Why do you think autism is more often diagnosed in the last decade?

Frank

New member
Nobody is sure, and it is most likely a combination of factors:1. Better detection and reporting2. Increased incidence due to environmental factors3. Increased incidence due to people with autism having better chances of reproducing (hello, Silicon Valley)
 

Lauren

New member
Because doctors have gotten lazy and lost their sense of intuition and knowledge. They just label a child as autistic nowadays if they have only a few of the symptoms. They no longer do tests or anything. They just assume and think they're always right.
 

DMB fan

New member
OK, I'm sure a lot of people will not be happy with this response but I do not think it's because more people have autism lately in most cases.I think it's diagnosed more lately for two reasons: 1) We know more about it now and have much better doctors and 2) it's more popular now and it's the latest health craze/fad. A decade ago the big thing for people to get diagnosed with was ADD and ADHD. Because of the drugs used to help those illnesses like Ritalin for example and the fact that they can be addictive those illnesses became widely known and diagnosed.Right now it's popular for moms to whine and get a lot of attention and say, "My kid has autism." I'm NOT saying that all of those children don't have the illness, I actually have something called non-verbal learning disorder which is on the autism spectrum and is very similar so I'm not saying that all people diagnosed with autism are faking but I am saying that many people are getting mis-diagnosed with it because many children have some of those symptoms even when they're completely healthy. No offense, but some of those kids are just brats in need of discipline and some parents have nothing better to do with their lives than get sympathy and government assistance for something their child doesn't even have.This is just my opinion.
 

undir

New member
I think the main reason is that there is a lot more knowledge and awareness about autism now than before.Autism is a rather young diagnosis, not because autism didn't exist before or was less common, but because it wasn't recognized and diagnosed the same way it is today.People with all kinds of developmental disorders and various mental disabilities used to be lumped together into one group and thought of as imbeciles or thought to be possessed by demons. They were hid away somewhere in institutions and were not visible in society. Nowadays there is a lot more knowledge about those disorders, so they are being diagnosed more accurately as separate disorders and they are being treated and accommodated. People who have them are being included in general society more than before and have therefore become more visible. A lot has changed in just a few decades.There is also a lot more public awareness of autism now than before, so people are more likely to know what autism is, recognize some of the signs and seek diagnosis and help if they suspect that they or their children may have it. It is also not a taboo anymore or something that people try to hide in shame.A lot of people who are adults today are undiagnosed or have only recently been diagnosed, because autism was little known when they were growing up and they were therefore never diagnosed or they were misdiagnosed with something else.I doubt that autism is really on the rise as much as people think it is. I think the increase seen in the statistics can mostly be explained by increased knowledge and awareness and more accurate diagnosis.I'm 28 years old and have a mild form of autism myself. I wasn't diagnosed with it until I was in my twenties, but the symptoms were there my whole life, just unrecognized due to limited knowledge/awareness about autism spectrum disorders.
 

Heidi

New member
All of us over 40 know that autism did NOT exist when we were in our childhood, and neither did ADHD. There was absolutely not one kid who was hyper at all or even that was a behavior problem until the 1980's. All kids in kindergarten took naps without any problems. The biggest thing kids did wrong at school was whisper. When the 1980's came along, hyperness started evolving. By the 1990's, severe hyperness mixed with uncoordination and speech problems were appearing. By 2000, we had all kinds of kids with mood swings, and all kinds of behavior problems what were obviously out of the control of the child, in that he was biologically too amiss to act like the neural-typical crowd. And that's the bottom line. I moved every year in my childhood, so this applies to states throughout the U.S., not just one area. Seeing is knowing.
 
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