To think more people do have autism nowadays?

Could it be because people are having children later in life?

There's actually an interesting move towards calling those who aren't neurotypical "neurodivergent" as we are all "neurodiverse" - you're right. Having said that, by diagnostic definition to have an ND diagnosis, it needs to be disabling. The question is whether the disability is social (the world designed for a different neurotype) or inherent (medical model, with the disability part of the diagnosis, irrespective of setting). Personally, I think it's both.

I had a couple of aunts and uncles beaten into submission in the 60s. They went on to have MH problems in adulthood and didn’t achieve what they were capable of. Very sad.

@perfectstorm

I love your post. So so right

More awareness but also the world is more challenging now. We have evolved to live in small communities but now live in a world where we are expected to interact with 100s of people, it’s noisy, information overload and pressure at school to not only comply but succeed. You can’t just do a basic job and plod along to retirement. Even low wage jobs require training, using tech, and require annual appraisal and continuous improvement. You can’t just ‘be’ anymore.

From my (fairly limited) research on it, there doesn't seem to be a conclusion of how or why yet, but just that there was an increased likelihood of autism in children born via section. I think the research on it is still heavily ongoing and relatively new, the % increase varies among different studies carried out but any I've read have shown an increase.

I do also think that authority has changed. If someone of my parents generation had acted how my son does, they would probably have been beaten quite severely at home and at school. If the terror of missing school is greater than the terror of going to school then you will get more compliance. Obviously not advocating that though!

I agree. Many adults now were beaten or neglected or disciplined/punished into submission, masking and internalising their distress/autistic behaviours as children. Nowadays it isn't so (rightly).

I actually think Neuro diverse is the wrong word for it because I think it'll end up with so many people having it that it won't be "divergent from the norm" at all.

Part of me thinks it must be on the rise, especially given how many kids in ds1 school have it. It seems almost everyone I speak to suspects their child is nd, but then my child is, so their friends are more likely to be similar.

I also think with ds2 that yes school avoidance might have been less in the past, but due to different conditions. Primary schools tended to be smaller and not multi form entry. Teachers had more say over what they taught and the curriculum had less boring grammar. Why on earth they were trying to teach expanded noun phrases to a child that couldn't read "the" I will never know.

I do also think that authority has changed. If someone of my parents generation had acted how my son does, they would probably have been beaten quite severely at home and at school. If the terror of missing school is greater than the terror of going to school then you will get more compliance. Obviously not advocating that though!

You don't get an autism diagnosis just because you struggle socially. It's a lot, lot more complex than that. ADOS and DISCO are standardised and must be MDT, and there is a detailed history.

I think there is real lack of understanding around the diagnostic criteria tbh.

I would also point out that the general public determine severity of a disability on how that person's disability affects those around them. Perhaps it might help to consider it differently, and think about how the disability affects the person, themselves?

Nobody is diagnosed with autism because they struggle to make eye contact and don't like loud noises, either. That's not a thing.

IMO, it’s the other way round. Women are misdiagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, when in fact their mental health problems are due to struggling their whole life, but especially through school with undiagnosed ADHD and/or autism.

Yes this! See also anxiety. My social awkwardness makes me very anxious (it was a lot worse when I was younger and struggling with masking). I am sure I don't actually have an anxiety disorder though I can imagine it might have been easy to misdiagnose me with one had I sought help earlier, when less was known about how ASD/ADHD presents in females.

In my unlearned opinion I think other mental health difficulties can be misdiagnosed as autism. Kids do seem to struggle with social stuff more and I have often wondered if there is a lack of free play with others going on. People are living more isolated lives and kids often only socialise in structured environments. I think the positive impacts of outdoor play and free play with mixed ages can not be underestimated and should be supported at a societal level.

There is such a variance in symptoms. The fact that someone can be non verbal and struggle with normal daily tasks and have high care needs is diagnosed with the same thing as someone who struggles to make eye contact and doesn't like loud noises doesn't really make sense to me.

