Is it ASD that frequently?

[EverybodyWakeUp]

And if so, why is this the case? It seems that in modern society we're heading towards so many diagnosis of ASD, that we might have to change our thinking and perhaps being neurotypical is not necessarily the norm?

Are there other things that explain traits/symptoms more accurately, like the way our society is, our education system, life pressures, etc?

I hope I am not offending, truly not my intention. I really want to understand more. I am a true supporter of diversity but I feel puzzled that some forms of ASD, say what used to be Aspergers, can be classed as a disability.

If my post offends it truly is because I haven't explained myself properly and I apologise in advance. Any good articles/websites/books on this would be welcome.

@EverybodyWakeUp

Diagnosis has gotten better that's the reason. The 'naughty' children in schools 90% of them were undiagnosed the other 10% had experienced adverse childhood experiences.

There is no longer Asperger's is part of the autistic spectrum, These individuals are classed as high functioning and although are usually very intelligent can have social and sensory processing difficulties meaning they need some adjustments in life to be able to cope and not suffer extreme isolation, mental health issues or be the opposite and be over friendly and vulnerable.

Statistics show that the influx in diagnosis is also adults getting diagnosed in 30's, 40's and 50's who have experienced significant issues that have lead to a diagnosis.

There is also research that shows a correlation between older parents and autism . A lot of parents are becoming parents at an older age due to costs or careers so this could have an impact.

ASD is more researched and there is more information than ever before so diagnosis is thank fully becoming earlier and earlier so the right support is in place for individuals.

I don't think your post is offensive. If everyone was like you and me and wanted to learn then there would be even more understanding.

"shit parenting"? Have we gone back some 50 years? And if it's shit parenting, why can you have 3 children and only one has ASD?

There's a huge difference in being quirky and being disabled by it. I really do wish that my issues with noise were just quirks. I've had it where there's been too much noise and I've not been able to talk at all. You really think that's a quirk?

What utter rubbish.
No, you don’t get a diagnosis of ASD for being “quirky”, autism is not because of bad parenting, and explaining to a genuinely autistic child that the world is noisy and won’t bend to their needs does not magically make them snap out of it and get on with things.
Its shocking that you have the nerve to write such things, knowing the square root of fuck all about autism, as you clearly do. Shameful.

I was "quirky" as a teen, but "pushed through", scripting and masking my way through life (albeit writing short stories about suicide).By the age of 22, I had a degree. I was also "slashing my arms" in a mental hospital. Almost thirty years later I got my diagnosis of ASD.
A few years before it would have been Aspergers.
I have never been able to work and receive publicly funded support workers for 10 hours a week to help with activities like food shopping, phone calls, communication etc. My visual processing is shot. Recently my medication has been adjusted to a level where I am no longer screaming and biting myself several times a week.
I am "high functioning".
I am disabled.
Why do people think they can judge?

@frozendaisy - Yes, that’s exactly how it works. If a child is quirky they “get a diagnosis”. How noble of you not to “get one” for you DC and to find such a clever way to deal with this yourself. The NHS could learn a lot from you. You sound like a far superior parent than most and your DC will probably have better mental health than most because you didn’t mollycoddle them.

You’ve smashed it. Thank you for sharing your experience.

I've always understood the autistic spectrum as being a range of features that, when combined, make up the autistic profile.

This is not a great analogy, but the light spectrum - it is a whole host of colours, all of which, when combined make light. You don't have mild or severe light, but you do need all of the colours in the spectrum to make it.

This is an outdated and ill informed opinion. Your comments are extremely offensive.

Don't even know where to start with this.

Do you really think that "helicopter shit parenting" leads to an autism diagnosis?

Do you know what getting a diagnosis entails?

Do you know that parents actually get sent on parenting courses to check it's not their "shit parenting" prior to assessment?

My ds has struggled since he was a baby, but due to the incompetence of the local nhs trust was not given a diagnosis and continued to struggle for 10 years despite repeated referrals from school.

It took a house move to a different area for him to be referred and assessed again. Then an 18 month wait, months of CBT counselling for him (and separate course for me to teach it to him) for anxiety which didn't work, at which point they decided to screen for ASD again.
Then I had to fill out a very in depth 38 page form. I was asked for his developmental history for about the 6th time.
More forms for me. Forms for the school.
Several appointments.

