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Autism rate among males is 1 out of 62.5

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swbluto
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06 Nov 2011, 2:21 pm

So, it's said that the autism rate is 1 out of 100 in the general population and I believe that includes classical autism (Including High Functioning Autism) and Aspergers syndrome, along with PDD-NOS.

Autistic males generally outnumber autistic females by 4:1.

With that in mind,

we can deduce that the incidence rate among males is...

50*(5/4) = nearly 1 out of 62.5 males.

(That's my "insightful guess". Let's check it using reasoning.)

We assume among 100 peeps, 50 are males and 50 are females. Given an incidence rate of 1 out of 100, we'd expect there to be a total of "1 autistic person", meaning there'd be .8 autistic males and .2 autistic females.

50/.8 = 62.5.

So, if you're a guy and you seem more autistic than 62.5 random men that you can think of, remember seeing in your past, or see in your daily environment, you're probably on the spectrum! YAY!

This means I'm probably on the spectrum, either that, or I'm developing schizophrenia.



DoodleDoo
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06 Nov 2011, 7:30 pm

I saw a stat saying 1 in 500 that seems low to me. 2% sound much more right. It depends on where you are. Like Silicon Valley in California is going to be a lot higher.



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06 Nov 2011, 9:36 pm

Tony Attwood points out that adult diagnoses of AS are closer to 1:1 men and women. There are also social biases that women and girls face when presenting with autistic (and ADHD) symptoms that mean that it is almost certainly underdiagnosed among women.



fiooo
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06 Nov 2011, 9:53 pm

You probably overestimated. No way that statistic is true. Most people I encounter in daily life are quite normal. Doing a little arithmetic, the population here in NYC is around 8000000, so if only 1% were autistic, we would have 80000 people with autism here. I find that hard to believe.

I was almost about to say that most people I encounter seem pretty normal. Then I checked the statistics:

NIMH: Statistics

According to the US government, 1/4 of the population will have a mental illness in a year but less than half seek treatment. It seems that people can appear quite normal when they're not. Either, that or statistics are just lying.



MrXxx
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06 Nov 2011, 9:58 pm

Check your math.

If 1 out of 100 is Autistic, and the ratio of men to women is 4/1, then this would mean that out of 500 people, four would be Autistic men, and one would be an Autistic female.

Now, split the population of 500 in half, for 250 men, out of which 4 are Autistic.

The ratio is 4/250, or 2/225, or 1/112.5. Nearly double what you came up with.

EDIT: Yeah, I already saw the error there. See a couple of posts lower.


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Last edited by MrXxx on 06 Nov 2011, 10:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

wavefreak58
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06 Nov 2011, 9:59 pm

swbluto wrote:
So, it's said that the autism rate is 1 out of 100 in the general population and I believe that includes classical autism (Including High Functioning Autism) and Aspergers syndrome, along with PDD-NOS.

Autistic males generally outnumber autistic females by 4:1.

With that in mind,

we can deduce that the incidence rate among males is...

50*(5/4) = nearly 1 out of 62.5 males.

(That's my "insightful guess". Let's check it using reasoning.)

We assume among 100 peeps, 50 are males and 50 are females. Given an incidence rate of 1 out of 100, we'd expect there to be a total of "1 autistic person", meaning there'd be .8 autistic males and .2 autistic females.

50/.8 = 62.5.

So, if you're a guy and you seem more autistic than 62.5 random men that you can think of, remember seeing in your past, or see in your daily environment, you're probably on the spectrum! YAY!

This means I'm probably on the spectrum, either that, or I'm developing schizophrenia.


Your math is wrong.

If you take 1000 people then 10 will have an ASD. If all 10 were male, then it still would be 1 in 100. If all 10 were female then it would still be 1 in 100. The problem is that the attribute of autism is not a random variable so you can't apply probability formulas this way. You can only measure the distribution and then determine correlations with other factors, hopefully deriving causality.


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MrXxx
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06 Nov 2011, 10:01 pm

Incidentally, following that up:

The incidents for women can be calculated the same way.

1/250. Done.


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MrXxx
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06 Nov 2011, 10:06 pm

wavefreak58 wrote:
swbluto wrote:
So, it's said that the autism rate is 1 out of 100 in the general population and I believe that includes classical autism (Including High Functioning Autism) and Aspergers syndrome, along with PDD-NOS.

Autistic males generally outnumber autistic females by 4:1.

With that in mind,

we can deduce that the incidence rate among males is...

50*(5/4) = nearly 1 out of 62.5 males.

