4 ms·

Demand for autism care is soaring

23 points by andsoitis 7mo ago

orionblastar 7mo ago
I have SchizoAffective Disorder, I also have a Major Mood disorder, and depression. When I was 5, they thought I had autism, but I did an IQ test and had the mental age of 12, and said autism didn't apply to me because I have a high IQ. They didn't know about high-functioning autism back then. So I think I was misdiagnosed. I think I am on the spectrum somewhere on the high end. I learn fast, but sometimes forget what I learned. I am 57 now.
- madaxe_again 7mo ago
  I’m 42 but British. I was a weird kid, but over in Blighty autism wasn’t something that was even considered back then - just “how much more do we need to cane him until he’s normal?!”. It turns out, no amount. Now I’m just a weird adult with an ironclad distrust of all authority.
  - bluesounddirect 7mo ago
    I am a bit older and i grew up in New Jersey, and it wasn't much different. My teacher once told me she was going to cut my finger off because i always counted with them . Punk rock saved my life .
  - stranded22 7mo ago
    I was similar - primary school teacher wrote home to my parents asking their permission to slipper me (it was a no). Diagnosed with adhd last year at 45, scored ridiculously high on self test aspie but no incentive to get an autism diagnosis atm (my wife is worried the far right will get in and they’ll go after the autistics). Would have been nice to have had a diagnosis as a kid though - my life would have been quite different (maybe more hugs less drugs)
    - madaxe_again 7mo ago
      My parents weren’t consulted - public school allowed it up until 2001, I believe. Anyway, I just got really good at masking, and learning to understand systems such that I might subvert them. Sociality and conformance just didn’t really matter to me, they didn’t have intrinsic value - so I learned to act the part, and figured out the least effort methods to hack people into approving of me, whereby I could gain personal agency. They trained a sociopath. It’s gonna be interesting to see what the future will be like, when today’s kids who’ve actually had support and nurture rather than an endless cycle of punishment are really running the show - fewer crazy fucks like me out there ruining shit for the rest of humanity, that’s for sure.
- Alex3917 7mo ago
  There is a huge amount of overlap between the genes associated with schizophrenia and the genes associated with autism. This is part of what makes it tricky to diagnose yourself, because anyone who has the genes for schizophrenia is also going to have a lot of autism symptoms even if they don't have autism.
dmitrygr 7mo ago
[flagged]
- windows_hater_7 7mo ago
  Occam’s razor seems nice here. Higher demand for care due to rising number of legitimate diagnoses or widespread fraud?
  - singpolyma3 7mo ago
    ... which of those do you expect Occam's razor points to?
    - add-sub-mul-div 7mo ago
      It's like a litmus test for whether you're susceptible to Facebook boomer ragebait.
      - dmitrygr 7mo ago
        Were the indictments also ragebait? https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/first-defendant-charged-autism-fraud-scheme-0 https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/first-defendant-charged-a... Are you really so petty as to call anything not fitting your world view "ragebait"?
    - spicyusername 7mo ago
      ...not... ...fraud?
      - junofan 7mo ago
        Absent enforcement, proceeds from fraud are invested in more fraud. Given that fraud exists in this area, the shape of the growth curve suggests fraud as a plausible driver.
      - singpolyma3 7mo ago
msteffen 7mo ago
Earlier this week, the NYT also published this (to me, very moving) account of a nonverbal autistic man going to graduate school and publishing a novel: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/books/review/woody-brown-upward-bound.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/books/review/woody-brown-... It's amazing how much we continue to learn about these conditions.
irickt 7mo ago
This UK government posted a report recently, which I guess prompted this article. Review into mental health conditions, ADHD and autism: interim report (gov.uk). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-into-mental-health-conditions-adhd-and-autism-interim-report https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-revie...
- nephihaha 7mo ago
  This is just for England not the whole UK. Just saying. In Scotland, there has been a move to have an autism commissioner as if that's going to benefit the lives of most autistic people. Don't know about Wales and Northern Ireland.
analog8374 7mo ago
An autist, properly managed, is a wonderful employee. Way better than "normies". Great for science and engineering. Strong motive for creating more autists.
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 7mo ago
  “An autist”—get off of 4chan. Autism is a varied condition and the stereotype that you are referring to does not apply to a very, very sizeable portion of people with autism.
  - junofan 7mo ago
    [dead]
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - analog8374 7mo ago
    Well then some significant proportion of "persons of autismness" are really good at that stuff. They really know how to concentrate. It's next level, unknown by the normies. You want a guy who can give his full obsessive waking attention to a riddle for days or years, that's where you look. And that makes them valuable. Which brings us to my actual point.
  - happytoexplain 7mo ago
    I don't really understand the extremity of the "autism is a spectrum" thing. Yes, of course it is. Nothing in the parent comment is disrespectful of that or 4chan-y. I see this mysterious interaction a lot.
    - analog8374 7mo ago
      There is a popular narrative about autism. Damaged, deficient, etc. Digression from this narrative is often met with hostility. That's popular, emotionally-charged narratives for you.
Ancalagon 7mo ago
Are the soaring diagnosis because the frequency of autism in the general population is increasing? Or just increasing education and diagnosis
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 7mo ago
  This is almost not even up for debate anymore. At this point there is myriad evidence of it being the latter. For example, autism in women was all but ignored until recently, and is still under-diagnosed. Remember Grandma and her lifelong fixation on china saucers or whatever?
  - tempaccount5050 7mo ago
    Yes, I do remember. That was a latent effect of the great depression mixed with grandma not having to work so that was her hobby. Pretty tired of having a hobby or specific domain knowledge being labeled as "lol autism".
    - 1shooner 7mo ago
      Autism as a contemporary identity and autism as a DSM-V diagnosis seem to have diverged in the past few years.
      - rdevilla 7mo ago
        It's because people have discovered that (1) motte and bailey fallacies [0] and equivocation of language (between, e.g. identity and diagnosis) are highly effective rhetorical tools; (2) merely identifying as something ontologically changes the metaphysical structure of reality [1] which confers certain societal benefits. There is a matrix of is-diagnosed, is-not-diagnosed, identifies-as, does-not-identify-as, which is open to exploitation by those who "identify as" something they are not diagnosed with. Who gets fucked? The people who are diagnosed but do not identify as their diagnosis. God help me once we start adding another dimension of people who have a condition, but are also not diagnosed and do not identify with it either... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47538165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47538165
hbcondo714 7mo ago
> Once diagnosed, many children receive Applied Behaviour Analysis (aba) Shameless plug but to see ABA data better, I built a site with the Observable Framework[1] that analyzes sessions at: https://behavior.today https://behavior.today [1] https://github.com/observablehq/framework https://github.com/observablehq/framework
- amatecha 7mo ago
  nice, that's genius. great idea!
  - hbcondo714 7mo ago
    Thank you
- cassianoleal 7mo ago
  Forgive my ignorance, but isn't behavioural therapy considered abuse by many autistics?
  - joquarky 7mo ago
    Yes. It's essentially conversation therapy.
    - cassianoleal 7mo ago
      I assume you made a typo and meant "conversion therapy". :) Thanks for confirming! Do you have any good resources about this?
Ferret7446 7mo ago
Wasn't autism care also one of the avenues for fraud recently highlighted in Minnesota et al?
ycombinator_acc 7mo ago
I'm seeing the opposite happening. The ability to focus to the point of obsession or find joy in boring repetitive tasks associated with autism helped before the rise of AI and automation. Now, interpersonal communication and creativity (not in the sense of art but a lack of rigidity in one's thinking) are far more valuable - the things people with autism famously lack.