But they are very random thoughts from my head with no basis in science.

When i was filling out my son's referral form i answered the question about ND traits in my family, and then suddenly had an "ooooooohhhhh" moment, i think modern day pressures highlight it more. My dad used to go for random hikes in his working day (he travelled around having meetings for his job) which nobody noticed/cared about and allowed him time to reset himself. I definitely didn't do spelling tests and maths hwk in Y1. (My dad actually got 0 qualifications but still landed a good job)

It's only in my 30s i have realised that my family are a ND, i thought everyone was like us!

I sometimes wonder if autism isn't more common partly because society has changed in ways that make autistic people more likely to be employed successfully. Historically, most work was physical and relied on strength and dexterity, and traditional social skills. Autistic people are far more likely than average to be hypermobile and dyspraxic. The hyper focus and pattern recognition strengths also more common with autistic people aren't as helpful for someone who has to do manual work - and monotropism, the inability to stay focused and diligent on things that bore you, isn't ideal in that labour market, either. But switch them to a world where IT skills and engineering are open to anyone who can learn, and you have high functioning autistic people who manage to survive (albeit with suffering and with a lot of anti-depressants) the horrors of school, find their niche at university, and then go on to work in specialised fields that value their skills. They then meet people who share their interests and values, double their earning capacity, and go on to have families - and autism is genetic, so two autistic people with more subtle presentations will more than likely have kids whose traits are clearer. It's also possible that non-autistic people with 'soft traits' are having kids together, and the genetics will combine to mean their kids are diagnosable.

I went to Cambridge. My husband was at Cambridge, too. Neither of us were diagnosed, though clearly both autistic. The same goes for many peers there - many of whom married contemporaries they started dating in those years. Of our college friends, I know of seven families who have autistic kids, and another my husband and I are quietly certain will have their kids diagnosed shortly. All of us have kids whose needs are markedly greater than our own, and impossible to miss. They aren't going under any radars. Given the number who married college contemporaries, that makes 12 people who were at university with us whose kids are at EHCP level autism. And those are just the ones with whom we're still in touch, whose kids are diagnosed already. There will, clearly, be many more.

In the past, a lot of autistic people would have been seen as weird and awkward and not marriageable. Some still are, of course. But you're a lot more likely to be seen as quirky and oddball but still able to find a partner in a world where your interests and skills carry a financial bonus, and that means you're likelier to have kids, too. The internet has also made it easier to meet those who share your interests, and also legitimised special interests and geek culture in a way that is new in its universality. And by definition, you're likelier to marry someone who shares your outlook and your interests, and/or your employer. So if we are indeed finding more and more couples with both parties autistic... is it really amazing that we are also finding more autistic people being born? And now diagnostic criteria are being honed, is it surprising that the greater numbers are also being accurately identified, too?

Autism is both strength and deficit. It's a disability, no question. My kids have a lot of associated physical and neurodevelopmental problems, and my son was supported too late and has the PTSD diagnosis to show for that. But they also have extraordinary IQs. My daughter's is 99.9th centile. Her NHS paediatrics reports list "extremely gifted" alongside her other, less positive key factors at the start of any reports. She was assessed as having a reading age of 19 yrs 11 months at 6, after being found in the reading tent at preschool polishing off The Enchanted Wood in her head - nobody had taught her to read, and that was how everyone found out she could. She's Matilda - also hyperlexic, and, for the record, 90% of hyperlexic kids are also autistic. And while most autistic kids aren't gifted, I know enough who are to believe that the overlap is undeniable. There's a (very brief) brilliant discussion on this by Andrew Solomon Autism is abnormality, but it persists in our gene pool because autistic people offer a different way of viewing the world that can, in some contexts, carry massive strengths and advantages. And in a world where those strengths are now monetised, I am not surprised that it is increasing. We're employable. We have value to capitalism. And we're marrying one another. As I joked to a friend, we're breeding a new master race of autistic kids.* You're welcome! Admittedly, my son can barely leave the house due to anxiety, but he's going great guns with the quadratic equation research while he's home.

