14 ms·

U.S. autism rate surges, CDC reports (1 in 68)

34 points by ndonnellan 13y ago

cbhl 13y ago
> “It could be that doctors are getting better at identifying these children, there could be a growing number of children with high intelligence [who are autistic], or it could be both,” she said. The article doesn't mention that the DSM-5 went into force last year. The criteria for diagnosing Autism has changed since the DSM-IV, and this could also explain the jump in diagnoses. (This is alluded to with the line "Milder forms, such as Asperger’s syndrome, are now considered to fall along the autism spectrum." -- The entry for "Asperger disorder" in the DSM-5 is now replaced with a pointer to see the entry for "Autism".)
- knewter 13y ago
  the numbers used in the report are from 2010
  - cbhl 13y ago
    Ah, indeed they are, so this "jump" predates the introduction of the DSM-V. My mistake. (wozniacki links to the original report in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496264)
  - fecak 13y ago
    The numbers are from children born in a specific year, as the CDC has done with the last few studies, and have increased in each of the studies by a significant margin.
- Steuard 13y ago
  Just came here to post the same quote. This particular article doesn't give any information that would clearly suggest an actual increase in incidence (rather than an increase in diagnosis).
- userbinator 13y ago
  Having seen a lot of very successful, but somewhat autistic people working in tech (probably Asperger's), it seems a little strange to be classifying it as a "disorder"...
  - Wohui 13y ago
    It's asperger's. You'll know if you meet someone with full-blown autism. They would never get into employment.
    - krenoten 13y ago
      The S in ASD stands for spectrum, as there is a diverse range of symptoms that may lead to an autism diagnosis. Many of these are not at odds with analytical or creative capacity. There's a gap between where aspergers tends to stopped being diagnosed and being unemployable, and it's not unidimensional.
      - Wohui 13y ago
        I understand the spectrum to be honest, but I think in trying to get the rest of the world to understand ASD, you can't start off too deep. In the article it seems autism is now interchangeable with ASD, so we're losing even a binary terminology.
    - fecak 13y ago
      That is incorrect. While many who are significantly impaired will be unemployable beyond the most menial jobs, many with autism can be employed even in high level positions that may not require skills the person may lack due to autism. QA testing may be a good example. Autism is a spectrum. It's not just Asperger's and wholly unemployable. There is lots of room in the middle.
      - rogert 13y ago
        Yes, but there's a significant percentage of people on the autism literally can not follow instructions, or cannot the focus to listen when spoken to, or cannot comprehend language. They require life long care, employable for small tasks perhaps, but not independent.
- mason240 13y ago
  You comment hit on something that has been bothering me lately. If in order to be informed I have to trawl through multiple news aggregators to find comments with primary sources and information closer to the source, weigh the potential bias of those commentors, analyze their citations, then what roles does journalism even serve? To me they seem to be nothing more than conversation starters, leaving individuals to spend hours a day doing the the legwork. Being the gatekeeper of national dialogue is an incredibility powerful platform, and I guess to me part of the tradeoff for them wielding that power is that they (at bare minimum) do the legwork of giving accurate information and a complete picture. I'm not saying I want journalists to do my thinking and analysis for me, but if they can't even accurately report basic information, what justifies their place in our society giving them that power? With all the anti-science conspiracies floating around about the "rise" in Autism, not giving the context of the updated DSM leading to a broader scope of the disorder, this goes from being harmless negligence to actual harm.
  - kenster07 13y ago
