Massive increase of children with autism

[TickingKey46]

I've noticed since the lock down there is a massive increase in children being assessed for autism and associated conditions. I mean massive.

On the school run parents are often discussing it it's become so routine. I'm really interested in why. Why are so many children being diagnosed with this condition?

DS17 told his head of sixth form he thinks he may have autism and then he told me (head of sixth told me) and said that he does display some of the same characteristics of other autistic pupils in the school. I have no idea what the next steps are or if I need to do anything. He's left school now and gone to college instead and is the happiest I have seen him in a long time.

When I look back on my own childhood it was very different for children with SEN. Having a diagnosis of anything SEN was considered shameful. There were far more children in special needs schools including many who would be in mainstream today. More premature babies are surviving. More ND people are having ND children of their own. If you look back further, some children who would have been considered "sickly" and died, would now have been diagnosed with food issues.

Semantics.

No definite link and no proven link are the same thing.

I'm in the process of getting a dx for ds. I suspected it since he was very young (had lots of training on conditionsin work), but it didn't have any detrimental effects until puberty. I can probably pinpoint a few members of my family, up to their 80s, who would have been dx these days.

I suspect I'm add and ds may well be too. I also think, as a pp, that the nd and nt labels are becoming meaningless as if so many of are nd, then there really is no nt.

It’s not as simple as that. There is a complex formula used to decide how much schools get in their pot to spend on children with additional needs. If a new child (without ehcp) starts at the school with additional needs during the year they don’t get any extra funding.

a figure of £6000 is often used in such a way to make out like schools automatically get this for each child with additional needs but they do. That’s a nominal figure which doesn’t actually reflect the budget of the school ar all

Are you trying to police what someone thinks they should or shouldnt do in a situation for themselves? Who are you to question someones thought process about something they've considered about themselves? We all have thoughts about 'what would I do if' and the conclusion one comes to is completely reasonable, for that person.

happy to discuss more if you don’t understand what I’m saying…

Could you be more patronising @Eskimal ?

Looking back, I can also remember certain children in my school that would probably now be described as autistic.

The behaviours of autism are much more well known and recognizable now.

Parents and professionals are much more aware of what to look for.

The stigma of having a neurologically disabled child has drastically changed.

Parents being able to self refer.

Following lockdown a lot of children are suffering some kind of developemantal delay which can lead to the ASD pathway even as a way to rule it out.

I would attribute some of the rise to "pay for diagnosis" businesses. I am in no way saying everyone who uses AUTISM247.COM etc (or something like that) are not autistic however, there are going to be a portion of people who are misdiagnosed. Also the speed with which the (dodgy) diagnosis process is done (in some cases one video call with a non specialist and a questionnaire) is creating a large influx of diagnoses.

And, whether some people like it or not, people just claim their children are autistic without a diagnosis (I do know a few parents who do this).

Being on the pathway isn't a guaranteed diagnosis. It's the process to either confirm or rule out autism.

How polite of you.

when dd started university so many of her new friends asked if she too could have dyslexia, how they got the diagnosis and got help
it is quite common in artists they said.

Country wide it's about a third more, but in urban and deprived areas way more.

This is notable I think.

That ISN'T consistent with middle class pushy parents actively seeking diagnosis - which would be more likely with a profile of over diagnosis and 'trendy awareness'.

In deprived areas, parents are more likely to be slightly younger - BUT possibly more likely to have had social issues in their own lives (including being less successful in life due to their own unmet educational or behavioural needs). And even then, they are still likely to be older in comparison to parents several generations ago AND infant mortality in deprived areas has been historically been much higher due to poverty related issues - free health care at point of service being the key factor here - children who in the past would have died, now survive. We take for granted malnutrition isn't the same as it was 100 years ago and the impact of that. (Despite the existance of food banks).

In the early Victorian Era, the infant mortality rates in some of the most deprived urban areas ran at over 40%.

So we are going to see massive demographic and genetic changes in society as a result.

People who perhaps couldn't historically provide and care for a family (perhaps due to a chaotic lifestyle related to autism and trying to survive) now have children who survive to adulthood and this is more likely to led to entirely new genetic lines surviving which didn't happen in the past.

More awareness is the key here.

I was diagnosed with autism at 50 and combined ADHD at 52. This was following my eldest son's diagnosis when he was 26. He actually attended an assessment centre for a week due to being non verbal when he was 2 1/2 but no diagnosis.

Since my diagnoses, it's obvious that all of my kids are Nd. We didn't realise as it was our normal. Looking at the wider family, I see it in my siblings, my late mum and grandma. Indeed, mum related to a lot of my difficulties and accepted that she was likely Nd.

Drug use, such as weed or coke, has a higher prevalence in those with ADHD as they help make your brain shut the fuck up for a while, bringing down anxiety and stress. Coke gets your neurons firing fully, meaning less procrastination and more focus. That's why amphetamines are the general go to for ADHD meds.

I use weed. Not heavily, but knowing I can have a whole hour a day before bedtime where I can really shut down and have a break from the constant chatter in my head keeps me functioning. ADHD meds help me enormously, but they're not a magic bullet.

