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?

Don’t be so ridiculous.

My LEA has four special school, s two primary,s and two secondary,s one of the primary and one of the secondary schools are for children with moderate to severe learning disabilities and or autism
The other primary and secondary school is for children with severe to profound learning disabilities and or autism
All four schools have doubled in capacity in the last 10/15 years

Well yes, because shouting and swearing is much better than explaining things and implementing boundaries

@Toodleoodleooh yep as I posted earlier my son was like this- was actually diagnosed at 18 with ADHD , now 26 and medicated he is a different person - but for quite a long period between 4 and 11 I always had autism in the back of my mind- only thing that didn't fit was he was very chatty, had no problem talking and looking at you and was very sociable- but the obsessions were always there and a total inability to concentrate-

@Charlie2121 I'm offended by the claim that 10% of autism diagnoses are handed out incorrectly because a) I suspect the PP has just plucked the figure of the air without any special knowledge b) I don't want the worry that there is a 1 in 10 chance that was misdiagnosed and c) specialists who can diagnose autism are extremely highly trained and skilled. It just does not seem likely that they are getting so much wrong. I actually think the opposite is more likely especially with girls and women because we are very good at hiding (or masking) our autistic traits.

So who brought your autistic grandchild's parents up and what are you doing about it?
What went wrong that this autistic child's parents are apparently lax and lazy and feel they don't have to parent him and think shouting and swearing at him instead is ok?
Or are you criticizing your DIL's parenting and giving your son a free pass over their son growing up in an abusive home?
Because what you're talking about isn't really about autism and different parenting styles, it's about abuse and not providing for a child's needs.

Agree that there is a lot of lax parenting about.
Much as dog ownership has gone awry - so many more “Reactive “ dogs about than a few years ago.

Even horses!
Barry Hook ( horseman) says discipline is a dirty word nowadays- Dogs, horses and children all do well with fair , firm boundaries.
It makes them feel safe.

Shouty sweary parenting is awful, and of course a child won’t respond well to it- and will copy the modelled behaviour .

If they’re highly skilled why do people refused a diagnosis by the NHS then go private? And somewhat shop around? Not arguing, just asking

@MaryMaryVeryContrary mainly because in my case the wait with the NHS was 3.5 years. In my case, I was diagnosed by 2 clinical psychologists who specialized in women and girls. I felt like I was more likely to get good advice from an autism expert who specialises further with females and I don't think you tend to get this in the NHS.

I,m a retired member of a diagnostic team. We are very careful about diagnoses. We like to see the child in different environments, school classrooms, lunchtime, break time and home being part of that. We learn how the family operate and try to offer help with coping strategies for the family as a whole.
We do tend to know that some parenting styles can create difficult children as opposed to autistic children and we refer these families onto other more appropriate teams.
Ive been sworn at threatened by some parents because we don’t hand out dx willy nilly.

My autistic kids would pee themselves laughing at the idea that their autism is because of my lazy parenting. They don't think they get away with anything. They do, but I have to be selective because otherwise I'd be on their backs 24/7. So I turn a blind eye to their disorder and chaos, say nothing about the state of their rooms or that they've lost another school jumper. But rudeness, aggression, unkindness etc I have zero tolerance of.

In my case, because of the long waiting lists.
My ds was assessed by the NHS aged about 8 and was just below the threshold on one of the 3 things, though over on the other 2. He therefore officially did not have autism. Over the years his presentation became more and more stereotypically autistic and reassessment was suggested several times including by CAMHS, who strongly recommended it after a suicide attempt last year. With their strong support he got through the triage to be put on the waiting list. This took 6 months. By this time he was 17; if he didn’t get to the top of the list by 18 he would have had to start the process all over again for the adult list. It seemed important to dh and me that he would have it in place before going to university and in any case, if your son is suicidal £2200 seems like a small price to pay for anything that might help even a tiny bit.

I have to say I was more impressed with the people who did the private assessment than the previous ones: their level of qualification, rigour and logical reasoning. I don’t think the first assessors fully appreciated the extent to which a smart child can mask. They allowed what they observed on one day at school, which turned out to be an exceptionally good day for him, to outweigh their interviews with him and us, the ADOS and his reports from school where he spent most of the time hiding under desks, because they saw him in a PE lesson which he enjoyed.
To be fair to them, I think masking is understood better now than 10 years ago thanks to the amount that has since been written by autistic people themselves. But it is clear the assessment the NHS provides is not always top quality and given that it was partly NHS staff who told us to get him reassessed I think that is understood.

This is exactly how it is. I had to put my son into pre-school and then he was observed, again at nursery, at home, at the clinic. It was a long and arduous process but thorough. It is very difficult to get a diagnosis and they are certainly not just handed out.