    I think it is worth pointing out that for the vast majority of people, there still a level of 'belief' required for the modern science, not unlike the religions of old. There are very few laypeople equipped to think critically about, let alone verify, most scientific theories. As a result, they have to take it on faith that the "priests" (in today's world, scientists) are correct.
    - trothoun 13y ago
      And even scientists can really only be be deeply familiar with the experimental basis for a few narrow fields of study. For all the rest, they too have to take it on faith.
  - sirmeowmeow 13y ago
    I think the problem is that it is up to the consumer to be discerning and reward sources who strive towards accuracy, while punishing bad sources with less attention. Since the other consumers of whatever news source you are using aren't sufficiently sensitive or discriminating, your news source will thus suffer.
- tdaltonc 13y ago
  Autism isn't my field. But the Autism epidemiologists I've spoken to all think that in addition to those two trends ((1) better coverage, and (2) Shifting diagnostic baseline) there is still a underlying increase in symptom frequency and severity.
  - XorNot 13y ago
    This is something I'd really want to see numbers on though, and not just a feeling, because those two issues are two of the biggest ways that humans - being poor statisticians - draw incorrect conclusions.
    - tdaltonc 13y ago
      Actually this is exactly the kind of thing that I humbly defer to experts on. A dataset and a few hours in R couldn't get you to the truth of this question. It would take me a couple of years to figure out for myself if there is an underlying increase in the rate. I'd have to talk to a lot of doctors, personally deliver the diagnostic exams, get a feel for why this or that measure might disagree, etc. If you go looking I'm sure that you could find datasets and papers that purport to prove any possible conclusion. There are people who have earnestly done those years of inquiry, and I'm inclined to trust them.
  - fecak 13y ago
    It has gone from 1:150 to 1:68 over about 10 years, and another study from last year (1) had the rate at 1:50. Saying that an increase this dramatic is based on changing diagnostic criteria and awareness seems disingenuous, and intended not to alarm the public. 1 http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/April-2013/CDC-Reports-1-in-50-American-Children-Diagnosed-wi.aspx http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/April-2013/CDC-Reports...
    - tdaltonc 13y ago
      The sort of academics I'm talking about don't think about whether or not they'll alarm the public. They don't think of the public as their audience. Thier audience is other academics, and all that they care about is making conservative conclusions based on data.
wozniacki 13y ago
Direct link to the CDC report : Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Children Aged 8 Years — Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, 11 Sites, United States, 2010 Surveillance Summaries March 28, 2014 / 63(SS02);1-21 http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6302a1.htm?s_cid=ss6302a1_w http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6302a1.htm?s_cid=...
md2be 13y ago
There is no "test" for autism, no blood market, no brain scan. What is the false positive number? This sounds like the diagnosis for "hysteria" in women 50 years ago .
- lallysingh 13y ago
  Two thoughts on this. Note that I'm not explicitly disagreeing to you, just responding. (1) No blood marker, no brain scan, true. But, it's something that does become evident in people later, so the test has later symptoms that it can be checked against for its error rate. (2) It could be "hysteria", but it's still people acting unusually (at least later in life). Perhaps it's something that's changed in the way we raise our kids, or environmental, or changes in prenatal/birth-giving/etc practice. Any way, it's a change in our population and is interesting enough to follow.
- kylebgorman 13y ago
  Autism spectrum disorder diagnosed using a standardized "observation" (the ADOS) and/or a highly structured parental interview (the ADI-R). There are peer-reviewed papers which report on the validity and reliability of these instruments.
