What % of kids have asd?

[Chilto]

So many friends kids have recently been diagnosed with asd and adhd. I am considering seeking diagnosis for my 2 kids and myself as we have some traits and find social situations difficult. Kids have occasional meltdowns but only at home. However a few years ago I would not have considered it as we are all ‘managing’ but maybe not thriving. Does any one have any up to date numbers of percentages with asd conditions?

The rise in people getting diagnosed and on the list is so big that many senior doctors are now saying we need a complete rethink- we need to accept that there is much more neurodiversity than we realise and should change society to make it less reliant on you having a specific brain type - so that people don't need a label to get the support they need for life and thriving - because that diversity of support is naturally available to all and anyone

So if someone needs headphones in the office or to mostly work from home then they can do it without question as a simple example

be more interesting to establish the age in the statistics.
under 10
or under 16 for eg.

under 5

we need to change schools/work place to accommodate neurodiversity.

I'm one of those "high functioning adults" and my diagnosis changed my life.

These orgs suggesting 1:3 annoy me because I personally (as a mum of a dd who was diagnosed in toddlerhood 23 years ago) they are labelling what is essentially personality traits and/or upbringing with what is actually a different condition. I also think it's a case of sharp elbows to get a perceived advantage by more affluent people. Apparently when retested many children did not have autism, they were simply shy in a study I was reading (from the USA)

So if someone needs headphones in the office or to mostly work from home then they can do it without question as a simple example

In many offices this is perfectly fine, and in the workplace it’s fairly easy to accommodate individual needs. An adult has an element of choice where and how they work. If they’re too stressed they can change jobs, they can sign off sick, they have options.

In school however, this is where the problems begin. You put pressure on children, a few may thrive, most might just about cope, a few are destroyed. You keep up that pressure for the entirety of the child’s education years and for some it destroys them, and a child has very few options open to them. Many of these children have no chance to enter the workplace, supported or not, because they are totally destroyed by the education system.

More children are removed from school than ever before. This has got to start informing some change, but so far it’s just raising more objections about children and their parents.

Destroyed children tend not to thrive and need lots of support. Let’s try to not destroy them in the first place.

Nobody really knows.

There are estimates based on current diagnosis rates in various countries.

It seems generally accepted the rate is rising but no-one knows why.

is anyone doing anything about schools @Lunchclub
aside from some receiving a diagnosis

That is really interesting. I’m very capable at work but I can’t progress because I just can’t do interviews. I read on here that if you had a diagnosis you could ask to see the interview questions beforehand as a reasonable adjustment which would be transformational for me. And it got me thinking. I know I’m quirky but is there more in it than that? But why should I be forced down the interview route which obviously suits certain brain types but not others?

In my year 3 class of 27 children, I have two with PDA, two more with autism (both have 1:1) and four with ADHD (diagnosed). I have just referred two more who I strongly suspect will be diagnosed with ADHD. That's over a third of my class. Every year the number gets higher.

I definitely think the bar for an autism diagnosis has lowered - I was diagnosed last year but certainly wouldn't have been in the past.

I'm also a teacher and I would say that, out of my last several classes, maybe 5/30 were diagnosed or suspected autistic. So that's 1 out of 6 kids.

Autistic people tend to be drawn to other autistic people. 1/10 autistic men have an autistic spouse and 1/3 autistic women. I would expect the people around you to be getting diagnosed more than the general population if you're autistic.

@JMAngel1 a diagnosis brings validation that you aren't losing your fucking mind. Not being diagnosed can impact your entire life.

My daughter's MH started spiraling on start of Secondary as did my lovely DBros decades before, he ended up as a school refuser, a recluse that barely left his bedroom, he had/has the potential to be really high achieving and was naturally talented in maths and computer science, he tried uni - became suicidal, went into a deep burn out, now works very part-time in the back office of a supermarket.

