Autistic Adults Hidden in Plain Sight, 1% -- LA Times

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An LA Times Article --> Autism hidden in plain sight

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/autis ... .htmlstory

Ai Ling had a thread (which I can't find, now) about some very high unemployment figures for autistics. Someone in the thread basically said, "for diagnosed autistics, yeah." In this article a researcher says they're finding about a 1% incidence amongst adults (who were not diagnosed previously). So, there are (and have always been) a lot of adult autistics who are out in the world who are not currently included in official statistics.
Some seem to be doing ok, though most in the article sound like they're just scraping by.

The article is a lot easier to read on the website, BTW.

thats basically how id view it, the rate really never changed, its just that there is more of an effort to diagnose now than in the past. There really isn't an "Epidemic". The epidemic talk is just fear mongering by the media :/

Thanks for sharing this excellent article. I've posted a link to it on Facebook.

I feel like I slipped through the cracks, since my problems didn't become an issue until my teens and I wasn't diagnosed until early this year – but these people, jeez! I can't imagine reaching my 60s without someone noticing something.

Great article

I think we should all be rightly angered at the media for portraying autism as a "childhood" disorder; films, news and need I say it - Autism Speaks - have rarely given these baby boomers autistics any coverage, yet these adult autistics who grew up in ignorance will often have it worse then us with no support to speak of outside family.

This all helps continue the general publics idea that an autistic is always a child, never considering that autistic children grow up to be autistic adults.

Generation X autistics are often described as "the lost generation" as well.

And it is angering.

I knew there were lot of undiagnosed adults and figured the reason why it seems like autism has increased is because kids are being diagnosed now. Back in the days they were never diagnosed because AS wasn't known and autism was severe back then and in their own world and have no speech. The high functioning ones were left un noticed.

Thank you for the article:) And I agree that Autism isn't an "epidemic." Rather, more people are gaining an awareness of it and more doctors are able to recognize and diagnose it.

Am I the only one who thinks it's a much higher rate of incidence than 1%? I mean, because of the way population is distributed, for every person who's considered a "clinical autistic" there are going to be many more people who are nearly as bad, and then there are even more people who are just a little bit worse than them

*Daniel is hiding in unseen sight*

After a lifetime of major Asperger's-related problems gone undiagnosed until last year, I keep getting angry at mental health professionals. They seem to think that if you've managed to learn a few social skills after decades of being on this planet, then you couldn't possibly have AS. And what's really sad is that my 13-year-old diagnosed aspie daughter has similar problems just because she's very intelligent and has a special talent for words, even though she can't look people in the eye, etc. I think people simply can't accept on a gut level that someone can be really intelligent and have a disability. They will think up every possible alternative explanation, no matter how ill-suited, to avoid the one that fits like a glove.

I really don't like being angry and ranting like this. It's not my norm. But it seems like every time I think I'm over it and ready to move on, something else happens. Like the other day when I took my daughter to an initial visit with a psychologist from Kaiser's newly formed AS team, and one of the first things the psychologist said to her was "Tell me about all your friends at school!" in an enthusiastic voice. The answer, given with much discomfort, was "I don't have any." This was just one of several inappropriate things said to her. I don't know how to let go of the anger and move on when these sorts of things keep happening.

I'm one of the missing-- or I was, and don't know whether the Mental Health Center or the lady at the Children's Hospital who diagnosed me ever "reported" me to anyone or not . I was diagnosed with Asperger's for the first time just a couple of years ago, age roughly 64-65. I've had a reasonably good life, was married for thirteen years, raised a daughter to adulthood, held a lot of different kinds of jobs, never kept one for longer than a couple of years, and am now on Retirement Social Security. It's not as if I never saw Psychologists-- actually, I was married to one! But nobody knew what it was in those days -- "Autism" was something that made you non-functional, so the hospital would be the place to look for an Autistic. I was first treated for Clinical Depression in the seventies, and my husband knew that I had that, coming in cycles, well before that, but I didn't want to take any pills then -- just as well: the things they were using for depression then didn't do much. I now use the modern antidepressants, SSRIs, usually. Now know that both the depression and the anxiety arise from the Asperger's, but there isn't a pill for Asperger's. The person who first "diagnosed" me was my daughter, now an adult, who took some counseling courses in Christian College. I was going to a Mental Health Center for my antidepressants at that time, so she put her two cents in there and they sent me to the lady at the Children's Hospital for a real diagnosis.

I do believe that there are a lot more like me in the world. I see various indicative traits all the time. Sometimes I say something, but the ones who are mild like me and getting along reasonably okay don't _want_ to be told that there's something "wrong" with them, usually. For me, it was a great relief, because I always knew there was something wrong with me, having no or few friends, and often people seemed to react to me as if there were some sort of psychic "bad smell" about me. I wish I'd had some Social Skills Training when I was a young kid. For me, the research just needed to have been started a lot sooner. One of my college friends noticed the "mechanical walk" and the inappropriate facial expressions in conversation, figured those were at least part of my problem, tried to help me stop doing them -- and she was right! That was 1962.