- rogert 13y ago
  Perhaps at high-functioning end of the spectrum you can get plenty of misdiagnosis, but certainly for the bulk of autistic people you can tell that by the age of 3 when a child simply ignores everyone around them as if people around them don't exist, can't answer simple questions, can't express needs, that something is really wrong.
insuffi 13y ago
Well, how about not diagnosing your kid with autism just because he's an uncontrollable little bastard, just to justify your bad parenting?(This includes ADD, ADHD, ASD). That should bring the stat down. Qualifier: not all obviously, but it has certainly become a way to remove personal responsibility as a parent.
- thirsteh 13y ago
  Hopefully the CDC is a little more thorough than simply asking parents if their kids are autistic.
- salgernon 13y ago
  We seriously thought we were bad parents until a doctor we saw in passing said we should have my daughter evaluated This opened up options for medication and therapies that will help keep her from shooting up a daycare someday We hope - her tantrums are so bad the neighbors have called the police That's the worst part of ASD to me, and frankly one of the least talked about
- mchanson 13y ago
  That is a very ungenerous/unkind position that many folks take when they don't know WTF they are talking about.
  - insuffi 13y ago
    Right. Care to share the scientific details of how ASD/ADHD/ADD is classified, since you're such an expert? Abnormalities in a kid do not instantly indicate a disorder. Yet doctors are quick to prescribe adderall to the first person that comes in their office and claims they have "trouble concentrating".
    - indiv0 13y ago
      Overprescription is of course a serious problem in the developed world, but that doesn't mean that doctors are using autism as a catch-all diagnosis. There are specific, medical criteria which need to be met for a diagnosis, and these criteria are outlined in the DSM V [1]. These are the details on how the disorders are classified, since you asked. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-5#Neurodevelopmental_disorders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-5#Neurodevelopmental_disor...
voidlogic 13y ago
>>1 in 68 I would like to see a geographic distribution heat map? Does anyone know of one?
- fecak 13y ago
  This particular study focused only on a handful of states. The data is here. http://www.cdc.gov/features/dsautismdata/ http://www.cdc.gov/features/dsautismdata/
Nitramp 13y ago
I'm weary of diagnosing behaviour that used to be considered within the norm, though maybe at the edge, as a medical condition. Asperger's has no clear measurable part to diagnose, it is not treatable per se, and its symptoms are all within the normal spectrum of human behaviour. There's nothing wrong with saying that a particular kid might need more support, but I wonder where it leads society if all not entirely within the norm behaviours start to be classified and handled as medical problems.
- XorNot 13y ago
  Studying academic outcomes would be a worthwhile goal here. But that's a 20 year goal - i.e. does the jump in diagnoses correlate with serious conditions, or are we looking at problems which might simply blur out had they not been diagnosed (perhaps with the offset that academic performance improves because we focus our efforts for people who are diagnosed vs not).
ausjke 13y ago
I read somewhere Silicon Valley has the highest Autism rate, it's likely high IQ gene made a difference too? Speaking from experience, early intervention is extremely effective.
- kylebgorman 13y ago
  What makes you think higher average IQ is associated with autism? (Rain Man doesn't count.) The state with the highest reported rate of autism spectrum disorder is Utah, followed by New Jersey. The states with the lowest reported rates are in the Deep South (which is probably more about access to healthcare than actual prevalence). Edit: added "average"
  - fecak 13y ago
    The rates you are quoting (assuming you are using the study the 1:68 came from) are from a single study that didn't account for all 50 states. It was less than 20 states.