23 points by andsoitis 7mo ago

I have SchizoAffective Disorder, I also have a Major Mood disorder, and depression. When I was 5, they thought I had autism, but I did an IQ test and had the mental age of 12, and said autism didn't apply to me because I have a high IQ. They didn't know about high-functioning autism back then. So I think I was misdiagnosed. I think I am on the spectrum somewhere on the high end. I learn fast, but sometimes forget what I learned. I am 57 now.

madaxe_again 7mo ago
I’m 42 but British. I was a weird kid, but over in Blighty autism wasn’t something that was even considered back then - just “how much more do we need to cane him until he’s normal?!”. It turns out, no amount. Now I’m just a weird adult with an ironclad distrust of all authority.
- bluesounddirect 7mo ago
  I am a bit older and i grew up in New Jersey, and it wasn't much different. My teacher once told me she was going to cut my finger off because i always counted with them . Punk rock saved my life .
- stranded22 7mo ago
  I was similar - primary school teacher wrote home to my parents asking their permission to slipper me (it was a no). Diagnosed with adhd last year at 45, scored ridiculously high on self test aspie but no incentive to get an autism diagnosis atm (my wife is worried the far right will get in and they’ll go after the autistics). Would have been nice to have had a diagnosis as a kid though - my life would have been quite different (maybe more hugs less drugs)
  - madaxe_again 7mo ago
    My parents weren’t consulted - public school allowed it up until 2001, I believe. Anyway, I just got really good at masking, and learning to understand systems such that I might subvert them. Sociality and conformance just didn’t really matter to me, they didn’t have intrinsic value - so I learned to act the part, and figured out the least effort methods to hack people into approving of me, whereby I could gain personal agency. They trained a sociopath. It’s gonna be interesting to see what the future will be like, when today’s kids who’ve actually had support and nurture rather than an endless cycle of punishment are really running the show - fewer crazy fucks like me out there ruining shit for the rest of humanity, that’s for sure.
Alex3917 7mo ago
There is a huge amount of overlap between the genes associated with schizophrenia and the genes associated with autism. This is part of what makes it tricky to diagnose yourself, because anyone who has the genes for schizophrenia is also going to have a lot of autism symptoms even if they don't have autism.

