To think if ASD is costing the UK 32bn per year we need to better early screening?

[Pelot]

Autism costs the UK 32bn a year. That's more than cancer, heart disease and stroke combined.

Yet we don't routinely screen all children and get them the services they need early enough. Often the system waits until a child is so unable to cope that they become disruptive in school that a referral is made. Often families don't realise (because no one tells them) that their child is displaying multiple red flags and that they will likely have higher care needs. Those families go on to have multiple affected children because they had no idea what the care needs of the first would be. Surely getting intervention and support sooner would be more cost effective and allow families a chance to be more fully informed when making decisions about subsequent children?

It's an enormous cost to screen every child when the incidence is something like 1 in 100, not to mention that there is a very real risk many cases will be missed and it offers false assurance and thinking that "my child's fine, I had them tested".

It's also 99 appointment times and costs that could be used to support children and other services.

You say parents might overlook it but 1) that can happen anyway and 2)parents do have a responsibility to advocate for their children. A counter argument could be that there should be a parenting test and if you score too low because I.e. you can't recognise and advocate for your child, then you can't have kids.

I am autistic and I have read studies published by professionals in china (inconveniently for me, can’t link to them as don’t have them to hand) that suggest things going wrong in the womb can cause autism, including infections that the mother has that then cause the baby not to develop properly. I can’t confirm if it’s true or not, nor can I verify if the studies are real or not, I’m not qualified in any way. There are also studies that suggest that autism could partly be caused by environmental factors in combination to things going wrong in pregnancy

Tied to radiators in institutions.

Schools when I was a kid were set up differently. Rows of desks facing the front with a lid to your own space and spaces either side of you. Very little choice available for kids and rigid routines. The world is different, busier and bigger now with a lot more stimulation and choice. It was easier to cope and to mask when I was at school because kids worlds were smaller.

Yes I'm not sure what is wrong with the comment. Is autism not supposed to make social interactions harder? It's literally in the diagnostic criteria.

I also agree with this. Watching families in obvious need fighting for the help required is a bloody crime.

I would like to see more work on genetics of autism.

This whole post is quite offensive to neurodiverse people who don't view being autistic as being a "problem"

And you see no autism at all going back through your family like then? It's just came out of the blue?

There’s no point squabbling about minutiae. Everyone is using language their own way. One person’s struggle looks like another’s success

The point of early diagnosis wouldn’t be eugenics, but better understanding and strategies for helping the children. My life changed massively when I stopped using ‘traditional parenting’ techniques and did what’s probably now classed as child centred low demand parenting.

I ignored all the advice and rearranged the world until my child was a bit happier. He had intensive intervention, effectively, to help him cope and find his strengths and give him time to mature into the lovely man he is today.

He still wouldn’t consider a girlfriend, a new friend, a new hobby, a holiday, or anything else that isn’t essential. He’ll stay in the same job until the company closes down. He’ll live with us until we move away. At that point he’ll find somewhere else to live as that will be easier than finding a new job in a new place.

Some kids are trapped in situations where they aren’t understood, aren’t supported and enabled. It’s hell for them and everyone around them. Screening would go a fair way towards addressing that.

That’s nice for those people. Not so nice for my friend whose DC are both autistic, close in age, and the second lad will never leave a care home where he has 2-1 most of the time. He may have preferred a bigger gap, in the hopes his second son would have an easier life.

I don’t know most of my family so I can’t really say. I’m the only one diagnosed with autism that I know of. I think the family that I do know would have Asperger’s, as they are extremely intelligent but mentally ill

Yes this.
I know very few autistic children who are supported well in school, or CAMHS, or their families for that matter.
CAMHS for my autistic dc was a complete waste of resources and did nothing to help my dc.

Schools actively obstruct diagnoses and support.

How are the figures going with undiagnosed ND young men in prison?

Start support young. Overhaul the crap education system completely. I have no idea about funding amounts in the UK, but I do know that right now thousands of dc are damaged via schooling which may well affect their productivity in the future in this capitalist world.

This is so true, the autism spectrum is so wide.

I suspect I am Autistic, late to hit milestones, speech delay as a child, learning disabilities, impaired social skills however, as I grew older I learnt to mask and as an adult, I have a professional job, two kids and a husband.

I still struggle now, especially with the social side of life and with change but I can function.

What I will say is when I was at school, they had smaller classes for children with learning disabilities so they could receive extra support. That extra support is GONE now, so more children need 1-1 support in mainstream classes.

Short term gain for long term pain.

I got more support academically than my daughter who is very similar to me. Its very sad.

Considering autism is supposed to massively impact social relationships, it is a bit surprising that so many have no trouble with relationships and having children.

Autistic people often get on just fine with other autistic people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubleempathyy_problem

@Millie2008 I am ND and I want resources spent in a more effective way to help those of us who are ND. I also think parents should be informed of any risk factors they can control. Anything that is costing us 32 billion a year cannot be swept away and not discussed.

I can see this from both sides.
I have a very high support needs non speaking ASD eldest child and a NT youngest child. If I had known DS would have the level of needs he does I wouldn’t have had DD tbh because I’d have been terrified of it happening again but now I have DD and she’s NT im so glad I did.

I love my DS but I’m sick to death of people pretending like having a very severely impaired child with crazy high support needs doesn’t entirely ruin the whole families lives. I had to leave work, there’s no wrap around care, holiday care, baby sitters, he’s violent and you literally cannot blink or he’s injured himself or burnt the house down. It’s shit, I can’t fathom why people aren’t more honest about how awful it is. Doesn’t mean I don’t love him but you know…shitty life.

Autism is very broad. Some argue too broad, but this is too simple. I don't qualify under this criteria but I know I'm autistic. Social skills can be learned, so I'm very high masking. No-one can tell I'm autistic but that doesn't mean I'm not. There are many autistic people hiding in the community without a diagnosis.

@gamerchick I agree. I can think of many children in my class 45 years ago that I now think would be ASD. The pressure was not so much at age 5 and they managed better. My extremely successful husband would get a diagnosis, as would all of his family. Their struggles come off as quirks. They did not go to school until age 7. By then their brains had matured and by age 10 were all thriving academically. Everyone earns enough to support their needs with staff. My son was thrown out of the UK education system at age 5, it was too much pressure at this young age. I'm educating him for now. I've had no help with anything from anyone. I haven't even registered him disabled as I think it could hold him back and the money doesn't touch our expenses. I fully expect him to thrive like the rest of his family.

The prison population has very high numbers with ADHD and some of these men may have overlapping ASD traits. Another absolute shame for society that so many of these men would have had completely different lives with early diagnosis. Equally many also have severe trauma in early childhood which muddies the waters.

When my son was being assessed for autism I was asked if I had experienced any depression during my pregnancy. I had at around 4 months become anxious and slightly depressed. I don't know if they were wondering whether anxiety/depression during pregnancy increased the risk of autism. But if they were doing a study into this I would be interested to know the outcome.

so was it prevalent in Elizabethan times and we just don't know about it?

Did you know a lot of girls especially are diagnosed as EUPD/BPD when they are in fact undiagnosed ASD?

If you see it in your family line then it's probably genetic.

They absolutely can, and do get diagnosed. There are autistic accountants, teachers, GPs, professors…

You’re not wrong. I’m shocked by some of them tbh.

Lots of angles are being looked at but for some reason when you read information about ASD (of all types), people seem very certain its 'this' and 'this' is the only explanation and reason for ASD

The reality is that we are working with theory at the moment, there is no definitive proof of cause that applies to all cases and there is work to be done.