    - kylebgorman 13y ago
      I was quoting from earlier CDC reports. No study has looked at all 50 states to my knowledge (though tell me if you know of one), and even between participating states there are irregularities due to what kinds of records the CDC has access to.
Spooky23 13y ago
Autism is the new ADHD. If 1 and 70 kids have a disorder that wasn't a thing 20 years ago, something is wrong. I had some speech issues when I was a kid that led to shyness and difficulty making friends until I got a bit older. I'm sure that I would have been classified in the spectrum on today's standards. It's a hot diagnosis.
- kylebgorman 13y ago
  Not a psychiatrist, just a researcher, but you can't get a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder without a second cluster of symptoms related to repetitive behaviors and restricted interests. Shyness and speech/language problems not enough. (It is understood that many children with specific language impairment, a separate condition, have problems with socialization early on.)
middleclick 13y ago
Oh boy. My fear is how anti-vaxxers will use this news.
- kylebgorman 13y ago
  Were anti-vaxxers bound by the rules of valid inference, this would be a problem for anti-vax. Thimerosal, the compound supposedly responsible for the vaccine/autism link, has been phased out in the west but incidence rates continue to increase.
mrcactu5 13y ago
could this be just a shift in how we measure and disagnose behaviors which lie outside the norm? not long ago this behavior was not tolerated at all, and an autism diagnosis was undesirable. now we have more resources to identify and tolerate a broad range of behaviors probably autism has not grown - it is as high (or low) as it has ever been. maybe we can identify autistic behaviors in figure of the past; maybe our own relatives.
thezach 13y ago
As someone who comes from the "gifted side" of the Autism Spectrum, its not that great. Having a brilliant mind is a great gift - but to be honest I would rather be of normal intelligence and be able to better understand how to be social than anything. Whats a brilliant mind going to do for you if your alone? Humans, even autistic ones are social creatures and require social interaction. I do also agree with other posters that Autism diagnosis are on the rise due to a higher push for screenings of children, and awareness of autism. However I do think it still is possibly on the rise. Aspergers is now Autism. I'm mixed on this, as even Aspergers has a spectrum. I've seen people with Aspergers that are near normal functioning, and those that are completley fixated on Star Trek to the point thats all they care about. I've also seen non verbal classic autistics hold down employment in a competitive employment atmosphere. The aspergers vs classic autistic has nothing to do with functioning level, it has to do with verbal delay (or it used to - its now the same).
fecak 13y ago
The scary part to me is how the CDC chose to frame the new data. They put up a "10 things to know" (1) list to distill the data for the media and readers uninterested in looking at the full study. One item in the top 10 highlights that 46% of these kids have average or above average IQ. What the CDC doesn't highlight in the top 10 is the 31% that are below! and the 23% that are 'borderline'. The glass half full (not even half) optimism dismisses the large amount of these kids who have a very serious condition. Kids that cannot speak, that wander and die, that will require lifelong treatment. Why does the CDC choose to highlight the minority with a future and not the majority that face a rough road ahead? The second issue with the Top 10 is that it only alludes to better diagnosis and awareness as a possibility for increases. It doesn't mention any other possibilities, although most in the community are aware of well-publicized studies pointing to environmental conditions that show connection. (2) 1 http://www.cdc.gov/features/dsautismdata/ http://www.cdc.gov/features/dsautismdata/ 2 http://time.com/25424/growing-evidence-that-autism-is-linked-to-pollution/ http://time.com/25424/growing-evidence-that-autism-is-linked...

