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?

Your point is completely accurate and valid.

But when we're talking about children, unless they were in their 1st or 2nd year of primary, there was already obvious disruption in their routine pre-covid as a result of being in school.

Schools have a break every weekend and holidays every few weeks. And inset days, strike days etc. Many parents and DC struggle with those transitions, ND or not.

Potential ASC children being dramatically increasingly referred to services because covid disrupted their routine doesn't account for the overwhelming increase in referrals post-1st lockdown.

There's good research demonstrating a link between older parental age and autism. More people are having children at an older age versus a couple of decades ago.

Could you go and read some scientific studies before giving an opinion about diet and stuff.

This is exactly how I feel. That if society would generally just become more tolerant, there wouldn't be a need for high functioning people to seek diagnosis. I had to go through a very painful process to get a diagnosis for my DC because school absolutely refused to make any reasonable adjustments without that piece of paper. My younger DC has similar needs but school now seem to be better at accommodating their needs, so we haven't yet felt the need to go down that road.

Also if you think back generations people just weren't diagnosed. Look athe the obsessive, controling older men with their stamp collections, model trains etc... Who are all obviously autistic! It's only when my son was diagnosed when we looked back at family history that we realsied, most men in his family are likely to be autistic. We joke he comes from a long like of engineers!

@PinkCherryBlossoms read the article if you’re interested. 🤷‍♀️

My DS is autistic and it's so damn hard. People say things like, "oh we're all a bit autistic aren't we?" And "But you wouldn't change him for the world would you?"

Quite frankly, yes I bloody would! Watching him struggle with life, fail to connect with any peers and regularly being physically attacked by him is hell.

I certainty wouldn't risk having another, judge me all you want.

I’m not sure you’ve understood me as I certainly can’t work out what your point is.

Agree with this. I think that in the past, there was more tolerance for mild eccentricities like the accountant in the above post - someone who was probably ND but had found a niche.

I also think that life is a lot busier/ overwhelming today compared to the past. I remember my 1980s childhood being quite boring (not many days out, expected to entertain myself, less child-centred events) and that the environment around us was dull - shops, advertisements, special events like Xmas seemed quite subdued compared to now, and not as busy as things seem nowadays. I can see that a child on the ‘high functioning’ end of the autistic spectrum would not be so overwhelmed by the environment around them in the 80s, but could struggle now.

Also agree with the points raised by PP about ND people finding it easier to meet friends/ partners who are similar to them eg: online. I was a socially awkward teenager who loved science fiction, as was DH, and we met at university because we both joined the Science Fiction society (looking back, I realise there were several ND people there). Our daughter is showing some possible signs of ND, which I would assume is genetic (two people with minor ND traits reproducing…).

Add to this the raised awareness, and the backlog from Covid, and I can see why there are increased number of referrals . It would be interesting to see rates of autism/ ADHD in other countries to compare.

@AutismProf I'd love to hear whether you think there's more autistic kids and why!

Following on from those who've pointed out how good it would be if we normalise the ND experience. They would be great
Only 20% of autistic people are in any form of work. I think it's 15% full time.

Which is so shocking. The national autistic society has been trying to raise awareness.

If society was more ND friendly we wouldn't be missing out on so many voices.

I can only speak about ADD in our family. I noticed my second DD slowly deteriorating in her school work through primary school. Apart from some self-regulation issues at home from time to time, this was my only clue. I remember the specialist telling me that she probably felt overwhelmed most of the time but she just struggled through it. Forty years ago, she would have been the quiet one in the corner of the classroom, not making any trouble but desperately trying to keep up and not understanding why school was so hard for her.
My DH has realised he is quite similar and has experienced similar problems throughout his life.
it just wasn’t recognised or treated.

@pickledandpuzzled
If we are entering a world where neurodiversity becomes the norm, what will that look like?
... what about flexibility and resilience? Can we change society enough to be comfortable for those of us who are ND?

