Why are so many children autistic these days?

[Superlambaanana]

I've just seen someone comment on a thread that 4 out of 5 of their DC are autistic. So many classroom assistants in every primary class. So many parents I talk to saying they have or are fighting to get a diagnosis for their DC. And yet no one I went to school with at primary or secondary level was ever diagnosed as autistic, nor did anyone do anything that suggested they were undiagnosed like hand flapping or inability to communicate normally. Various levels of intelligence and social ability obviously, but no one who was at the level of meltdowns and needing stringent routine etc. Is it environmental?

Toodleoodleooh I appreciate your honesty regardless. That's why many schools and LA's refuse EHCPs for paid for privately diagnosed children and some parents anecdotally struggle to get DLA without an EHCP.

For what it's worth I was assured my Ds couldn't have autism by the school as he was 'too creative.' A few years later and the gap between him and the NT population had become a chasm. He ended up home ed and learned many techniques and masking, but can only keep it up for so long and not in all circumstances. Neither he nor his Dad are likely to ever lead very NT lives, but neither claim PIP because of the fear of others.

For PP above stating otherwise. Studies indicate that there is absolutely and irrefutably a genetic component to the incidence of autism.

It was obviously I was being facetious and making a joke about the stupidity of the guy who first said it and people who believe it

I’m autistic and I see a lot of people my age be like there was never any autistics in my class, Type thing. I went to a school for neurodiverse people, primarily autistic and it was shut down a few years after I left and everyone got shoved into mainstream.

inheritability doesn’t just connect to parents, though, DH (or you) may have a parent/aunt/uncle/cousin who would have had an ASD diagnosis where they children today? I’ve yet to meet an ASD child where it wasn’t blindingly obvious which parent they inherited it from - the parent oblivious, though, because it’s the child’s issue not theirs.

Many of my ASD-Mummy-friends now feel they understand why one parent (usually dad, I admit) was such a dick and kind of wish they’d understood that growing up as they’d internalised the trauma of being raised by an unsupported/undiagnosed (and therefor often neglectful/toxic) parent.

@Toodleoodleooh I think that sometimes people forget that there is a spectrum of NT people too, and its huge and equally as diverse as the ND spectrum.

I personally believe there is some crossover, whether that's because a NT child is brought up by ND parents possibly with ND siblings, so nurture plays a part. Or and I know this is controversial, some traits are actually just in the realm of ordinary human traits, so your average NT person will have certain traits which make up the diagnosis for a ND person. An ND person might have more traits, which leads to the diagnosis, but a NT person might only have a couple, which still might lead to them struggling in today's society.

I do also wonder about the impact of screens, on NT and ND children, when I think back just 25 years ago, there were no smart phones, you wandered round the supermarket with your baby/toddler and there was nothing else for it but to entertain them yourselves. Absolutely we popped a video on for them at home sometimes, but you couldn't just hand them something, you had to get up and wander downstairs and switch stuff on, and find the video they suddenly wanted, even though Toy Story had been the go to this fortnight, they would suddenly have a hankering for Bugs life !

TBH the whole why is irrelevant. The real question should be "what". What are we doing to help and support these children to be the best that they can be? What are we doing to make the government du jour to consider them a priority and fund their education properly and said help and support?What are we doing to advocate for them? What are we doing to make their lives easier?

@Notamum12345577 unfortunately that joke was in poor taste and every time someone mentions that reason another someone could potentially believe it.

It’s not irrelevant, prevention is better than a cure and the higher the numbers get the more thinly resources are spread

You can't prevent autism.

Dear Lord.

You can actually.

Prenatal vitamins - taken 3 months before conception and during conception rather than the 12 weeks afterwards - massively lower the chance of autism, even in families who already have an autistic child.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2726608#:~:text=The%20prevalence%20of%20ASD%20was,prenatal%20vitamins%20during%20that%20time.

Bloody hell 🤦‍♀️

Oh wow an actual expert.

How do we prevent autism? I mean aside from not having kids and stuff?

Apparently the prenatal vitamins up there ^^

I'm not sure I could roll my eyes any more if I tried

My dd is autistic. I attended an excellent conference by a consultant paediatrician (who is close to retirement age so very experienced) whose area of interest is neurodevelopment from conception to age 3. Anyway, she attributes a lot of behaviours to screen addiction, and claims that there is pressure on HCPs to make a diagnosis of ASD/ADHD, when they don't meet the criteria. She said autism (and those presenting with what would now be considered stereotypical autistic traits) was rare 30 years ago, but now it makes up the majority of her caseload. She believes that excessive screen time from a very early age is damaging neural pathways, and in combination with poorer parenting, is resulting in children presenting with autistic type behaviour (which is also very similar with trauma type behaviour).

Is it wrong?

I am the poster from the OP who has 5 children, 4 of whom are autistic. Dh is also autistic. There are a number of reasons I think that there appears to be more autistic children around these days.

It's talked about more and the shame has mostly gone. My in-laws tried for over 20 years to avoid dh getting diagnosed with autism. These days parents actively seek getting their ND children diagnosed.

We as a society used to casually accept differences in people. In the 80's it was just accepted that "Jamie" couldn't sit still or that "Darren" had horrific handwriting. Now we want to know why.

Birth trauma. I know this is anecdata but the 2 of my dc who had traumatic births have much more severe autism symptoms than the 2 who didn't. More babies are surviving traumatic births than ever before.

Children are being given more attention by adults now than in previous generations and being taken care of more by adults and less by older siblings or neighbours children. Adults who are more likely than your average 9 or 10 year old to notice symptoms.

ND people are more likely to meet other ND people and have ND children.

There are probably other things but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Our borough accept private diagnosis. DD’s is private and have had no issues at all with using it. I deliberately had it done by the head of child psychiatry at one of the big teaching hospitals who also works privately

Well it certainly isn't preventing autism like you said

Then what is it doing?

ND people are more likely to meet other ND people and have ND children.

This is interesting, why do you think this is the case @elliejjtiny ?

@MrsDeaDea Can you please link evidence for your assertion that autism isn't genetic? Because my son's paediatric consultant disagrees with you.

I think some of it is awareness, some is genetic. DS has autism, I’m pretty sure I do too, I have several of the same traits as DS, however I’m 36 I’ve managed my whole life the same way, so I don’t need a diagnosis, I don’t need the extra help. DS was assessed simply because his behaviours were affecting his everyday life and he needed it for any support he required at school and home. I’m pretty sure dd has adhd, she defo has some traits but I’m not getting her assessed because it’s not affecting her or her life. She does well at school, never gets in trouble. When I was at school we had an additional needs school right next door, 90% of them were autistic, they’d come in every Friday lunch time and as house captain and my best friends mum was a teacher there, we looked after them. I’ve been around autism my whole life so spotted it in DS straight away. At high school we had 2 boys with what was called Asperger’s, now DS16 has about 30 pupils out of the 180 diagnosed with autism and dd11 has around 6 in her class alone.

That is quite possible in reverse too.

I read threads like this and think I must be living in some kind of parallel universe. I’ve only ever come across one person who said they were autistic and he’s a middle aged man.

I certainly don’t know of any children who are autistic although if the prevalence is less than 1% then that possibly isn’t as unlikely as it may at first appear.

@MaryMaryVeryContrary interestingly, the same cohort that had "reduced" risks of children with ASD , had more children with non typical development.