I will also say that whilst there's more awareness, we've a long way to go with regard to acceptance. I'd like people to stop going on about over diagnosis as this has the opposite effect and essentially negates very real diagnoses. Life is hard enough for Nd people as it is.

i always wondered about mine but given they are in their 20s when they were very young there was less knowledge
in fact a friend dd was described as Unique and now aged 29 has a diagnosis of autism that evaded her as a child

Who knows if it’s on the rise or just being diagnosed more but anything that recognises then helps and supports people is a good thing.
I suppose I live in a strange bubble because I’ve always been surrounded by people with autism, there is clearly a strong genetic link in my family, I suspect my Father (passed away in his 80s) was autistic, over three siblings and their six children (ranging from 17-33) there are five diagnosed with autism, some as children some as adults, a bipolar diagnoses , two diagnosed with a personality disorder and four diagnosed as dyslexic, one with dyspraxia with a spattering of probably or possibly linked issues.
Our lives have probably been easier than many with autism and other issues diagnosed because we understand each other, we understand how to help and encourage each other, I’m older now and considering having one more child, when the higher risk of autism was pointed out I did laugh because for me it would be odd to have a NT child, a NT child would be the weird one in my family.

When my eldest was diagnosed in 2007 there was very little awareness of what autism looked like without accompanying learning disabilities. In fact in hindsight it's crazy that it was missed in him for so long. I've noticed gradual increase of awareness and now it's like everyone is aware and it's answering a lot of questions. Then my other two got diagnosed and I got myself assessed and was diagnosed too.
If I look back at my family history, I can see it in lots of them. Uncles and cousins who have had breakdowns and diagnosed with things like bipolar or other mh conditions. I can even see it would explain things like my grandads brother and how he was.

I don't think it's more common than it used to be. We just have better language to describe it now.
Most adults who pursue diagnosis are doing it for their own answers , and we get our kids assessed because school is more pressure than ever, and getting adjustments is vital

Oh dear god.

Not even going to digify that one with a response beyond 'Google is that way'

We have plenty of information about female fertility and age of mother from these records.

This is not an area of lack of data.

This is a well know and well reported tactic that private schools use. IDK about adhd but traditionally they have large numbers of dyslexic pupils. I’ve seen lots of friends highly academic children receive dyslexia diagnosis just before their exams which are absolutely laughable, and they are fairly open about it. Private school pupils are 50% more likely to qualify for extra time in exams. Universities used to push for diagnosis as it unlocked extra funding . My db was diagnosed whilst at university and got a free lap top, extra time and other perks. He is most certainly not dyslexic.

I also suspect that inflexibility of schooling due to heavily prescribed, packed curriculum is partly responsible for more children being sent for official paperwork - In Year 3 I just got sent to the school library to "write a book" about my special interest when I ran out of work and got bored, but now that situation triggers assess-plan-do-review cycles etc.

Are you trying to police what someone thinks they should or shouldnt do in a situation for themselves? Who are you to question someones thought process about something they've considered about themselves? We all have thoughts about 'what would I do if' and the conclusion one comes to is completely reasonable, for that person.

Are you always so angry? Calm down dear, it’s a discussion.

Similar situation here.

But I think knowing they difference is essential.
Yes to SOME people it won’t make a huge difference at school/work.

eg we haven’t pushed dc to get a diagnosis but we found the right school/environment for him so he didn’t need a specific support schooling wise.
DH is/was the same.

However, having a diagnosis is highlighting a lot of other areas where dc struggles - mainly social ones. He also clearly needs to be shown things, given some sort of step by step idea of how things will go. Reminders that not everyone does things like him and how to spot that/see what works for them etc…
And further down the line, looking at DH, it helps explaining sometimes baffling reactions that could be totally misconstructed. Or his need for silence at the end if the day etc….

I think though that we haven’t quite understood what ND and NT are. And we might not have put the dividing line quite where it needs to be.

Another goady, faux naive ND thread. Get a hobby OP.

Google. 😂

Why is Google funny? You can Google scientific peer reviewed papers.

But also possibly..

I was the girl at school in the 80s who was shy, nervous, high achieving, loved routines, obsessive, wanted in a way to be in plays and productions but found the whole idea too anxiety-provoking.

Hated parties and social events. Always had friends though who thought I was funny and kind and invited me to lots of things. I would never host sleepovers or parties as they were too anxiety-provoking.

Extreme negative reaction to going to both primary and secondary school.

Primary I cried every day for weeks to the point my Mum wanted to pull me out. My Dad (it was a local school a few streets away from where we lived and we lived above the shop my parents ran) would torture himself walking down to the school at break-time hoping to see me playing and being broken-hearted watching me walking around on my own in my over-sized duffle coat. It got better for me eventually.

Secondary, was worse for me. I had 25 days sick in the 1st term and it was miles away from home and i cried most days. My Dad took me out for a walk one day and said he realised I hated it but I had to give it a chance and if it was still bad by Xmas, we'd look at alternatives. By Xmas I'd settled in enough and had some friends.

Decades on, I'm still the same. If I engage in those 'self-assesment ASC' things it will always tell me I'm highly likely to be Autistic.

I'm not Autistic. Never have been. I am an extreme introvert with an anxiety disorder in adulthood. That's it.

What's not helpful now, is lots of people jumping to say "ASC or ADHD or other ND when that isn't necessarily the case.

People have personalities, and likes, dislikes and preferences.

Considering ND, MH, trauma etc is helpful but we seem to be reaching a stage now where it's the default assumption.

And that's not always the case or helpful.