I think an awful lot of ND people are actually incredibly resilient. Because of all the adverse experiences we have to put up with. The problem is that we are using up a big chunk of our resilience and coping ability every day just navigating the world, and this goes unnoticed. In a world more suited to us, we'd suddenly have a lot more capacity for dealing with things.
People have often been surprised at how well I've coped with certain things (I'm diagnosed as autistic), notably during the pandemic, which they see as huge but are small fry compared to some other things I've experienced that they cannot see are a big deal!

@hattie43 I think having a child in any circumstances is a huge risk, many NT people with great health end up as FT carers for disabled children, you really don't ever know. But I don't think its a reason not to. I have 2 boys with autism and are at the very high functioning end, they will thrive in life, I'm sure of it. They are so healthy we have hardly ever gone to a GP, but my friend with 2 NT boys is constantly battling chest infections and illness, you really can't predict these things. I absolutely cannot compare my boys to those at the more profound disabled end, it is an unbelievably broad spectrum.

There does seem to be a mixture of reasons:

• There is a broadening of criteria for diagnosis of autism, it is much wider than it was even a few years ago.
• Autism used to have to include significant developmental delays, of the kind that you couldn’t really miss such as lack of speech. It was only Asperger’s diagnosis which could have normal speech development.
• More awareness of what would have been termed ‘traits’ of autism or ADHD in kids that would have not met the bar for ‘significance’ 10 years ago or more and now would hit the bar for diagnosis.
• The head of psychiatry of the UK wrote an article some years ago that diagnosis are being stretched and that parents are pushing for diagnosis more than before.
• Increase of girls being seen as autistic who do not present with classic autism and introduction of ‘masking’ which is now supported by professionals.
• Social media for teenagers is encouraging more teens to self identify and push for diagnosis as a positive thing and belonging to a tribe.
• There is also a possibility that autism, even in it’s ‘classic’ form (previously stricter diagnosis criteria) is increasing - however because we’ve kind of lumped all ‘autisms’ together we have no evidence for this.

I’d really like to see some more robust research into this increase, one that gets rid of ideology and just looks more objectively at what is going on.

I’d also like to see those like my DS with ‘significant’ disabilities being prioritised as rightly or wrongly, his needs are greater than many others and we find ourselves fighting for less and less resources and even more so, with less understanding.

For example we still don’t have really good support and help for non verbal kids, very little research, very little specialist school support and a 1-1 in a mainstream has really no training in how to help a child with speech. We are failing these kids.

People doing all of their childbearing quite young then stopping was a pretty new phonemenon in human history though, right? And was only common for a quite limited period.

Before modern contraception, it was normal for couples to carry on having babies until the woman hit menopause. The big increase is in older first time parents, not older parents per se. I can believe we might see more autism as a consequence of older parents now than we did in, say, the 1970s. Because that was an unusual period in that there were lots of babies to younger mothers and many fewer to older mothers. I'm less convinced it would be happening more now than it did a bit further back.

I agree namechanged, but obviously there are limitations and I don't know how we handle that.

DH is so much nicer to know these days, having worked out his strengths and what he needs to avoid. The world doesn't comply though, and he doesn't cope well in a lot of very common environments.

I'm disabled by my ASD and ADHD.

Just because I'm able to mask and perform fitting it doesn't mean I'm not disabled.

The ableism on this thread is disgusting.

Definitely agree with that @NameChangedToProtectInnocentSmoothie

older fathers/mothers could be a factor eg when the father starts a new family with a younger woman after having their first family at a younger age

https://www.verywellhealth.com/older-parents-and-autism-risk-for-child-5199211#:~:text=Importance%20of%20Father's%20Age&text=2%20After%20controlling%20for%20many,likely%20to%20have%20autistic%20children.

But a bit further back child mortality rates were much higher which could have an impact on things.

With respect, your 'massive observations' from the school run don't feel like a serious enough grounding for a discussion of prevalence, referral patterns or diagnosis.

An increasing number of premature babies now survive, and with prematurity comes increased risk of being diagnosed with autism.

Wow you are one fucking rude person !

outsurance agreed, it is a pretty painful thread to read.