To think more people do have autism nowadays?

It’s talking about the functioning of autistic children being improved with older fathers. You could infer that it’s due to the severity of the autism the child had, ie older fathers produce children with less severe autism (which is somewhat counter-intuitive if older fathers are more likely to produce autistic children) but there is also the possibility that older, more settled parents, are able to provide an better environment, stimulation, resources etc so an autistic child in their care can achieve higher levels of functioning. They mentioned Vineland. That covers everything from getting dressed to socialising.

Yes I agree with this. My son too is severe. He isn't a bit quirky. I was shocked that we needed to go to panel to agree to specialist in the first place.

@Bedbugdilemma

I got asked about the birth at my duaghters diagnosis and wasn't sure why that was. Whether to rule out other considtions or if they're seeing a link?

We want to see if there were any drugs/alcohol used during pregnancy (for eg FASD), traumatic birth (eg lack of oxygen), and then consider parental bonding (eg attachment). So looking more for differentials rather than links (as this information is rarely used for research).

Can't read these at the moment but definitely will later. Thanks for that 🙂

My 3 kids are in their 20s and all NHS late diagnosed at secondary/ uni with both adhd and ASC. My dd has 2 friends from the same reception class who are also now diagnosed. None were picked up in pre school or reception or even primary school even though I’m pretty sure better informed teachers would pick them up now. Knowledge has improved within the NHS and education. All have struggled massively.

Advancing Paternal Age and Autism | Autism Spectrum Disorders | JAMA Psychiatry | JAMA Network

Advancing paternal age and risk of autism: new evidence from a population-based study and a meta-analysis of epidemiological studies | Molecular Psychiatry (nature.com)

Advancing Maternal Age Is Associated With Increasing Risk for Autism: A Review and Meta-Analysis - Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (jaacap.org)

I agree that it's down to improved awareness and recognition.

I'm positive my DF was ND, along with one of his brothers. I'm on the waiting list for assessment.

One of my late DP's nieces is diagnosed ND. MIL was most indignant, "We've never had anything like that in this family", as though it's something shameful, but the girl's father, DP's brother, has loads of things about him that are consistent with being ND, as did their father. His other daughter is diagnosed EUPD, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if she was actually ND (it's not uncommon for ND to be misdiagnosed as EUPD in girls).

My DIL was working as an STLA, then an ELSA. She reckoned that around a third of the kids in that school were probably ND, but only around 10-15% diagnosed.

Yep, precisely. And correlation obviously isn’t the same as causation.

it reminds me of the maternal obesity discussion. There seems to be a correlation between maternal obesity and neurodevelopmental disorders (which does include autism). One might therefore want to conclude that maternal obesity causes autism.
But individuals with autism and adhd are also more likely to experience obesity / autism and ADHD seem to be risk factors for obesity.

And seeing as ADHD and autism tend to run in families genetics are assumed to be relevant.

A mother with autism is therefore quite likely to also have children with autism. And she is also likelier to experience obesity than a neurotypical mother would be. But that doesn’t mean that obesity causes autism.

inflammation and air pollution (during pregnancy) are also discussed, btw.

=> There is a lot of uncertainty. And we really don’t know…

There is a correlation between difficult births and autism.

One theory is that autistic babies can find it harder to get into the optimum birthing position during labour causing more complications with EMCS or assisted births being the outcome.
This one sticks with me as I ended up with a long back to back labour resulting in EMCS with autistic, dyspraxic DS1.

Then again both my labours were back to back (the other was a fairly brutal forceps delivery, and DS2 is dyslexic) but an unrelated factor was my SPD making it very difficult to be mobile in late pregnancy and labour. 🤷‍♀️

DS1 would probably still struggle to find his way out of a birth canal without incident though 😂

I wonder if there is some element of misdiagnosis of mental health issues in very young children, particularly following covid lockdowns.

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.

Also possibly because if intervention is early and good quality autistic children don’t fall behind in many areas of development like they might if undiagnosed because they are being taught/getting experiences in ways that work for them, which means there then isn’t a knock on affect on other areas of development. In addition if it’s done in a positive way and they aren’t shamed or made to feel like they are worth less than everyone else then their self esteem will stay high. Whilst there will always be some differences they have learned enough to be able to ‘pass’ eg an ADOS assessment.

I’m not sure if I believe that that is possible, I suspect it is more that unsafe diagnoses are being made at too young an age.