*Probably worth contextualising this: my husband is Jewish, and the friend I was joking to is Muslim, of Iranian/Bangladeshi descent. We both have autistic kids and are both in EHCP appeals. Dark humour is a survival strategy.

I agree that the way our world is much busier and demanding now lhas contributed to the increase in ‘high functioning’ autism being diagnosed in children who might have managed better in the past.

I can see how much busier my DD’s life is compared to my 80s childhood - school seems more pressured, tv programmes are more fast-paced, events and activities are busier and more elaborate… Another poster has mentioned people having more routine lives in smaller communities, so had less to struggle with.

Parental age (fathers, I think) is a factor, and premature birth is also linked - more premature babies survive now compared to decades ago.

this definately

Life is far more stressful than it used to be, far busier, nosier and over stimulated. If you need to reach a threshold before you mentally fall over, that is occurring far earlier and in far greater numbers than it would have done in the past.

Plus there needs to be some really experienced people involved in the diagnosis, as developmental/behavioural conditions and neurodivergence can often present so similarly. With the brain being so plastic it can have some big crossovers, but the support needed for each is very different. Its a real bug bear of mine how specialist schools often lump the neurodivergent and the behavioural in together, which has no benefit and often retraumatises the former group. Its lazy assumptions, going by outward expression of behaviour only, rather than understanding what is driving the behaviour.

I think the challenge is that there are so many factors it's hard to separate them.

One big change over the past 20 or so years is the explosion of fertility treatments such as IVF etc. It will be a few years yet before there is any research into medium term effects and then many more years before longer term and intergeneration effects can be studied.

Regarding the increase in autism there is a hypothesis that as ND people are now more likely to get married and have children due to increased understanding and early interventions, and also to be attracted to other ND people the likelihood of their children having autism increases as the gene gets concentrated. It is more likely that all four grandparents will be ND.

Regarding c sections , I can only speak for myself, but I have two children with diagnosed autism, and they were both natural births.

I am fascinated by this as I have one child with ASD and ADHD and one neurotypical. I also had a very late (40s) diagnosis of ADHD myself and would likely have got an autism diagnosis if I'd pursued that too. I had just about managed all my life but was a terrible daydreamer at school, always losing stuff, horrendous time management and procrastination. I developed coping strategies for most of those but they've remained a struggle and I've always been very socially awkward which made me almost suicidally unhappy when I was younger. It would never have occurred to my parents in the 1980s that I might be autistic, they just said I was "hopeless" and that they despaired of me (nice).

I was also dyspraxic - my mum did take me to the doctor for that and I was diagnosed with hypermobility which I've later found is often comorbid with ASD. I've always struggled with maths. I can do it but my brain processes it very slowly and the numbers on the page don't always "sound" the actual numbers in my head at first. For example 7, 8 and 9 have the same number value in my head for a split second. I don't know if that makes sense. But I think that probably means Discalcula (spelling?), another comorbidity.

My son was absolutely hyperactive and exhausted me and his teachers at primary age. I probed whether something was "wrong" with him and kept being told he just had a lot of energy, many boys were like this and he would calm down. By the time he was at secondary he was being referred to as "disruptive" . I pushed harder and lo and behold he (eventually) ended up with a diagnosis. In the 1980s he would just have been written off as "disruptive", end of story.

So a lot of the less severe ASD is now being diagnosed which would previously have gone under the radar. I've realised that my dad almost certainly has ASD. He is very odd socially and traumatised by the idea of any change in routine or environment. He's got through life because my mum has dedicated her life to enabling him basically. He retired in his 50s when his work systems became computerised and he couldn't handle it.

So a lot of it will be just better diagnosis, better recognition of different symptoms especially at the less severe end of the spectrum, less stigma about neurodiversity etc.

