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> (3) Autism epidemic. How breathtakingly insulting to the 100,000s of parents and caregivers of autistic children over the past 30 years, who have sacrificed

> (3) Autism epidemic. How breathtakingly insulting to the 100,000s of parents and caregivers of autistic children over the past 30 years, who have sacrificed 1,000s of hours, $MM of lost revenue, their own health, their own goals, and even attention that could have been paid to their other children and their community, exerting heroic efforts and sparing no expense to reach into a single child's mind to teach him or her basic skills and share some kind of human connection, starting from zero with no answers, no training, and sometimes not even family or a support network. Unlike these scientists, most of these parents and caregivers will not be thanked or applauded for their work by society, but they only did it because it happened to be their child. Let's not acknowledge that that their efforts correspond to a real event-- instead, let's dismiss all of the potential links uncovered and directions for future research, and wave it all away, feeling self-assured that we are being skeptical and rigorous while eating up taxpayer money from these same parents who still have no answers.

killjoywashere 4y ago
My wife is a pediatric occupational therapist and I'm a physician in government. I'm still not sure which direction your comment is pointing: is it insulting that the term Autism epidemic is exists, or that this paper suggests it should be avoided?
- tboyd47 4y ago
  Excuse me if that wasn't clear. It's insulting that the paper suggests that the epidemic is not real.
  - Kranar 4y ago
    Then you went on a very angry and incoherent rant for nothing. You seem to be angry because you don't understand what the word epidemic means. In the spirit of this article, epidemic means something specific; the rapid spread of a disease over a short period of time in a specific region. The article is not saying that autism isn't real or that people aren't suffering from it, the article is saying that it's not an epidemic. The article is saying there is no rapid increase in autism over a specific region but rather there's been a change in how it's diagnosed, people's awareness of the disease and that if these factors had been held constant, autism rates would also have been constant.
    - tboyd47 4y ago
      If it was for nothing, then it was only because I chose the wrong audience. Nothing about my comment indicates I misunderstood the intent of the authors.
  - llbeansandrice 4y ago
    You're misinterpreting the purpose of the article. It's not saying that the epidemic wasn't real, it's arguing that calling it an "epidemic" implies that there is more autism than there was previously. While they posit that it's simply due to better diagnosis. There are not more people with autism. There are more people that have been diagnosed. Those are different things and calling it an "epidemic" implies that it's the former.
deleted 4y ago
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larve 4y ago
The paper suggests that what looks like an epidemic is due to better diagnosis, so that people previously not diagnosed now are. It doesn't discredit autism.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
davidscolgan 4y ago
I have autism and only discovered it two years ago at age 33. I have been intensely researching it. The book Neurotribes presents a very in-depth picture of the history of autism and the research and theories for the past century. This is not saying that autism is not real, that it is not a thing to understand, or something that should not be researched. It is only saying that the idea that autism is On The Rise in a terrifying way, that it is something to be feared, is misguided. As this article says, and as the book Neurotribes explores in depth, autism used to have much more strict criteria for diagnosis. Connor, the leading researcher of autism for much of the 20th century, was convinced autism should only cover the most severe cases, and he did not like the spectrum idea. As time went on and it was realized that many more persons may have some aspect of autism even if it isn't extremely severe led to the DSM making the criteria much looser. The authors of the DSM particularly noted that this may make it seem like the prevalence was increasing when in fact it was simply more widely diagnosed. The reason for caution of using the term "autism epidemic" is that it spooked many parents into thinking there was a horrible plague afoot, and that it needed to be cured. My current understanding of it in myself and wider society is that it has always been around, that those on the spectrum hold an important place in society, and that rather than finding a cure (if this is an epidemic) is more important than understanding autism and advocating for services to help those who have autistic children. This absolutely does not seek to discredit the indeed heroic efforts many parents have gone to to support their children, in fact by being more precise about what is happening the hope is that autistics like myself can have even better outcomes.
- tboyd47 4y ago
  Thank you for sharing your thoughts despite me clearly having my feathers ruffled a bit. Do you mind sharing, if you were formally diagnosed with autism? And did you have any developmental delays as a child? If so, how did your parents deal with those? Based on what I've seen from friends and family with autistic children, and how their lives and family dynamics diverge so drastically from the established well-trod tracks of parenthood traveled for centuries, looking incomprehensible to outsiders, I don't believe it's possible for the current rates of autism to have been constant throughout history. There would have been some similar phenomenon to autism parenting known to us (though not necessarily by that name).

