Your Opinion Requested: Is Autism On the Rise Because It's "Socially Acceptable?"
Here's a snippet from the article:
A few decades ago, people probably would have said kids like Ryan Massey and Eddie Scheuplein were just odd. Or difficult.Many parents say that teachers really are seeing more and more problems in their classrooms... that one should just ask a teacher to get a better perspective on how prevalent autism has become in just a few years. Yet here's Education Week magazine saying, in essence, just the opposite.Both boys are bright. Ryan, 11, is hyper and prone to angry outbursts, sometimes trying to strangle another kid in his class who annoys him. Eddie, 7, has a strange habit of sticking his shirt in his mouth and sucking on it.
Both were diagnosed with a form of autism. And it's partly because of children like them that autism appears to be skyrocketing: In the latest estimate, as many as one in 150 children have some form of this disorder. Groups advocating more research money call autism "the fastest-growing developmental disability in the United States."
Doctors are concerned there are even more cases out there, unrecognized: The American Academy of Pediatrics last week stressed the importance of screening every kid for autism by age 2.
Many experts believe these unsociable behaviors were just about as common 30 or 40 years ago. The recent explosion of cases appears to be mostly caused by a surge in special education services for autistic children, and by a corresponding shift in what doctors call autism.
What do you think? Is Education Week off base? Or are they reflecting reality?
NOTE TO READERS: This article did run in Education World along with many other publications. It was, however, written by Associated Press writer Mike Stobbe.
Comments
I think that the autism rate is on the rise due to more understanding about autism and to (in the US, at least) to a greater acknowledgement and acceptance of diversity—ethnic, race, gender, religious (in some parts of the country, perhaps); in this way, autism (along with other learning disabilities) has become “socially acceptable.” I also think we’re more like to say that a child is autistic than MR—-not because we have too great a tendency to use euphemisms, but because we understand that, while a child has cognitive struggles in one area, he can have strengths in others. I just put up a post about the article too—
Well, I think these people who do this study need to give their heads a shake…Autism is diagnosed because a child demonstrates very specific characteristics, and maybe they wouldn’t have been diagnosed with Autism 30-40 years ago because:
a) Autism was hardly heard of then
b) Kids who had such social issues like they described as well as just being diagnosed autistic were probably institutionalized…so society never really heard about them and their problems anyway
c) As understandings and names can be put to specific behavioural patterns, yes, more people with be diagnosed with autism than in the past…that’s a no-brainer!
d) it’s still not that easy to have your child diagnosed with Autism as those who haven’t a clue about it seem to think. I still hear stories today that mirror mine of 11 years ago of how difficult it was to get an autism diagnosis from parents with tears running down their face and looks of exhaustion on the faces because it was so difficult to have a doctor evaluate their child.
If “they” are insinuating that kids are being mis-diagnosed with autism just so funding can be recieved, perhaps that happens on occassion, just the same with other disabilities in the past…ADD/ADHD are classic fairly recent examples of that happening. That doesn’t mean that the huge jump in autism rates mean that ALL the kids who make that percentage hike jump like that are misdiagnosed…it does mean that we as a society are perhaps realizing that there is help available for these kids at an early age.
That’s my 10 cents worth anyway
Cheers
Caroline
I do think that better better understanding and awareness are leading to a BIT more BUT and it is a big BUT Caroline is right.
The “experts” have been explaining away the increase for years. In 1998 the CDC reported that autism INCLUDING PDD catagories was 1 in 500; recent figures state 1 in 150. That makes me gasp! If you go back further it is more
Why isn’t the media (who loves to sound alarms) doing investigative pieces on this? Why did the CDC come to our neighborhood and tell us that we were just randomly picked in our area? Then come to find out they visited almost everyone in our neighborhood. Was it because our child was recently diagnosed? Was it because we had neighbors with children who exhibited autistic characteristics?
(1) There is a larger population, so naturaly just by the odds the numbers will climb.
(2) These people were put away in institutions regularly not all that long ago, but they were still diagnosed, before they did that.Even if the diagnosis were wrong, the proportion of people in those institutions are not even close to being equal to what we are seeing today.
Many of these kids are not “just odd” as the reports of this false idea like to say. They are REAL KIDS with hefty, but somewhat teachable communication and behavior problems, like Hellen Keller, that if they continue to go undertreated….will turnout to have heartbreaking diasterous consequences, for families as well.We all are not in this for “just the money” If that were the case we would all be rich, instead of selling our houses to save our children.
(3)Our grandparents, parents and now our children are being exposed to things that were unheard of many years ago.
I often wonder about this generational connection. Would my great grandfather dusting potato crops by hand with lead pesticeds (for example) produce in his kid, a child who seems ok however, the following generations would show fragility to other things, shots/pesticides then be born with genetic errors etc.Then continued mutations. Are we looking to closely at the gene, generation gaps, and our testing of shots food additives just to weak?
(4) When you meet an autistic child, you can not miss them, usually.