34 points by ndonnellan 13y ago

cbhl 13y ago

> “It could be that doctors are getting better at identifying these children, there could be a growing number of children with high intelligence [who are autistic], or it could be both,” she said. The article doesn't mention that the DSM-5 went into force last year. The criteria for diagnosing Autism has changed since the DSM-IV, and this could also explain the jump in diagnoses. (This is alluded to with the line "Milder forms, such as Asperger’s syndrome, are now considered to fall along the autism spectrum." -- The entry for "Asperger disorder" in the DSM-5 is now replaced with a pointer to see the entry for "Autism".)

knewter 13y ago
the numbers used in the report are from 2010
- cbhl 13y ago
  Ah, indeed they are, so this "jump" predates the introduction of the DSM-V. My mistake. (wozniacki links to the original report in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496264)
- fecak 13y ago
  The numbers are from children born in a specific year, as the CDC has done with the last few studies, and have increased in each of the studies by a significant margin.
Steuard 13y ago
Just came here to post the same quote. This particular article doesn't give any information that would clearly suggest an actual increase in incidence (rather than an increase in diagnosis).
userbinator 13y ago
Having seen a lot of very successful, but somewhat autistic people working in tech (probably Asperger's), it seems a little strange to be classifying it as a "disorder"...
- Wohui 13y ago
  It's asperger's. You'll know if you meet someone with full-blown autism. They would never get into employment.
  - krenoten 13y ago
    The S in ASD stands for spectrum, as there is a diverse range of symptoms that may lead to an autism diagnosis. Many of these are not at odds with analytical or creative capacity. There's a gap between where aspergers tends to stopped being diagnosed and being unemployable, and it's not unidimensional.
    - Wohui 13y ago
      I understand the spectrum to be honest, but I think in trying to get the rest of the world to understand ASD, you can't start off too deep. In the article it seems autism is now interchangeable with ASD, so we're losing even a binary terminology.
  - fecak 13y ago
    That is incorrect. While many who are significantly impaired will be unemployable beyond the most menial jobs, many with autism can be employed even in high level positions that may not require skills the person may lack due to autism. QA testing may be a good example. Autism is a spectrum. It's not just Asperger's and wholly unemployable. There is lots of room in the middle.
    - rogert 13y ago
      Yes, but there's a significant percentage of people on the autism literally can not follow instructions, or cannot the focus to listen when spoken to, or cannot comprehend language. They require life long care, employable for small tasks perhaps, but not independent.
mason240 13y ago
You comment hit on something that has been bothering me lately. If in order to be informed I have to trawl through multiple news aggregators to find comments with primary sources and information closer to the source, weigh the potential bias of those commentors, analyze their citations, then what roles does journalism even serve? To me they seem to be nothing more than conversation starters, leaving individuals to spend hours a day doing the the legwork. Being the gatekeeper of national dialogue is an incredibility powerful platform, and I guess to me part of the tradeoff for them wielding that power is that they (at bare minimum) do the legwork of giving accurate information and a complete picture. I'm not saying I want journalists to do my thinking and analysis for me, but if they can't even accurately report basic information, what justifies their place in our society giving them that power? With all the anti-science conspiracies floating around about the "rise" in Autism, not giving the context of the updated DSM leading to a broader scope of the disorder, this goes from being harmless negligence to actual harm.
- kenster07 13y ago
  I think it is worth pointing out that for the vast majority of people, there still a level of 'belief' required for the modern science, not unlike the religions of old. There are very few laypeople equipped to think critically about, let alone verify, most scientific theories. As a result, they have to take it on faith that the "priests" (in today's world, scientists) are correct.
  - trothoun 13y ago
    And even scientists can really only be be deeply familiar with the experimental basis for a few narrow fields of study. For all the rest, they too have to take it on faith.
- sirmeowmeow 13y ago
  I think the problem is that it is up to the consumer to be discerning and reward sources who strive towards accuracy, while punishing bad sources with less attention. Since the other consumers of whatever news source you are using aren't sufficiently sensitive or discriminating, your news source will thus suffer.
tdaltonc 13y ago
Autism isn't my field. But the Autism epidemiologists I've spoken to all think that in addition to those two trends ((1) better coverage, and (2) Shifting diagnostic baseline) there is still a underlying increase in symptom frequency and severity.
- XorNot 13y ago
  This is something I'd really want to see numbers on though, and not just a feeling, because those two issues are two of the biggest ways that humans - being poor statisticians - draw incorrect conclusions.
  - tdaltonc 13y ago
    Actually this is exactly the kind of thing that I humbly defer to experts on. A dataset and a few hours in R couldn't get you to the truth of this question. It would take me a couple of years to figure out for myself if there is an underlying increase in the rate. I'd have to talk to a lot of doctors, personally deliver the diagnostic exams, get a feel for why this or that measure might disagree, etc. If you go looking I'm sure that you could find datasets and papers that purport to prove any possible conclusion. There are people who have earnestly done those years of inquiry, and I'm inclined to trust them.
- fecak 13y ago
  It has gone from 1:150 to 1:68 over about 10 years, and another study from last year (1) had the rate at 1:50. Saying that an increase this dramatic is based on changing diagnostic criteria and awareness seems disingenuous, and intended not to alarm the public. 1 http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/April-2013/CDC-Reports-1-in-50-American-Children-Diagnosed-wi.aspx http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/April-2013/CDC-Reports...
  - tdaltonc 13y ago
    The sort of academics I'm talking about don't think about whether or not they'll alarm the public. They don't think of the public as their audience. Thier audience is other academics, and all that they care about is making conservative conclusions based on data.

wozniacki 13y ago

Direct link to the CDC report : Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Children Aged 8 Years — Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, 11 Sites, United States, 2010 Surveillance Summaries March 28, 2014 / 63(SS02);1-21 http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6302a1.htm?s_cid=ss6302a1_w http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6302a1.htm?s_cid=...