But many of us getting diagnosed were born in the 60s, 70s, 80s etc and women plan so much better for pregnancy now. They have to with the cost of living. Information re drinking during pregnancy is everywhere and alcohol is soooo expensive. As a population women are not merrily getting pregnant and drinking heavily. It’s also v hard to get pregnant unawares now a days. 🤔

I think about this a lot. We're very lucky in that we are able to give my son a fairly chilled home life. He goes to school for 8.45 and is home at 3.30. He has no clubs in the week and a 30 min 1-1 swim lesson on a Sunday with a Sen instructor. Before starting school last month he was at a local park nursery 2.5 days a week, with me 1.5 days and with my parents 1 day a week.

We live near my parents and they really "get" him and he adores them. We know he doesn't cope well with loud, busy places so we do stuff like parks, woods, beach. Soft play and supermarkets at "quiet times". At home we bake, build Duplo, do endless Playmobil set ups where we know he already has it all mapped out in his head, right down to which figure always wears the red back pack etc.

He's actually doing really well in school so far, he thrives on the routine and structure. He's very anxious, but they are being amazing at supporting him and building his confidence. I dread to think how he'd be if he had to be in school 10 hours a day or had to rush around to different places every evening. I genuinely don't think he'd cope, but if we had less flexible jobs and/or no support network, what choice would we have?

There has been an enormous increase in numbers of children with, or going through diagnosis. We have 11 children with a diagnosis of ASC in our 2 form Reception this year. There are over 50 children across the rest of the school with a diagnosis. I've been teaching for over 25 years and the number of children with ASC is increasing every year.

My son is severely autistic, he's 14 non verbal etc
We have four special school, s in my LEA two primary ,one of those caters for children who moderate to severe learning disabilities, most kids also have autism
The second primary school caters forc kids with severe to profound learning disabilities most also have autism
The two secondary schools are the same
All four school have doubled in capacity over the past 10/15:years .

I think mostly they were seen as quiet. Loners. Essentric

Maybe they went on to manual or creative jobs.

My builder clearly has adhd. Doesn't stop chatting. Was a really naughty kid left school at 14 but Now running a business and doing well at it. I Bet He would
Burn out if he were at school now as our schools are
Too one size fits all Rigid

People are not all one size. Never have been

im very late diagnosed ADHD. I don’t think that people were even aware of this when I was at school. I was just a massive underachiever and unhappy and lonely. My father most likely had it.

I wonder if there is some element of misdiagnosis of mental health issues in very young children, particularly following covid lockdowns.

there is also an epidemic of fetal alcohol syndrome, which causes huge issues to the children affected and is very hard to diagnose. It’s often associated with mothers drinking throughout pregnancy which is a taboo but actually, there’s very little research and binge drinking is really common in the generation that’s child bearing age.

Thanks for that, though it seems to be saying that it's not a definite thing at all. I guess more research is being carried out as we speak and that may be clearer. Appreciate the link🙂

Yes this. It’s the rapid increase in severe/profound ASD that really stands out.

It’s fairly complicated, afaik. There is some data that seems to suggest that advanced parental age may be a risk factor IIRC.

there‘s also research suggesting that the „factor“ of paternal age be dependant on a child’s familial risk factor IIRC.

edit:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724463/

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7396152/

There’s evidence that the father’s age may be a factor, but it’s also possible that he’s ND himself, hence being single for longer than younger men

Also, possible that the mum and dad are both ND, and meeting each other online and having children, whereas in previous generations, they might not have had the social skills to form relationships and have children.
So they are quite likely to have children who are autistic, increasing the number of children with autism

Obviously better diagnosis and understanding, and more likely to be seen in mainstream rather than being kept away from society

I agree. I've been a primary school teacher for a long time. Children with very clear additional needs used to be few and far between in mainstream schools but in my one-form entry school for the past five years we have had at least one profoundly autistic child start in Reception class, plus two or three others who have very strong traits and are quickly referred for assessment. There are barely any special school places available, partly due to funding issues but also it seems to increased prevalence. We have a special school in the town where I work which has been here for decades but now does not have sufficient space for children who need it.

And that's only those with the most obvious/profound needs. As you go further up the school you start to notice those who are better at masking.

I agree that modern schooling has made a difference. I think how low demand school was for me in the 1980s.
I know going into year 7 now is a crisis point for a lot of children.
I would also say out of school as well, there was a huge amount of downtime. There was much more time to allow yourself to learn to manage. There was little pressure to do things, I hardly knew anyone who did any activities outside school, just brownies etc.

My mum worked with disabled children in the 1980s. I now realise lots of them were autistic but it wasn’t called that. Also none of them went to school, just home and respite centres for activities.

This is a really interesting thread. I'm a Physics teacher, and I've definitely noticed an increase in children with autism in my classes in the last 10 years. (I teach 14 to 18 years old.)