Parents/family members would know what I mean.
I do not feel this issue is just people jumping on the “autism band wagon.”
Have you met anyone who WANTS thier child to BE AUTISTIC while they are pregnant?
Today we still see physcians unable to diagnose a needed case.We are still told ” Don’t worry mommy,Charlie is just a slow talker,” we are patted on the head and sent away.But we still have our concerns, something isn’t right, we usualy do not know WHAT.We are usualy not taking our kids to our doctors saying please diagnos him whith autism so we can get all the services we HEAR about on t.v.(But rarely ever really DO happen.)
(3) There IS a lack of RESPONSIBLE spending and training for the people who work with our kids.
It is not the growing numbers of kids ONLY ,that are driving up costs…it is people charging astronomical prices for needed services….$160 an hour for a consultant….Yes it IS BIG buisness, but so isn’t ANYTHING in this day and age in the medical field.
*******Articles like the one above are detremental to our children and families.*******************************
11 years ago there wasn’t even a tissue bank for autisism researchers,there were about three brains,yes three, that were being shared by scientists, most of whom did not give autism a second thought.
Back then they thought autism was 1 in 500.What people were not told was that no one was counting these kids there was no mandate on reporting them.Like many other things.
Much of what has been built in this community has been by family members affected by this devasting issue.
Devasting meaning,after 11 years we know what helps…we long to help our kids/families learn and grow and we CAN, but….the programs are overflowing, the waiting lists for evals are 6yrs and climbing,te school are unwilling to pay for training and programming, but will spend $10,000 and more to fight parents when requesting reasonable accomadations, and the medical cost is through the roof due to lack of insurance coverage(Don’t even get me rolling there.)
Again PARENTS/FAMILIES are selling the books, comminicating in support groups and sharing info on the net, to learn from EACHOTHER to help teach our kids (after all who else is in the trenches 24/7?) we always seem to be boomeranged back together in our quest to help our kids.
What else CAN a parent do, when their children NEED them. Everyone else seems to be to busy debating/arguing over things that really do not matter or help?
I don’t believe autism has come so far to be culturally acceptable- just more awareness out there. where at one time teachers thought all these kids had ADHD in the 1970’s & 80’s, and it’s hard to say if all those kids did in fact have ADHD. but now they’re just recognizing autism as well. In fact, I believe if autism wasn’t so publicly out there, these kids would still be thought of as ADHD in the classroom.
autism has always been prevalent- just misunderstood and improperly termed.
also, a child could be termed autism in school but that in itself is not a diagnoses. schools cannot diagnose medical conditions. the prevalence of autism should not be based on the educational system, and if they are, they should specify of which has an actual medical diagnoses. these same kids were in the school system years back, their IEP just wasn’t able to be termed autism and they had no educational evaluations for autism or sensory disorder’s. the educational department should go back 20 to 30, even 50 years and review IEP’s and sort through who had the wrong IEP, and see where these adults are now. ton’s of people aren’t even in the rate- only children are.
autism is not really the fastest-growing developmental disability, it’s the fastest most attention brought to it in record time.
you have to look beyond what you see today, and back to when you weren’t even looking at all.
autism doesn’t have an appearance- my kid looks just like any child- autism is about skills, abilities and a lack of, and behaviors. I have seen other disorder’s that mimic autism, so upon sight, it may not be autism at all.
I’ve heard many people say it can’t be better diagnosis because there’s an increase in lower functioning autism too. If you read older descriptions of childhood schizophrenia, a lot of those kids sound awfully autistic (although you have to strip away the interpretations to look directly at behavior). Childhood schizophrenia is estimated as affecting 1 out of 10,000 kids, whereas before it was a quite common diagnosis. To a lesser extent, mental retardation has undergone a similar change – used to be a sociable, odd kid with language delay would be just considered retarded, now they might be diagnosed autistic.
another interesting thought, is get a hold of any school districts reporting’s- compare yearly each percentage of IEP category from way back when- in comparison to the rates of autism as of today. the fluctuation is quite interesting. also, the educational department does not differentiate between high or low functioning autism- it’s plain autism. there’s actually no statistic rate of HF or LF rates. the very interesting thing about autism too is that if a child was diagnosed with severe autism, as they progress, their diagnosis changes. for those who have claim recovery, if their child still has an IEP, that child is still in that national educational count.
It would seem to me that the surge in special education services is more likely caused by the surge in autism diagnoses than the other way around.
And yet while the children are eligible for services, that doesn’t mean they are getting them or that they are readily available. How many parent have to beg for more than an hour of speech therapy each week or for some other educational need from their children’s schools?
Puzzle Pieces
it’s of course speculation, the rating system doesn’t count who has the medical diagnosis and who does not. just who has an IEP. I know many people who had the autism IEP prior to the medical diagnosis and my son is included. the school actually sometimes tells parents they wont need a medical diagnosis (most times for due process purposes, you do need the medical piece) but schools never tell ya that!