md2be 13y ago

There is no "test" for autism, no blood market, no brain scan. What is the false positive number? This sounds like the diagnosis for "hysteria" in women 50 years ago .

lallysingh 13y ago
Two thoughts on this. Note that I'm not explicitly disagreeing to you, just responding. (1) No blood marker, no brain scan, true. But, it's something that does become evident in people later, so the test has later symptoms that it can be checked against for its error rate. (2) It could be "hysteria", but it's still people acting unusually (at least later in life). Perhaps it's something that's changed in the way we raise our kids, or environmental, or changes in prenatal/birth-giving/etc practice. Any way, it's a change in our population and is interesting enough to follow.
kylebgorman 13y ago
Autism spectrum disorder diagnosed using a standardized "observation" (the ADOS) and/or a highly structured parental interview (the ADI-R). There are peer-reviewed papers which report on the validity and reliability of these instruments.
rogert 13y ago
Perhaps at high-functioning end of the spectrum you can get plenty of misdiagnosis, but certainly for the bulk of autistic people you can tell that by the age of 3 when a child simply ignores everyone around them as if people around them don't exist, can't answer simple questions, can't express needs, that something is really wrong.

insuffi 13y ago

Well, how about not diagnosing your kid with autism just because he's an uncontrollable little bastard, just to justify your bad parenting?(This includes ADD, ADHD, ASD). That should bring the stat down. Qualifier: not all obviously, but it has certainly become a way to remove personal responsibility as a parent.

thirsteh 13y ago
Hopefully the CDC is a little more thorough than simply asking parents if their kids are autistic.
salgernon 13y ago
We seriously thought we were bad parents until a doctor we saw in passing said we should have my daughter evaluated This opened up options for medication and therapies that will help keep her from shooting up a daycare someday We hope - her tantrums are so bad the neighbors have called the police That's the worst part of ASD to me, and frankly one of the least talked about
mchanson 13y ago
That is a very ungenerous/unkind position that many folks take when they don't know WTF they are talking about.
- insuffi 13y ago
  Right. Care to share the scientific details of how ASD/ADHD/ADD is classified, since you're such an expert? Abnormalities in a kid do not instantly indicate a disorder. Yet doctors are quick to prescribe adderall to the first person that comes in their office and claims they have "trouble concentrating".
  - indiv0 13y ago
    Overprescription is of course a serious problem in the developed world, but that doesn't mean that doctors are using autism as a catch-all diagnosis. There are specific, medical criteria which need to be met for a diagnosis, and these criteria are outlined in the DSM V [1]. These are the details on how the disorders are classified, since you asked. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-5#Neurodevelopmental_disorders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-5#Neurodevelopmental_disor...

voidlogic 13y ago

>>1 in 68 I would like to see a geographic distribution heat map? Does anyone know of one?

fecak 13y ago
This particular study focused only on a handful of states. The data is here. http://www.cdc.gov/features/dsautismdata/ http://www.cdc.gov/features/dsautismdata/

Nitramp 13y ago

I'm weary of diagnosing behaviour that used to be considered within the norm, though maybe at the edge, as a medical condition. Asperger's has no clear measurable part to diagnose, it is not treatable per se, and its symptoms are all within the normal spectrum of human behaviour. There's nothing wrong with saying that a particular kid might need more support, but I wonder where it leads society if all not entirely within the norm behaviours start to be classified and handled as medical problems.

