Why is ASD so prevalent now?

[needmorecoffee]

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.

There is definitely (undiagnosed) autism in my family and (undiagnosed) asperger's/HFA in DH's. I'm sure of it.

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my ds is severely low functioning and has never regressed as he never learned any toileting/launguage skills. It was clear that he was different from very very early on my dh even thinks as early as the first 24 hours as he didnt cry at all or feed during this time and no reaction at all when the paed checked his hips, infact the paed noticed it and did the hips again and still no reaction. Looking back it is very apparent at around 9-12 months but we were first time parents and kind of in denial and listening to all the it will come stuff.

I am now expecting my second child in 10 days and am in a quandry about vacinations ds1 had vitamin K orally and all his jabs but i cant help but think that all those chemicals in such a young body can't help. I have avoided tuna this time round as i did eat an awful lot last time (maybe 10 tins a week) as i craved it. We also had genetic tests done to see if they could explain why but no sucsess, showed nothing. Not that it mattered as we still would have gone ahead and were actually pregnant after 18 months of trying when we got the results.
He also has all of the gut and gastro problems that gess speaks of but no allergies or intolerances but does respond to dairy free diet.

Is there any evidence when it comes to jabs?? I know obviously the MMR but what about the others??

is there a link between vitamin k and asd? Do they still give vit K? I know my ds1 had it and I don't remember knowing much about it at the time - can't remember being given a choice.

Interesting, only ds1 and ds3 had the injection (the asd ones), ds2 had oral vit k. Hmmmm.

Some of it is that more kids are picked up certainly, thankfully as well as kids who aren't dx'd (or indeed are but you can work with it then) o0ften suffer from depression and negative effects beyond the basic extent of the dx.

AS was in the 1940's wasn't it? Althpugh wasnt generally dx'd until later.

I think its at least partially simply because those traits that we associate with as / asd, when present in smaller amounts, often presenta s a good aprtner option- often they're high earning techinically minded loyal individuals, constant and reliable. So thsoe individuals have mroe chance in our society to pass their genes on, iyswim.

Gracie I was also on many tins of tuna a week with ds3 9the mroes evere), as a craving- and also avoiding this time!

Dino

'We are in odd position of having one DS at the very high-functioning aspergers end and one with regressive autism.'

Snap

(although ds1's dx is hfa / as but ykwim)

there is very little to link vitamin K to autism but some suggestions have been made on jabs website I'm not sure they do still give it but i think so

Gracie, all jabs can cause side effects ranging from death, through brain damage to a mild fever. There'sno predicting.
There's several mums at DD2's sensory group who developed infantile spasms within hours of the DPT and are now seriously brain damaged. Why them? No-one knows.

Peachy, I believe that AS was not dx until the 80s!!! I don't know about the formal dx criteria as in DSM1V for ASD??
Aspergers work on the syndrom was done in the 40s I think but not acknowledged although Kanner's was.

AS did not officially enter the DSM diagnostic criteria until 1994. Lorna Wing had published a study relating to it some years previously, I think she was the first to coin the term Aspergers Syndrome, after Hans Asperger.

yep, research iread was 1994, with original books written though not acknowledged in the 40's- although 1994 referred in that piece to USA so didn't want to assume same date in UK, iyswim

Peachy - how very interesting that your DSs fall into the similar pattern to ours!