dmitrygr 7mo ago

[flagged]

windows_hater_7 7mo ago
Occam’s razor seems nice here. Higher demand for care due to rising number of legitimate diagnoses or widespread fraud?
- singpolyma3 7mo ago
  ... which of those do you expect Occam's razor points to?
  - add-sub-mul-div 7mo ago
    It's like a litmus test for whether you're susceptible to Facebook boomer ragebait.
    - dmitrygr 7mo ago
      Were the indictments also ragebait? https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/first-defendant-charged-autism-fraud-scheme-0 https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/first-defendant-charged-a... Are you really so petty as to call anything not fitting your world view "ragebait"?
  - spicyusername 7mo ago
    ...not... ...fraud?
    - junofan 7mo ago
      Absent enforcement, proceeds from fraud are invested in more fraud. Given that fraud exists in this area, the shape of the growth curve suggests fraud as a plausible driver.
    - singpolyma3 7mo ago

msteffen 7mo ago

Earlier this week, the NYT also published this (to me, very moving) account of a nonverbal autistic man going to graduate school and publishing a novel: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/books/review/woody-brown-upward-bound.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/books/review/woody-brown-... It's amazing how much we continue to learn about these conditions.

irickt 7mo ago

This UK government posted a report recently, which I guess prompted this article. Review into mental health conditions, ADHD and autism: interim report (gov.uk). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-into-mental-health-conditions-adhd-and-autism-interim-report https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-revie...

nephihaha 7mo ago
This is just for England not the whole UK. Just saying. In Scotland, there has been a move to have an autism commissioner as if that's going to benefit the lives of most autistic people. Don't know about Wales and Northern Ireland.

analog8374 7mo ago

An autist, properly managed, is a wonderful employee. Way better than "normies". Great for science and engineering. Strong motive for creating more autists.

UqWBcuFx6NV4r 7mo ago
“An autist”—get off of 4chan. Autism is a varied condition and the stereotype that you are referring to does not apply to a very, very sizeable portion of people with autism.
- junofan 7mo ago
  [dead]
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- analog8374 7mo ago
  Well then some significant proportion of "persons of autismness" are really good at that stuff. They really know how to concentrate. It's next level, unknown by the normies. You want a guy who can give his full obsessive waking attention to a riddle for days or years, that's where you look. And that makes them valuable. Which brings us to my actual point.
- happytoexplain 7mo ago
  I don't really understand the extremity of the "autism is a spectrum" thing. Yes, of course it is. Nothing in the parent comment is disrespectful of that or 4chan-y. I see this mysterious interaction a lot.
  - analog8374 7mo ago
    There is a popular narrative about autism. Damaged, deficient, etc. Digression from this narrative is often met with hostility. That's popular, emotionally-charged narratives for you.

Ancalagon 7mo ago

Are the soaring diagnosis because the frequency of autism in the general population is increasing? Or just increasing education and diagnosis

UqWBcuFx6NV4r 7mo ago
This is almost not even up for debate anymore. At this point there is myriad evidence of it being the latter. For example, autism in women was all but ignored until recently, and is still under-diagnosed. Remember Grandma and her lifelong fixation on china saucers or whatever?
- tempaccount5050 7mo ago
  Yes, I do remember. That was a latent effect of the great depression mixed with grandma not having to work so that was her hobby. Pretty tired of having a hobby or specific domain knowledge being labeled as "lol autism".
  - 1shooner 7mo ago
    Autism as a contemporary identity and autism as a DSM-V diagnosis seem to have diverged in the past few years.
    - rdevilla 7mo ago
      It's because people have discovered that (1) motte and bailey fallacies [0] and equivocation of language (between, e.g. identity and diagnosis) are highly effective rhetorical tools; (2) merely identifying as something ontologically changes the metaphysical structure of reality [1] which confers certain societal benefits. There is a matrix of is-diagnosed, is-not-diagnosed, identifies-as, does-not-identify-as, which is open to exploitation by those who "identify as" something they are not diagnosed with. Who gets fucked? The people who are diagnosed but do not identify as their diagnosis. God help me once we start adding another dimension of people who have a condition, but are also not diagnosed and do not identify with it either... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47538165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47538165

hbcondo714 7mo ago

> Once diagnosed, many children receive Applied Behaviour Analysis (aba) Shameless plug but to see ABA data better, I built a site with the Observable Framework[1] that analyzes sessions at: https://behavior.today https://behavior.today [1] https://github.com/observablehq/framework https://github.com/observablehq/framework

amatecha 7mo ago
nice, that's genius. great idea!
- hbcondo714 7mo ago
  Thank you
cassianoleal 7mo ago
Forgive my ignorance, but isn't behavioural therapy considered abuse by many autistics?
- joquarky 7mo ago
  Yes. It's essentially conversation therapy.
  - cassianoleal 7mo ago
    I assume you made a typo and meant "conversion therapy". :) Thanks for confirming! Do you have any good resources about this?

Ferret7446 7mo ago

Wasn't autism care also one of the avenues for fraud recently highlighted in Minnesota et al?

ycombinator_acc 7mo ago

I'm seeing the opposite happening. The ability to focus to the point of obsession or find joy in boring repetitive tasks associated with autism helped before the rise of AI and automation. Now, interpersonal communication and creativity (not in the sense of art but a lack of rigidity in one's thinking) are far more valuable - the things people with autism famously lack.