XorNot 13y ago
Studying academic outcomes would be a worthwhile goal here. But that's a 20 year goal - i.e. does the jump in diagnoses correlate with serious conditions, or are we looking at problems which might simply blur out had they not been diagnosed (perhaps with the offset that academic performance improves because we focus our efforts for people who are diagnosed vs not).

ausjke 13y ago

I read somewhere Silicon Valley has the highest Autism rate, it's likely high IQ gene made a difference too? Speaking from experience, early intervention is extremely effective.

kylebgorman 13y ago
What makes you think higher average IQ is associated with autism? (Rain Man doesn't count.) The state with the highest reported rate of autism spectrum disorder is Utah, followed by New Jersey. The states with the lowest reported rates are in the Deep South (which is probably more about access to healthcare than actual prevalence). Edit: added "average"
- fecak 13y ago
  The rates you are quoting (assuming you are using the study the 1:68 came from) are from a single study that didn't account for all 50 states. It was less than 20 states.
  - kylebgorman 13y ago
    I was quoting from earlier CDC reports. No study has looked at all 50 states to my knowledge (though tell me if you know of one), and even between participating states there are irregularities due to what kinds of records the CDC has access to.

Spooky23 13y ago

Autism is the new ADHD. If 1 and 70 kids have a disorder that wasn't a thing 20 years ago, something is wrong. I had some speech issues when I was a kid that led to shyness and difficulty making friends until I got a bit older. I'm sure that I would have been classified in the spectrum on today's standards. It's a hot diagnosis.

kylebgorman 13y ago
Not a psychiatrist, just a researcher, but you can't get a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder without a second cluster of symptoms related to repetitive behaviors and restricted interests. Shyness and speech/language problems not enough. (It is understood that many children with specific language impairment, a separate condition, have problems with socialization early on.)

middleclick 13y ago

Oh boy. My fear is how anti-vaxxers will use this news.

kylebgorman 13y ago
Were anti-vaxxers bound by the rules of valid inference, this would be a problem for anti-vax. Thimerosal, the compound supposedly responsible for the vaccine/autism link, has been phased out in the west but incidence rates continue to increase.

mrcactu5 13y ago

could this be just a shift in how we measure and disagnose behaviors which lie outside the norm? not long ago this behavior was not tolerated at all, and an autism diagnosis was undesirable. now we have more resources to identify and tolerate a broad range of behaviors probably autism has not grown - it is as high (or low) as it has ever been. maybe we can identify autistic behaviors in figure of the past; maybe our own relatives.

thezach 13y ago

As someone who comes from the "gifted side" of the Autism Spectrum, its not that great. Having a brilliant mind is a great gift - but to be honest I would rather be of normal intelligence and be able to better understand how to be social than anything. Whats a brilliant mind going to do for you if your alone? Humans, even autistic ones are social creatures and require social interaction. I do also agree with other posters that Autism diagnosis are on the rise due to a higher push for screenings of children, and awareness of autism. However I do think it still is possibly on the rise. Aspergers is now Autism. I'm mixed on this, as even Aspergers has a spectrum. I've seen people with Aspergers that are near normal functioning, and those that are completley fixated on Star Trek to the point thats all they care about. I've also seen non verbal classic autistics hold down employment in a competitive employment atmosphere. The aspergers vs classic autistic has nothing to do with functioning level, it has to do with verbal delay (or it used to - its now the same).

fecak 13y ago

The scary part to me is how the CDC chose to frame the new data. They put up a "10 things to know" (1) list to distill the data for the media and readers uninterested in looking at the full study. One item in the top 10 highlights that 46% of these kids have average or above average IQ. What the CDC doesn't highlight in the top 10 is the 31% that are below! and the 23% that are 'borderline'. The glass half full (not even half) optimism dismisses the large amount of these kids who have a very serious condition. Kids that cannot speak, that wander and die, that will require lifelong treatment. Why does the CDC choose to highlight the minority with a future and not the majority that face a rough road ahead? The second issue with the Top 10 is that it only alludes to better diagnosis and awareness as a possibility for increases. It doesn't mention any other possibilities, although most in the community are aware of well-publicized studies pointing to environmental conditions that show connection. (2) 1 http://www.cdc.gov/features/dsautismdata/ http://www.cdc.gov/features/dsautismdata/ 2 http://time.com/25424/growing-evidence-that-autism-is-linked-to-pollution/ http://time.com/25424/growing-evidence-that-autism-is-linked...