But I'm interested to hear that there are also many more diagnoses at the more severe end and curious about why that is. I had heard about paternal age being a factor - my husband was 44 when our eldest was born (though he was even older when we had our NT child).

We live in the Thames Valley where there it's a notably higher than UK average of ASD diagnoses. The theory is that there it's a huge IT industry in the Thames Valley which is an industry that attracts many on the spectrum (hope I'm not causing offence, I don't mean to) who then find their life partners in the industry and have children, who are more likely to have a genetic propensity for ASD from both sides.

There will likely be many other factors though which aren't yet known or understood. When my son was little doctors were still saying autism wasn't genetic but the reverse is true now.

Sorry for all the waffle, my hyperfocus got the better of me!

@Devilsmommy and @Startinganew32 Here is a link to med research in the USA regarding a slight increase in risk with age. It looked at over 90,000 children. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7396152/

There’s is also fledgling research in to linking an increase due to maternal and paternal obesity being a risk factor. Research takes years and needs multiple studies.

DH was a science researcher though not medical, I have been involved with research as well again not medical but social science. But it means we feel more at ease picking apart data and drawing conclusions.

I am not diagnosed but clearly have many traits, I had hyperplexia, hypermobile joints, very black and white thinking, obsessive behaviour and hyper focussing. I was born much later than my siblings, my Mother was 41 some are 18 years older. Then my Mother remarried and had a child at 45, no traits like mine at all but a different Father. I became Interested about 30 years ago when I was sent on a course for assisting students with disabilities and I sat there thinking hang on I do XY and Z.

Online communities can find each other of all descriptions. Friends DS diagnosed with ASD met a girl online. In the past he would probably have remained single, its going quite well. My friend is hopeful.

There is probably a number of different factors, my son had a traumatic birth too he was back to back and delivered by ventouse ,he also has a rare chromosome disorder
This is controversial but I think communities that have a high level of interfamilial marriages play a part as any genetic condition, s will continue to be pased on through the generations

It’s a lot more visible now in schools because of the shut down of lots of sen schools and the push for inclusion. I went to a school for those with autism (and other ND issues) that school got shut down not long after I left and now the default is mainstream with parents having to fight for special schools which I’m not even sure are in the same county

It's the widening of the criteria. Like a pp wrote, it would have been people who're on the "severe" end that would have been diagnosed then as "ill". Those whose Autism is 'visible' or easier to notice.

Those who mask, therefore go unnoticed/those who some would say they have "mild autism"/those who some would call "high-functioning", etc would not have made the cut to be diagnosed. They may have been seen as a bit odd, eccentric, strange, weird, too quiet, too shy, too hyper, too disorganised, too rigid about things, etc but not have a "disorder" or condition to be diagnosed.

As the net has been cast wider (helpful for many), more have met the threshold and been diagnosed.

There are likely many factors but I wonder if the increase in children with very high needs with autism alongside a learning disability and/or physical disability is around better medical care and more children surviving difficult births.

My child had a traumatic birth and probably would have died had it not been for good medical care. He doesn’t have very high needs, but is in special school. He has the highest needs out of all the (undiagnosed) relatives in the wider family. I suspect his presentation is a mixture of genetics and oxygen deprivation at birth. His traumatic birth may partly have been caused by his physical differences (DCD, hypermobility) and he got semi-lucky in that he didn’t die but his birth wasn’t conpletely straight forward so he has some issues on top of the ‘mild’ autism seen in some family members.

I could be your mum! I don't think I'm autistic, but certainly neuro-diverse.
This thread has made me think about my school (1970s). I don't remember autism being talked about but there were two boys in my class who were a bit odd. One of them I can see now would be thought of as autistic. The other one thought he was a bus. He would make bus noises walking along, etc. When he was 16. ( I have since learnt that he DID fulfil his dream of becoming a bus driver! One happy man!) So neither of them were unable to function in the usual school, and they were just accepted as who they were, with their funny little quirks.