1 in 38!? ( are any of us really supprised)

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Many news outlets (reuters and npr, that i have read) are reporti g on a study from south korea that showed that roughly 900 out if 34,000 people assessed in the general population of school aged kids met the critiria for a diagnosis on the spectrum.
( the statistic is 1: 38) (yes i do wonder how those othet 37 people live) however this gives a massive boost to the genetic argument.
If you assumd that people who are similar are more likely to reproduce together, ( and thst i am to lazy to spell check wjen posting ftom my phobe) then it is pretty resonable to argur that lower probability aliels will start to become more common, furthermore those genetic potentials could form a "perfect storm" creating a disability out if what would otherwise bd a difference


(i am an adult with autism who works with other adults with more profound autism)

I saw that report and I'm wondering how many are misdisgnosed because of South Korea's excessively high number of video game addicts. At it's worst, game addicts seem like they could exhibit very autistic like symptoms. Maybe they should detox their population from their addictions before trying to dx.

In another thread someone mentioned that Autism Speaks was involved in funding that study. Since they have an interest in over-inflating the numbers in order to get more attention & money, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the study isn't quite what it's being presented as.

Also:

The significant difference between this and prior studies is that rather than getting a sample from people who had been refered for diagnosis the sample comprised 36000 individuals who shared the single common factor of having parents that fell into the 65%or so that responded to the survey.
Of those 900 or so showed enough autistic traits to statistically distinguish thrmselves from the norm. (usually 2 standard deviations outside the mean is where we make distinctions in psych, ie MR is defined by the dsmIVtr as
An IQ that is 2 sd below the mean or lower. )

We talk about inflaiting the numbers as a bad thing, like dont let those @$$holes into our club. It is only by comming to understand the true range of the spectrum that we can hope to understand ourselves as the people who populate it.

I work full time as a one to one support staff with a man who on paper shares a diagnisis with me
Pddnos

The significant difference between this and prior studies is that rather than getting a sample from people who had been refered for diagnosis the sample comprised 36000 individuals who shared the single common factor of having parents that fell into the 65%or so that responded to the survey.
Of those 900 or so showed enough autistic traits to statistically distinguish thrmselves from the norm. (usually 2 standard deviations outside the mean is where we make distinctions in psych, ie MR is defined by the dsmIVtr as
An IQ that is 2 sd below the mean or lower. )

We talk about inflaiting the numbers as a bad thing, like dont let those @$$holes into our club. It is only by comming to understand the true range of the spectrum that we can hope to understand ourselves as the people who populate it.

I work full time as a one to one support staff with a man who on paper shares a diagnisis with me
Pddnos

I'm not worried about keeping am exclusive club or anything. I just am suspicious of Autism Speaks' motives/methods. I think they are they types who are so 'passionate' as to be tempted to go too far and deliberately try to create alarming statistics (by bending things in the research). When such claims get debunked it messes up the credibility of all future autism research claims.

Like I said in another thread on this topic, the study is padded with kids who have an AS like thought pattern, but do not meet the diagnostic criteria because they do not any significant impairment in daily life activities. So yes I am surprised...at how recklessly this study was conducted. It's almost like Andrew Wakefield had a hand in it.

Seems excessive to me. And iffy.

I know a lot of people have ASDs, but I really can`t see 1 in 38 around here having it anyway. I know a lot of people, none of which have ASDs or signs of ASDs. I think it is being overdiagnosed quite a bit lately.

Maybe alot people didn't realise that they had Aspergers and they are becoming more interested in finding out about it. Aren't alot of girls with Aspergers first misdiagnosed with something else? I think I was one of the lucky ones to be diagnosed properly the first time around. But tbh, 1 in 38 people sounds a bit excessive :S

I think there was a ton of misdiagnosises with this. This may be a bit far fetched. Culture wise, asian culture is more condusive to aspie like behavior. Ok I dont know about korean culture specifically. Asian culture does not encourage as much social communication, these kids gotta work there butts off academically, and there probably raised with more "nerd" tendencies. Who evaluated these kids? If it was American psychs, theres clearly a problems here.

Does anyone know where we can find the precise study there referring to?

Let's contemplate this: Why do you assume that the 1 in 38 isn't at least partially relevant to the rest of the world?

I tend to think that those that assume that this statistic is out of line are those that like feeling special because they're autistic.

I'm not surprised by this statistic. I never thought I could be autistic until a couple of years ago (though, of course, my parents were told I probably was... something they didn't share with me). There are plenty of stories of people going into their 30's and 40's before they get an official diagnosis. I have no doubt that there are plenty of autistics that would otherwise never get a diagnosis.

I think this is actually a good thing. It can lead to a more positive view of autistics. The view people tend to have is of a LFA. It is true that most LFAs are completely unable to function on their own... but when you think of a neurotypical, do you think of someone who is severely mentally ret*d? I think that, if the statistics show that LFAs are as rare (or at least as close to as rare) as neurotypicals with severe mental retardation, that might make people think of HFAs, PDD-NOSs, and aspies when they think of autistics.

I think very high functioning autistics are out there in even greater numbers. Maybe 1 in 20

The significant impairment diagnosis should include relationship difficulties

I would actually like to see where the sex line is on that. Does the 4:1 ratio still hold true when you screen every child for autism?

I don't think it would.