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SN children

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Original poster

Why is ASD so prevalent now?

65 replies

needmorecoffee · 21/08/2007 17:59

This was soemthign I was pondering the other day. When I was a child hardly enough had ASD. Some kids were considered 'odd' or geeky maybe. But now ASD/ADD/dyspraxia etc etc seem to be very common (or else I hang on on too many SN boards!)
Either it was always there and kids didn't get dx so werea bit odd but were forced to cope or something has made a huge rise in ASD type things. Maybe vaccines, maybe pollutants in food and water and the air?
What do people think? I'd never heard of ASD until my 2nd child was dx with Aspergers. I just thought he was over-sensitive and 'difficult'. That was 10 years ago. He's unvaccinated but had the Vit K injection against my wishes as I was still unconscious after his c-section. But I still wonder what might have caused it.

OP posts:

Pinkchampagne · 21/08/2007 18:02

Very little was known of the condition years ago. I'm sure there were lots of children that would now be diagnosed with some of these conditions that at the time were just seen as a bit odd.

Original poster

needmorecoffee · 21/08/2007 18:05

Well, I guess we all knew one 'odd' child per classroom they got picked on etc but now half a school can have an SN label and be ASD or be on rotalin for ADD. Something must have led to this huge rise, it can't justbe that it wasn't dx so well.

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mum24boyz · 21/08/2007 18:05

hmmm, i think that they are happier to dx now than they used to, so i think it would be hard to say wether it has actually risen or not, 1 of mine got wisked off for the vit k injection, but i cant remember which one it was now lol, having 4 of them, but it is 1 of the younger 2, and both them are sn, no 3 i am told had something not quite right about him as a baby, but he developed ok, until after his mmr, so i think that could have made a difference. i suppose its a combination of all those things that has made such a high rise in asd etc, well thats what i would say anyway.

Pinkchampagne · 21/08/2007 18:07

I was on an ADS course recently, and was told that little was known about these conditions until fairly recently. Aspergers was only discovered only around 20 years ago from what I remember.

Original poster

needmorecoffee · 21/08/2007 18:08

My thoughts are about water. If you think of all the chemicals in it nowadays, including prozac type drugs. These things cause changes in river animals and then we drink it and expose developing brains to it.
Makes you wonder. Of course, we'd only know if we found a population with access to clean food and water and good medical facilities and compared ASD levels. That would be hard to find on earth nowwhat with 30,000 chemicals in our bodies that weren't there 100 years ago.
I'm guesing it is a new phenomena as the human race couldn't have made it this far if ASD type conditions were so prevalent. Its not a good evolutionary trait I guess.

OP posts:

Pinkchampagne · 21/08/2007 18:08

Should be "ASD course"

Original poster

needmorecoffee · 21/08/2007 18:13

I guess the reason I was thinking about it was my mum. She's pretty sceptical about the whole thing (I wont tell you what she did to my son to prove he was just badly behaved and not Aspergers!) and reckons kids nowadays are over-dx and just badly behaved (we didn't speak for 8 months over this) but she did say that the sort of aspie/autistic behaviour wasn't seen or tolerated when she was young. I'm assuming non-verbal LFA would have been kept at home or in some sort of care so she wouldn't have seen them (disabled kids had no right to education until the 70's) but you'd of thought ADD/Aspies would have stood out a mile. Unless the rigid classroom stuff suited them better so they coped better?
Just seems scary to me that so many kids have problems. Mind you, if the Guvmint ever did find out it was pollutants everyone would sue.

OP posts:

Pinkchampagne · 21/08/2007 18:21

My parents are very anti it all too. My dad says "In my day it was just called being a bit different"

aloha · 21/08/2007 18:21

Children with ADHD etc existed alright, and plenty of them were excluded, expelled, sent to special boarding schools, ended up with no qualifications and shit lives.
When more people thought like your mum, needmorecoffee, of course children didn't have Aspergers/ADD, they were just bad, and their lives were utterly miserable
I do think increased diagnosis is the key 'cause'. Bad diet etc makes things worse.

dustystar · 21/08/2007 18:33

I agree with Aloha that its a lot to do with increased dx and thats partly due to increased awareness - in child care professionals, medical professionals and the general public.

aloha · 21/08/2007 18:40

I am so pleased that so many US tv shows now have clearly Aspie - and clever, sympathetic, interesting - characters. Feel really positive about that.

Original poster

needmorecoffee · 21/08/2007 18:48

which ones Aloha? Maybe my DS would watch one. I'dlike to see some shows with disabled peoplebut where the disability wasn't the focus but the character was. There was a Jasper Carrot one here with a lad with CP who was just a character rather than 'lad with CP' which was nice.

OP posts:

luckylady74 · 21/08/2007 18:49

i've been toquite a few conferences/ courses recently and the vrious 'experts' i've spoken to seem to think this is the 'elephant in the room that no-one's talking about' because though increased dx accounts for some of the increase it doesn't seem to account for all of it.
i find very interesting some people on here thoughts on how some is hereditary and some is enviromental - vaccinations/water/food/pollutant sensitivity.