No-one is handing out diagnoses to "shit helicopter parents".

@ChristmasSpaniels

I must wholly agree with NearLifeExperirnce above re. frozendsisy 's post. That utter luck of empathy comes from a total lack of understanding. I would hope that she is at least willing to learn from this thread. One can hope! (and indeed that her DC is nothing more than ' 'quirky '. I hate that word BTW)

frozendaisy is right that there are finite health resources, sadly. However, that does not mean that people just stop suffering and get over their autism. What it does do to those who can is make them mask more frantically, pretend everything is fine.

The kicker is (just saying for those non autists who don't really get what masking is) that that destroys your mental health.

My DC knows from a very young age that the world "does not revolve around them". The result of us as their parents trying to get them 'desensitised' and 'get on with it' for several years has been a worsening of their MH issues. So I have anecdotal (but empirical) knowledge that 'just getting on with things' does a lot more harm than good. And frankly, because the 'anecdote' is my own child, I don't give a shit if uninformed ignoramuses think we are 'pandering' to them, as random idiot at a supermarket so helpfully put it to me once.

As for the OP, I don't think your are being offensive at all. It is a complex issue and it needs to be understood better.

Not only that, but the insinuation that autistic people are taking help away from those who genuinely need it (because autistic people don’t) is also extremely offensive. Even with a dx, any help is only given ‘as needed’ and on a case by case basis. And is often inadequate.
Horrific, ignorant and discriminatory post from @frozendaisy .

Christmas spaniels, thank you for the badly needed laugh! 😂

Completely agree with all this.

And I'm sure many, many parents of autistic children have probably tried in the early days, perhaps pre diagnosis, not "pandering" to them.

Well newsflash people, all that does is makes things TEN TIMES WORSE.

If a child is having a sensory meltdown and you leave them in that situation they will not just think "oh I'm not getting any attention I'll just stop", they will continue to get more and more distressed to the point that that they will either internalise or externalise their discomfort.
Internalising means they may not appear too different to the outside world but they will go home and be in absolute pieces, perhaps unable to talk for days, staying in their room, crying etc.
Externalising means they may cry, scream, lash out, throw things - none of which they can help.

Pretty sure I'd rather "pander" to my child than have any of that happen.

Two old myths about ASD making a new appearance here

''shit-parenting''/helicopter parenting - 1960's psychodynamic theories of 'refrigerator mothers' ie cold emotionally uninvolved causing ASD completely discredited donkey's years ago

'Aspergers assoc with very high intelligence'- in 1940s classical Kanner autism only diagnosed with LD, Hans Aspergers main contribution was identifying the same disorder in children with a normal IQ [over 70] not with high IQ scores

There's lots of research on this @BigScreen! Attachment disorders can look very similar to ASD, but the recommended methods of managing them are different.

If you are interested in this area and haven't already seen it, look up the Coventry Grid, which was developed in 2010 to look at the differences between the same "symptoms" in reactive attachment disorders versus autism spectrum disorders. I believe this is the original research article, and if you scroll about halfway down to Appendix 1 you find the grid. www.johnwhitwell.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/TheCoventryGrid_2010.pdf

Then there's the issue over how many children in care may ALSO have autism, and the extent to which their parents' and grandparents' difficulties in parenting were due to undiagnosed autism spectrum conditions - which may then have been followed by self-medicating (or self-sabotaging) with substances etc.

There's a 2018 update to the CG looking at PDA profiles and I think an interview template has also been developed.

Yes, the allegation of “pandering” is all too familiar as a parent too. Especially in controversial areas like screen time and days off school. We never limited screen time and we had “sanity days” as in if the DC simply said they couldn’t face school/were not up to it, then fine they don’t have to go in to school that day. No questions asked, no cajoling of “are you sure you can’t go in today?” Just a no worries got your back.

I do think that certain NT parenting “techniques” are actually abusive when applied to ND children. So not surprising that there is a higher incidence of childhood trauma in children with ASD.

Then there's the issue over how many children in care may ALSO have autism, and the extent to which their parents' and grandparents' difficulties in parenting were due to undiagnosed autism spectrum conditions - which may then have been followed by self-medicating (or self-sabotaging) with substances etc.