My DDad also shows lots of signs of autism, has been supported for the last 30 years by my mum because he can't cope with the work environment - does lots of voluntary work of his own though, spends the day litter picking the local beach and talking to the homeless.

Now my DDad and DBro have never been diagnosed and both feel it's too late now but you can trace autistic traits right back through the living memory of our family tree. Shutdowns rather than melt downs, sensory seeking, trouble maintaing relationships, general lonerness not fussed by friendships, repetitive behaviours.

So no, when DDs quirks started to become more troublesome you can be sure that I was on it, and had her assessed within 6 weeks of her MH starting to spiral to get accomodations in place swiftly. She now knows why she feels the way she does, schooling and my parenting has been adapted suitably that she is now thriving she is extremely gifted and has great hopes for her future but knows that she might need to work part-time to cope and is aware of adjustments that can be made to ensure she thrives into adulthood

Definitely there's way more in the UK (proportionally) than in France , or Spain, or Romania.
(Speaking only about the countries I know intimately.)
Friends over here originally from Russia and Ukraine tell me the same thing.

You don't need a diagnosis, anyone can ask for reasonable adjustments at interview. With a diagnosis, you have legal protection but it would be a shitty employer who wouldn't try to help anyway.

We wouldn't agree to give you the questions beforehand, as that's an advantage, but we would give them written down when you arrived for interview and give you extra time if needed.

No that I can see. It’s a shit show.
I’m home edding my youngest now, as are a great many other parents in my area - most feel forced into it because their child was either refusing to go to school, or because they got so fed up at the lack of support and their child was suffering because of it.

The government don’t care. I don’t know how much they spent on their “get your child into school” campaign which showed they had zero understanding of why children are school refusing in the first place!

I think education is reaching a point where it serves very few, and maybe at some point there’ll be a revolution or, hopefully, a decent government will emerge (not holding out much hope for the next few years!) and things will improve for children and teachers.

Special schools are few and far between, with spaces available to only the most disabled.
Mainstream schools are becoming increasingly inaccessible to higher functioning autistic children who wouldn’t get a space at a SS, but who also have far more precarious mental health. I suspect most of us have ideas that would improve things, but if you ever suggest any you always get a reply along the lines of “no funding to do that”. At the end of the day you reap what you sow, and the children are the ones being most hurt by it al.

@GrocerDoctor at my workplace it has become the norm for everyone to get the main interview questions 24 hours before the interview, unless the job role directly relies on answering questions off the cuff with no time to prepare like a Press Officer. It improves the interview on all accounts and levels the playing field

It would be so interesting to research why.

Because my dc have all had issues with their schools and teachers I’m fairly biased to see that and the increased pressure there as a big reason for rising numbers of children with SN.
It would be good to look at what the lives are like for children in other countries with lower rates of SN.

@Lunchclub I would put money on it being either

1. culturally their lifestyles are set up to accommodate various neurotypes better so less getting overwhelmed in the first place. For example dyslexia barely registers in Italy because their language is simpler and more streamlined than English which is pretty convoluted at the best of times.

2. Higher stigma on being 'labelled' so not pursuing it.

3. Less assessments being carried out therefore less diagnosis, but just because people haven't been diagnosed doesn't mean the conditions don't exist.

🤔

My Dd got immediate support from a psychologist. She was diagnosed 18 months ago and still sees her every fortnight.

A friend put on Instagram who a child with ASD that it's 1:13 and going on who I know and my kids class id say it's fairly accurate.

I don't know her source but as she does a huge amount of research and campaigning on ASD

What’s your motive for this thread OP? Stats are on google. It coming across as you potentially doubting people’s diagnosis.

There were so many benefits to being diagnosed for my child, it’s been life changing as a pp said.

Most importantly, my child’s schools attitude changed instantly once a diagnosis was in place. Suddenly they were offering help and adjustments that they should have offered previously but didn’t.

France in general has an appalling attitude to autism.