Autism rates rise, disorder now affects 1 in 88 children...

[NeonLX]

Autism rates rise, disorder now affects 1 in 88 children, CDC says
A study of 8-year-olds' health and education records is the latest in a series to show autism rates up dramatically in last decade. Researchers cite public awareness and better case identification.

...

Federal health authorities have significantly raised their estimate of the prevalence of autism in children, concluding in a new study of 8-year-olds that 1 in 88 has some form of the disorder.

The analysis, based on a review of tens of thousands of health and school records in 14 states, was released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is the latest in a series of studies showing autism rates climbing dramatically over the last decade. The previous estimate was 1 in 110.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0330-autism-rates-20120330,0,4479379.story

[MacCruiskeen]

Autism, schmautism.

http://www.latimes.com/

Imagine leaving the womb and arriving in Los Angeles in the 21st century and being expected to enjoy the contrast, or even to function as a healthy primate.

You could hold conversations and stuff, but what would you do, in the long run (and especially in the short run)?

Maybe autism is just shorthand for exceptionally good taste.

[Marie Laveau]

Researchers cite public awareness and better case identification.

Because 1 in 88 children have always had autism.

Uh, yeah.

[MacCruiskeen]

If everyone were to shut the fuck up 99% of the time, would life be worse? In what way, exactly? Please specify.

Autism, schmautism.

[Nordic]

Research shows that early intervention offers autistic children the best long-term prospects

Why? So they can be drugged?

More than a fifth of children identified as autistic by the CDC had no autism diagnoses in their records.

Dr. Coleen Boyle, director of the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said that children "still aren't being identified enough."

(The CDC? The people that brought you the artificial flu hysteria that made the drug companies a fortune as they whisked out jillions of vaccines that weren't needed? That gave everybody shots of God-Knows-What in those vaccines, that had needles that were EXTRA BIG to handle whatever CRAP they were injecting people with?)

Again, why? What's the hurry to LABEL everybody as "MESSED UP".

"There's something wrong with you, kid."

Highly disturbing.

I don't remember the word "autism" even being around when I was a kid. Didn't exist AFAIK.

Oh, and fuck the CDC.

[Freitag]

Research shows that early intervention offers autistic children the best long-term prospects

Why? So they can be drugged?

There are no drugs for autism, the only treatments are therapy.

Again, why? What's the hurry to LABEL everybody as "MESSED UP".

"There's something wrong with you, kid."

Highly disturbing.

Unless of course, there is something wrong with you, in which case it's helpful. I wish I'd known about the autism spectrum a long time before I found about it.

[Nordic]

Research shows that early intervention offers autistic children the best long-term prospects

Why? So they can be drugged?

There are no drugs for autism, the only treatments are therapy.

Again, why? What's the hurry to LABEL everybody as "MESSED UP".

"There's something wrong with you, kid."

Highly disturbing.

Unless of course, there is something wrong with you, in which case it's helpful. I wish I'd known about the autism spectrum a long time before I found about it.

Does the therapy do any good? If so, how does it change the kid?

Does labeling a kid "autistic" really do the kid any good? Or is it really for the parents, so they can learn how to deal with their "different" kid?

[justdrew]

http://neurodiversity.com/library_index.html

it was originally thought of as a form of "childhood schizophrenia" - lot's of good source documents at the above link.

for kids, there's a few theoretical treatments, but variants of this remain popular in some quarters:

Screams, Slaps & Love
A surprising, shocking treatment helps far-gone mental cripples
Photographed by Alan Grant | Life Magazine, 1965
Enraged bellows at the boy, then a sharp slap in the face. This deliberate, calculated harshness is part of an extraordinary new treatment for mentally crippled children. It is based on the old-fashioned idea that the way to bring up children is to reward them when they're good, punish them when they're bad. At the University of California in Los Angeles, a team of researchers is applying this precept to extreme cases. They have taken on three boys and a girl with a special form of schizophrenia called autism - utterly withdrawn children whose minds are sealed against all human contact and whose uncontrolled madness had turned their homes into hells (p. 96). And, by alternating methods of shocking roughness with persistent and loving attention, the researchers have broken through the first barriers.