killjoywashere 4y ago

My wife is a pediatric occupational therapist and I'm a physician in government. I'm still not sure which direction your comment is pointing: is it insulting that the term Autism epidemic is exists, or that this paper suggests it should be avoided?

tboyd47 4y ago
Excuse me if that wasn't clear. It's insulting that the paper suggests that the epidemic is not real.
- Kranar 4y ago
  Then you went on a very angry and incoherent rant for nothing. You seem to be angry because you don't understand what the word epidemic means. In the spirit of this article, epidemic means something specific; the rapid spread of a disease over a short period of time in a specific region. The article is not saying that autism isn't real or that people aren't suffering from it, the article is saying that it's not an epidemic. The article is saying there is no rapid increase in autism over a specific region but rather there's been a change in how it's diagnosed, people's awareness of the disease and that if these factors had been held constant, autism rates would also have been constant.
  - tboyd47 4y ago
    If it was for nothing, then it was only because I chose the wrong audience. Nothing about my comment indicates I misunderstood the intent of the authors.
- llbeansandrice 4y ago
  You're misinterpreting the purpose of the article. It's not saying that the epidemic wasn't real, it's arguing that calling it an "epidemic" implies that there is more autism than there was previously. While they posit that it's simply due to better diagnosis. There are not more people with autism. There are more people that have been diagnosed. Those are different things and calling it an "epidemic" implies that it's the former.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

larve 4y ago

The paper suggests that what looks like an epidemic is due to better diagnosis, so that people previously not diagnosed now are. It doesn't discredit autism.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

davidscolgan 4y ago

I have autism and only discovered it two years ago at age 33. I have been intensely researching it. The book Neurotribes presents a very in-depth picture of the history of autism and the research and theories for the past century. This is not saying that autism is not real, that it is not a thing to understand, or something that should not be researched. It is only saying that the idea that autism is On The Rise in a terrifying way, that it is something to be feared, is misguided. As this article says, and as the book Neurotribes explores in depth, autism used to have much more strict criteria for diagnosis. Connor, the leading researcher of autism for much of the 20th century, was convinced autism should only cover the most severe cases, and he did not like the spectrum idea. As time went on and it was realized that many more persons may have some aspect of autism even if it isn't extremely severe led to the DSM making the criteria much looser. The authors of the DSM particularly noted that this may make it seem like the prevalence was increasing when in fact it was simply more widely diagnosed. The reason for caution of using the term "autism epidemic" is that it spooked many parents into thinking there was a horrible plague afoot, and that it needed to be cured. My current understanding of it in myself and wider society is that it has always been around, that those on the spectrum hold an important place in society, and that rather than finding a cure (if this is an epidemic) is more important than understanding autism and advocating for services to help those who have autistic children. This absolutely does not seek to discredit the indeed heroic efforts many parents have gone to to support their children, in fact by being more precise about what is happening the hope is that autistics like myself can have even better outcomes.

tboyd47 4y ago
Thank you for sharing your thoughts despite me clearly having my feathers ruffled a bit. Do you mind sharing, if you were formally diagnosed with autism? And did you have any developmental delays as a child? If so, how did your parents deal with those? Based on what I've seen from friends and family with autistic children, and how their lives and family dynamics diverge so drastically from the established well-trod tracks of parenthood traveled for centuries, looking incomprehensible to outsiders, I don't believe it's possible for the current rates of autism to have been constant throughout history. There would have been some similar phenomenon to autism parenting known to us (though not necessarily by that name).