Autism rate unbelievable

[OneShyLimeBird]

I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but the rate of autism has increased so much that I am doubting my own high functioning diagnosis, and the diagnoses of many others. The meaning of autism has expanded so much that virtually every other child has it. It used to be so rare, I’m not saying your child doesn’t have needs but you used to have to meet a much higher threshold to be diagnosed with autism that it’s now lost all meaning. It can’t all be autism.

I wonder if it is also because a lot of special needs schools closed and we are more aware of the children in mainstream schools.

What's offensive about people being diagnosed with autism?

You've lost me.

When DS was diagnosed the criteria was “marked impairments in the three triads” - social, imagination (repetitive behaviours) and communication. My nephew was diagnosed 3 years ago. He has meltdowns in school and gets overwhelmed. He doesn’t cope well with changes to his routine. But he’s very sociable, has loads of friends, and is understanding and empathetic. So though he struggles in two of the areas, he has no problems in one. That would have ruled him out of a diagnosis 30 years ago.

When I first started working, I shared an office with two other people. The open-plan fad means that I now share an office with 20 other people. I'm just as autistic as I was then, but it's harder to cope in modern hypersocial environments. COVID WFH created a stark reminder of how much more comfortable I am alone whilst other people bemoaned not being able to see people.

So I went for diagnostic assessment, and surprise surprise I'm autistic. Multiply that pattern of "cannot cope with modern hypersocial environments, suspects neurodivergence, requests assessment" across the entire undiagnosed autistic proportion of the population and you will get an uptick in diagnosis rates. These people were always autistic, we're just coming out of the woodwork now.

And you know this how, exactly?

I agree (also a formal diagnosis of HFA here).

I don’t doubt mine but I’ve recently come across a study that links many behaviours typically associated with neurodivergence (lack of eye contact, short attention spans, low lever of frustration/ gratification delay/ stress tolerance etc) to social media and smartphone use among young people.

I’m old(-er) and didn’t grow up with a mobile phone. I also have certain sensory difficulties that are more organic in nature.

But I doubt the impact of smartphones has been investigated thoroughly enough to rule out the links between them and certain behaviours typically associated with neurodivergence.

I’ve also seen a tendency to diagnose teens for behaviours that used to be considered typical teenage rebellion when I was young. Now these teens get a label for life.I suspect there is a hidden reward for parents somewhere in there, like they haven’t been a bad parent, it’s just their kid is ‚different’. In my experience teenage rebellion is in no way linked to how good or bad parents are, it’s a normal developmental stage and necessary to form own self-identity. Not seen as such these days though.

Autism is a diagnosis, not a label.

@SummerSnowstorm I work in a school and I was a ND kid in the 90's. I'm actually jealous sometimes of how things are for ND children now. That might be just my school though. We are fucking brilliant when it comes to SEND and SEMH issues.

@BeaTagger it's not a label, it's a diagnosis. And do you have any idea how long waiting lists for assessment are, or how difficult it is to even get a place on a waiting list? Your ignorance is obvious.

In my current class of 28 5 of them have a diagnosis of autism. 3 of them are very clearly autistic. I don’t think the other two would have been diagnosed with autism 10 years ago. They would have been labelled as quirky or precocious.

I doubt my diagnosis all the time but then I went out to my car to find the battery flat this morning and promptly burst into tears because it means that I'll have to talk to someone to get it fixed.

Because every time someone seeks advise on challenging behaviour there will be tons of people suggesting neurodiversity as a cause, and a lot of people willingly accepting this possibility because it’s easier to accept than the fact that parenting might be the issue. This helps nobody really and is indeed insulting to people and families struggling with autism etc.

There's an over-diagnosis of it. A professor specialising in autism said as much a few years back.

Also, there's seems a need to over-share and everyone needs to know if you/your child are autistic even when it's not relevant to the situation. Maybe it gives some kind of entitlement or excuse for behaviours.
Just my observations.

I say this as someone who (over sharing here!!) apparently likely has autism as my gp picked up on things and was pushing me to allow them to make a referral 🙃

My DD’s therapist recently recommended that she seeks an ADHD diagnosis. She’s really flighty and has trouble concentrating and motivating herself. She can’t even sit through a film and watches videos at 1.5x speed. She was never like this as a child. I don’t think it’s ADHD, I think it’s screen addiction.

It's about as much of a label as asthma is

@MooonDreamer

But there are severely autistic individuals that are very disabled by their autism, and others than can function in society, hold down jobs, raise families. Pretending there isn't a difference is also wrong. I personally don't think it's helpful using the same term for everybody, when my dd was diagnosed it was still called Asperger which I think was a helpful designation, a shorthand if you like. I'm not dismissing the issues people experience, just pointing out that dismissing the fact some people are more severe is also wrong. My friends son is now in a residential setting with 2:1 care, he is definitely a different category to my working dd! yet on paper they have the same diagnosis, humans need words to narrow down the spectrum

This might interest you, if you haven’t seen it already. Perhaps the therapist should read it too ;)

https://theconversation.com/how-smartphones-weaken-attention-spans-in-children-and-adults-218756

The lancet says that less than 1% of the UK pop has autism and if you include people who have not been diagnosed the figure is 2%. So the incidence is really not that high if you go by these figures.

Or isn't it better that children actually get the support they need now.... Why anyone with autism would begrudge others and not be happy for them they don't have to struggle so much and see it as a negative is beyond me

You're wrong. It's a diagnosis.
People are entitled to disability benefits as a result.

The DWP are notoriously difficult when it comes to PIP assessments. But people with a ND diagnosis do meet the threshold.

Not a fucking label! Clinical diagnoses. Labels are for things.

I wouldn't have been diagnosed in previous years, but I'm so fucking glad that I am now as it's helped me make sense of my difficulties.

I think it's far more common than we realise and there's a very wide spectrum when it comes to needs.