[Freitag]

Does the therapy do any good? If so, how does it change the kid?

No. From what I understand, therapy is not very effective.

Does labeling a kid "autistic" really do the kid any good? Or is it really for the parents, so they can learn how to deal with their "different" kid?

Probably the parents (whose understanding of the situation would, presumably, do the kid some good).

[Simulist]

Again, why? What's the hurry to LABEL everybody as "MESSED UP".

Well, actually I think the answer to that is a simple one: it's a comprehensive process of marginalization.

Highlight the differences, classify as many differences as you can as "disorders," create a veritable MINEFIELD of laws to be broken by the already-marginalized millions in order to marginalize them even more! — and pretty soon you've got a society FULL of people who either ARE or FEEL dis-empowered.

Because that's part of what it takes for THE FEW to continue to flourish in this oligarchy.

("Say what you want about George W. Bush, but at least he doesn't have a DRUG ARREST on his record! — and he's never been diagnosed as 'abnormal' either, right?")

[Twyla LaSarc]

...Don't kid yourself they belong to you,
They're the start of a coming race....

[peartreed]

In tribal societies going back millennia the peer pressure to conform to expected norms of behavior has enabled a predictable and malleable population subject to known controls. Nonconformity has always been problematical for the social architects and alpha engineers, and thus has been isolated, shunned and labeled.

The current autism spectrum has been defined so wide as to encompass many diverse forms of medical, mental and socially-defined deviant behavior and become a catch-all brand that warrants more resources for its correction, or coercion to fit back into form with the norm.

Autistic children, especially, have to adapt in order to survive socially.

As a grandparent living with a recently-diagnosed autistic prodigy who displays exceptional creative and language skills, but suffers extreme anxiety socially, I am aware that the diagnosis is key to activating special government and educational system resources and support but, contradictive to its intent, it also formalizes social marginalization. An adult autistic might adapt to that more easily than children.

A bright but autistic kid feels the separation by that label, and it impacts the developing psyche and self-esteem seriously during the formative stages of developing self-identity.

Part of the problem is the range of afflictions and the extremes the label includes. It would be better to treat each patient and each symptom as a specialized category with uniquely targeted therapies and support, rather than applying a broadly discriminating and pejorative social classification to all the many variations.

Even a “high-functioning” autistic is still treated as a marginalized outcast among an ignorant group of peers, especially in the school system where labeling prevails.

And many of the autistics are not adjusting to society because of society’s problems. Many of the high sensitivities classified as autistic are also enhanced perceptions. Some autistics are choosing not to conform to an uncomfortable, very scary society.

peartreed

[Wombaticus Rex]

I know it's not a popular opinion, but I think it's just getting diagnosed a lot more. Parents get very relieved (and curiously territorial) once they've got a diagnosis and they're terribly uncomfortable with the vague feeling there's something weird about their kids. Friends of mine who work in schools and day cares have commented in the past few years about kids with basically no actual symptoms whose parents believe them to be autistic -- kids who run around the playground, talk, socialize and just happen to be more awkward or aggressive than...whatever passes for "normal" in 2012, which can't be pretty. As one friend remarked "she just likes to read a lot."

peartreed had a very brilliant comment, too.

I'm very grateful my own folks refused to adopt any of the labels that professionals were trying to stamp on my forehead back when I was in the system.

[peartreed]

I just feel that our largely dysfunctional society has lumped so many different and diverse cases under the label "autistic" that it has become the equivalent of meaning, "They're all nuts!" And the little ones forced to wear that label suffer more by that alone.

I agree that more cases can be attributed in part to more diagnosis. I also think environmental pollution in all its forms has chemically altered the newer generations arriving into the fetid mainstream, not to mention a toxic society as its course. But we need to be more selective, judicious and careful about how we brand those departing from our expectations and norms of behavior. Too many excluded people in history became targets of the tyrants trying to purify the population for their pursuits, and isolating or eliminating annoying misfits..

And the unique individuals afflicted by "autism" today need more personalized analysis and individualized treatment and support.

peartreed

[Freitag]

Many of the high sensitivities classified as autistic are also enhanced perceptions.

Yes! Agreed