioning Asperger's," one must ask if we are diagnosing a normal characteristic as some type of disfunction that demands intervention which results in so much unnecessary consternation just because an otherwise well functioning person is being labeled for having a personality that was once considered at most eccentric.

For example, those who have "ginger" characteristics amount to between 2 & 6 percent of the population, and often have adverse health issues like problems with exposure to the sun, pain sensitivity, endometriosis, Parkinson's disease, decreased platelet function and, perhaps, defects in the immune system, but they are not considered to be abnormal and therefore deserving of a similar diagnosis with the related stigma.

Are we over diagnosing what really should be in the spectrum of "normal?" Notwithstanding those with a level of autism that truly requires intervention to protect them and those around them. I fear so much unnecessary, but well meaning, damage is being caused by overzealousness.

 

[Yvonne F]

I hope that the editors of this section on autism will update their knowledge, including updating it from such sources as adults in the autistic community (autistic people) as well as peer-reviewed sources that include autistic and non-autistic researchers (such as https://home.liebertpub.com/publications/autism-in-adulthood/646).

Most autistic people are adults, not children - whether or not we got diagnosed.

The CDC admits that the increases in diagnosis among children are most likely due to changes in ability to diagnose, not actual prevalence increases. There is no good evidence of true prevalence differences between racial and ethnic groups, that I have seen.

Humans spend most of our lives as adults (if we are fortunate enough to live long enough, which most are.)

Most of autistic humanity is therefore not an 8-year-old white boy, in spite of the all-too-common stereotypical photo I see today, heading your category.

As a female white person who "masks" quite well, has degrees, works, volunteers, etc., I realized I was autistic on my own, sought and received the diagnosis officially, and have had to puzzle out the effects on my life plus how to help myself better than the one-neurotype-fits-all approach of modern therapy theory... I would love to see Livescience catch up to the state of our lives, not just some scientists stuck in circular thinking based upon incorrect stuff from 50 years ago...

Forcing autistic kids to act more "normal" with more behaviorist training hours than you'd subject a dog to, ignoring our internal lives, looking at all our differences as deficits down to the level of genes... this was done to the LBGTQ+ community too, 70 years ago, with so much harm resulting.

 

[SHaines]

I hope that the editors of this section on autism will update their knowledge, including updating it from such sources as adults in the autistic community (autistic people) as well as peer-reviewed sources that include autistic and non-autistic researchers (such as https://home.liebertpub.com/publications/autism-in-adulthood/646).

If there are specific articles with specific areas of concern, please share those so they can be investigated. While the headline above mentions 8 year old children explicitly, that's because the study referenced them. The article, beyond the headline, is very clear in how the results shouldn't be used to conclude anything about this being an example of anything other than better tools for diagnosis.