That’s interesting; our child was just observed in a PE lesson in his original NHS assessment which concluded he was not autistic.
If they had done what you describe it is very likely they would have come to a different conclusion.

@TigerRag and @TheCountessofFitzdotterel interesting about sleep... however my grandson is autistic and he was a wonderful sleeper. As a teenager now it can be difficult to get him to sleep and then difficult to get him to wake up... but that's just typical teenager behaviour I think. As a baby and a small child he slept beautifully. He is very definitely autistic - has a diagnosis and some very typical autistic behaviours!

I suspect parents cant wait the years it takes nowadays, and trust, especially with girls can be an issue. Again though, it is an assessment for possible diagnosis, not a diagnosis they're applying for. (Well normally!)

TBF I 'shopped around' for an NHS assessment!
I got my DC into Gt. Ormond St hospital services, (with their help) for assessment, because trust in the local services independence had been destroyed by social services, after they took the schools lead that I must have caused my child's difficulties and visible differences.

Tiptoe walking, poor balance, and walking around flapping hands with wrists carried at shoulders, (hypermobile) academically ahead but huge misunderstandings over meanings of questions and the slowest writing, but generally socially disinterested at school - single very good friend outside - all so obvious looking back - but schools opinion that he didn't need an EHCP but 'less TV time' carried weight back then. Not actually having a TV was treated as an affront to their decision, and suspicious - families like mine were supposed to have TV's and dump kids in front of them! Not arts and crafts, reading, and outdoors. We were in the wrong lane in their eyes.

SS told me that schools and their opinion, would influence any assessment now, so I bypassed them and appealed to the best NHS service I knew off that I believed had experts who would look at my child without involving politics, back covering, or prejudice, and whose decision I could trust even if they decided parenting was a factor.
I wanted my child to be put first, not the adults arguing about him. Wherever they go, I think that may be were many parents are coming from.

We ended up with a firm diagnosis, and the information that the way I was parenting was what had carried him through as far as it had, and I needed to keep doing it and I'd been right to request assessment for equivalent of an EHCP. (refused) The majority of meltdowns in school were being caused by bullying (they observed it repeatedly over school visits - inc lessons, assembly, and break.) and how it wasn't being handled, and the reason we weren't seeing meltdowns at home, wasn't as school claimed that he was too afraid to, but because the home environment had routines and consistency of decisions and he could make predictions confidently, which worked well for him as well as the NT others. (They then looked at Dad, Grandma et al, and out the family history and fears tumbled)

I think most parents aren't refusing an NHS assessment, I think they're refusing to wait the length of time now required for one, or trying to bypass poorer local services.

The other thing schools did in ye olden days was to solve the problem of disruptive behaviour by getting the kids expelled.

That sounds very thorough. I wish my youngest had been assessed like that. He was diagnosed at the end of 2020 via an online video appointment with a paediatrician. School sent in a report but nobody observed him in school because of covid. He was diagnosed with "autism with low level of need" but I think he is a lot more severe than that.

@YouJustDoYou you probably did - but a lot were residential and called "homes for disabled children" or something.

In the late 60s my mother taught at a school for what were called ‘maladjusted’ children. She thinks many of them would now be diagnosed as autistic.

Behavior didn't have to be seriously disruptive, and expelling wasn't the only route.
Our school, initially asked if we "wouldn't feel more comfortable further away" (code for in the poorer area with our own kind) and once caught red handed over denying serious overt bullying, quietly wrote to me that they "couldn't guarantee his safety on the premises from other children" because of his differences causing other childrens reactions, and my complaints causing parental upset, and that I "sent him in at my own risk" from now on, expecting to call SS when they assumed I would then either knowingly put my child at risk or disappear.

Even the LEA balked at that, but they only knew about it because a young Ds with a black and white sense of right and wrong, refused to be bullied out of his school at the time. I was actually pretty done by then.

Dogs, horses and children all do well with fair , firm boundaries.
It makes them feel safe

Agreed, but all the boundaries in the world will do precisely fuck all about a child being autistic (or not).

Indeed. And if they have PDA with their autism, 'firm boundaries' won't help at all. Gentle encouragement and opportunities to do well work much better.

This thread has been eye opening.

I am almost sure my dd has adhd and autism (although I was sceptical about autism until a teacher brought it to my attention) but is high functioning.

I was unaware of the research around prenatal stress and baby sleep. After a first trimester mmc. A stillbirth (with a severe physical deformity). A second trimester mmc (with tiploidy) my fourth pregnancy was successful however I suffered placenta previa, was hospitalised from 32 weeks until delivery and was almost certain i also wouldn't be bringing that baby home. Thank God I did! But now this has me thinking about the links.