I find this so interesting as I suspect this has been the case for many people in the past.
ADHD can also be a trigger for addictive and impulsive behaviour.
There's a statistic (and I can't remember what it is sorry) about the high percentage of prisoners who have ADHD.

I often think if the government prioritised supporting neurodivergent people then there could be a potential positive trickle down effect into society.

@PMAmostofthetime

you don’t know what you’re talking about

There is no longer Asperger's is part of the autistic spectrum, These individuals are classed as high functioning

as per my previous post, you have demonstrated your complete ignorance around autism.

I will repeat, “high functioning” means an IQ over 70 ie no intellectual impairment. So you have stated that “these individuals are very IQ over 70” ie nonsense.

we also do not by default have high IQs.

and all individuals who were given a formal diagnosis of Asperger’s (including me) are on the autistic spectrum and will remain so. It is absolutely part of the autistic spectrum.

stop talking shite about autism

Think it's 10% of youth offenders in YOI have ASD - their difficulties become apparent almost immediately to prison officers as they adapt so well to the routine/clear rules but get horribly bullied by other inmates

I agree. I thought this was an interesting part of the conclusion in the second paper I linked to above.

Many adopted and fostered children will have experienced an adverse start in life, which often includes exposure to domestic violence (and associated maternal stress) both in utero and during their first years of life. A number will also have experienced a significant degree of impoverishment and lack of adequate and appropriate stimulation necessary for healthy cognitive development. As a con- sequence of these early adverse experiences, these children frequently present with chronic hypervigilance and symptoms of post-traumatic stress and many will have been given a diagnosis of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). However, it is likely that many of the reported symptoms of ADHD they exhibit are a function of a need for sensory stimulation, resulting from sensory deprivation in early life.

However I also know that adoptive parents or others who are looking after children like kinship carers then really struggle to get the child assessed for ASD or ADHD due to a bit of a presumption that all the issues are attachment based.

The prison statistic is one in four - 26% - compared to 4% in the general population. (Another horrifying statistic is that nearly half of male prisoners, and more than half of female prisoners, have an acquired brain injury. In female prisoners that's most likely to have been caused by domestic abuse. But that's off topic for this thread!)

That's just heartbreaking

I think that it’s always been a similar percentage of people with ASD but what’s changed is how we live. The pace, the expectations, socialising etc it’s almost become that life itself is some kind of ADOS test and it brings these difficulties to the surface.

I’m autistic and I find a lot of the comments and attitudes here very disappointing.

The term Aspergers is obsolete because it is a harmful functioning label that is named after a Nazi collaborator. Similarly, “high functioning” and “low functioning” are no longer in use because they are arbitrary labels that tell us nothing about an individual’s needs and abilities.
I’m not sure who originated this quote but it seems apt:
‘"High functioning" is used to deny support
"Low functioning" is used to deny agency.’

I am in favour of autistic solidarity and I strongly oppose efforts to segregate the autistic community. Sure, my day-to-day life as an autistic person with low support needs is probably very different to that of someone with higher needs. But we are all autistic and our internal experiences are more similar than you would think. There are many books and blogs etc written by non-speaking autistics who type or use AAC. I have found that I relate to them much more than I do to non-autistics, even if our external presentation is very different. This ultimately comes down to my higher ability to mask my autism (which is stressful and can lead to burnout), and my higher levels of motor control. Inside however, we’re much more similar than we are different and we are often grappling with the same kinds of thoughts and feelings.

All autistics are individuals, of course. Our support needs can change dramatically from day to day and should be assessed on an individual basis, rather than being lumped into arbitrary categories that do a disservice to all of us.

Furthermore, disability is not a dirty word. It is not inherently negative or inferior to be disabled. Under the social model, it basically just means that the world is not fully accessible to us. I think some of you could benefit from watching this short explainer video:

An interesting [but difficult to prove I imagine] is the theory that there are aspects of modern life which are increasing the incidence of ASD particularly with respect to the internet ie more men with ASD are having children because of well-paying jobs in IT and online dating. In the past these men wouldn't so easily have been able to find/keep a partner and pass on their genes