Original poster

needmorecoffee · 21/08/2007 18:51

If it was that a large amount is environmental rather than 'always been there' then thats a hugely serious thing. But in a way, also positive in that we could clean up our act.

OP posts:

aloha · 21/08/2007 18:53

I'm thinking Bones, the new show Numbers (clearly Aspergers lead character - maths geek whose 'brain works differently', House, and several more. All adult characters. Also, apparently, a child character on a show called Eureka, who is an 11 year old attractive physics geek. Also, and I haven't seen it, but Brady Hauser on 24.

aloha · 21/08/2007 18:54

Aspergers definitely runs in my family. My dad had it (undiagnosed). My brother has (diagnosed in adulthood) ADHD.

dustystar · 21/08/2007 18:56

I think in mine too although no dx. Talking to my mum and aunt we reckon that both my grandad and cousin are on the spectrum. Having said that ds did seem fine until about 18 months when he had his MMR so who knows.

hels9 · 21/08/2007 19:25

I think increased diagnosis is the main cause. I remember an awful lot of very odd kids in my primary school, but the only one with a diagnosis was the kleptomaniac. And I was at primary school in the days when special schools still existed in far greater numbers, so all the obviously sn children would have been kept out of sight and mind of children capable of functioning in a mainstream environment. I think, now mainstream schools have, as a matter of policy, got to deal with more sn children, they are better at picking up on problems, parents are better informed and there is a greater incentive to get a diagnosis so that extra funding and assistance can be sought (even if unsuccessful!!!).

Having said that, I've always worried that being extremely stressed during my first pregnancy is the main cause of my son's hypotonia and mild aspergers-like behaviour...

aloha · 21/08/2007 19:40

Agree that they would have been funnelled into special schools/schools for 'bad' kids (like my brother was) and we wouldn't have seen any but the mildest cases in mainstream. My mother worked in a special school during my childhood (and there was another one opposite my house!) and I'm sure that most of the kids would be in m/s now. It was a very happy school though. My mum used to make little dresses for ex-pupils' babies (of which there were many). She also worked in a children's home, full of kids who nowadays would be at home. I remember one particularly enchanting little boy with DS called Richard that my mum adored.

coppertop · 21/08/2007 20:04

One of my brother's friends was at our school for a while, and then either expelled or 'asked to leave' other schools too. It was only as an adult that he was dx'ed with AS. I've 'seen' him around on AS/ASD forums and I think he eventually set one up of his own. Dh was one of those who left school with very few qualifications despite being very bright. My dad was probably more classic ASD than AS but was very popular as people were very fond of his more 'eccentric' ways. There are also several other people who I've known over the years who would definitely have a dx if they were children now IYSWIM.I think that more awareness is at least one factor in the rising numbers of dxes.

gess · 22/08/2007 11:24

Severe autism has increased as well though. DS1's school, is full of children who did not exist 20 years ago (had this from parents whose children went to the school then). They could not have been missed in society- they would have had to attend that school. They weren't there. DS1's class last year was 6 severely autistic boys. No other conditions. There used to be that fewer than that in the whole school.

Very good paper in Gut journal last year regarding the rise in autoimmune conditions and giving a model relating to leaky gut (and then environmental factors passing in through the damaged gut wall). The model didn't mention autism (wise) but was identical to the one that many people working with autism describe, Some believe autism is an autoimmune condition.

I went to a small primary school of 100 pupils. When I was there in the 70s there was one boy I would guess had ADHD. I can't think of anyone else who was spectrummy. I'm in touch with very few people from that school, but of the ones I am in touch with, we have ds1, our old next door neighbour has a ss with AS, our neighbour from 2 doors aways has a son with AS. I'm only in touch with one other person!

aloha · 22/08/2007 11:32

I also know quite a few people with Aspie children, but I am pretty sure none of them would have had a diagnosis growing up (all in mainstream, doing OK with support).
They would have been sent to family therapy if they were 'lucky' or just been treated as bad kids and maybe expelled.
There were a lot more special schools.
I don't know enough people with severely autistic children to comment on that though.
I am pretty sure that a lot of the kids in the schools my mum worked in would now be in mainstream.

aloha · 22/08/2007 11:34

I suspect it is a mix of things.

aloha · 22/08/2007 11:37

Also, there were more disabled children in children's homes who were sent to boarding schools. I know that probably does't account for what you are seeing Gess, but I know from my own 70s childhood and visiting my mum at work that things were so different then.

gess · 22/08/2007 11:45

I knew families with children with DS (nowhere near the numbers of children with DS now- DS1's school has a lot of children with DS at the top of the school, loads with autism at the bottom- a very noticeable change), I knew families dealing with PMLD, but autism? nope (and not even people who I would now think were misdxed).

I don't particularly think that AS and regressive autism are the same condition though. Think they're very very different, with different causes. Richard Lathe did some calculations and said that the increase is in regressive autism, but its hard without reliable figures to base calculations on.

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