(That's my "insightful guess". Let's check it using reasoning.)

We assume among 100 peeps, 50 are males and 50 are females. Given an incidence rate of 1 out of 100, we'd expect there to be a total of "1 autistic person", meaning there'd be .8 autistic males and .2 autistic females.

50/.8 = 62.5.

So, if you're a guy and you seem more autistic than 62.5 random men that you can think of, remember seeing in your past, or see in your daily environment, you're probably on the spectrum! YAY!

This means I'm probably on the spectrum, either that, or I'm developing schizophrenia.


Your math is wrong.

If you take 1000 people then 10 will have an ASD. If all 10 were male, then it still would be 1 in 100. If all 10 were female then it would still be 1 in 100. The problem is that the attribute of autism is not a random variable so you can't apply probability formulas this way. You can only measure the distribution and then determine correlations with other factors, hopefully deriving causality.


I believe you misunderstood what he was trying to say. He's saying that the ratio of Autistic men to non-Autistic men is higher, but it isn't. It's lower. It HAS to be lower, because out of 1000 tested, 10 will be Autistic and TWO of those ten are women. Even if you cut the population in half to view women vs. men, it has to be lower.


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wavefreak58
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06 Nov 2011, 10:19 pm

MrXxx wrote:
I believe you misunderstood what he was trying to say. He's saying that the ratio of Autistic men to non-Autistic men is higher, but it isn't. It's lower. It HAS to be lower, because out of 1000 tested, 10 will be Autistic and TWO of those ten are women. Even if you cut the population in half to view women vs. men, it has to be lower.


Your calculations are correct. But I am suggesting that the calculation doesn't mean anything because you can't a priori assume that the distribution is random or follows some other ration. You could easily apply your correct calculation based on 7 of the 10 males having autism or 5 of the 10. Each would give us different numbers but still have no real meaning.


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Last edited by wavefreak58 on 06 Nov 2011, 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MrXxx
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06 Nov 2011, 10:19 pm

Oops. :oops:

That was wrong.

Messed up one digit

4/250 is 2/125 is 1/62.5

He's right.


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MrXxx
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06 Nov 2011, 10:20 pm

wavefreak58 wrote:
MrXxx wrote:
I believe you misunderstood what he was trying to say. He's saying that the ratio of Autistic men to non-Autistic men is higher, but it isn't. It's lower. It HAS to be lower, because out of 1000 tested, 10 will be Autistic and TWO of those ten are women. Even if you cut the population in half to view women vs. men, it has to be lower.


Your calculations are correct. But I am suggesting that the calculation doesn't mean anything because you can't a priori assume that the distribution is random or follows some other ration. You could easily apply your correct calculation based on 7 of the 10 males having autism or 5 of the 10. Each would give us different numbers but still have no real meaning.


No, they weren't right. See my correction above. He is correct.

I made a glaring and embarrassing error the first time.

Actually I would have to disagree with you in that it does reveal quite a bit. It makes sense too if you think about it. All he's really saying is that as men, we stand a far higher chance of having Autism, which the 4/1 ratio already tells us, but it does offer an interesting perspective on the matter.


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wavefreak58
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06 Nov 2011, 10:24 pm

MrXxx wrote:
wavefreak58 wrote:
MrXxx wrote:
I believe you misunderstood what he was trying to say. He's saying that the ratio of Autistic men to non-Autistic men is higher, but it isn't. It's lower. It HAS to be lower, because out of 1000 tested, 10 will be Autistic and TWO of those ten are women. Even if you cut the population in half to view women vs. men, it has to be lower.


Your calculations are correct. But I am suggesting that the calculation doesn't mean anything because you can't a priori assume that the distribution is random or follows some other ration. You could easily apply your correct calculation based on 7 of the 10 males having autism or 5 of the 10. Each would give us different numbers but still have no real meaning.


No, they weren't right. See my correction above. He is correct.

I made a glaring and embarrassing error the first time.


Oops.

But my point still stands. It is a meaningless calculation.


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MrXxx
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06 Nov 2011, 10:28 pm

wavefreak58 wrote:
Oops.

But my point still stands. It is a meaningless calculation.


Looks like we cross posted there. I added an edit.

It's not exactly meaningless, but it doesn't really tell us any more than we already knew from the 4/1 ratio anyway. We already know from that that it's higher for men. The rest, as you say, is just another way of viewing it mathematically. Sometimes a different mathematical perspective works better for some.


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MrXxx
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06 Nov 2011, 10:36 pm

swbluto wrote:
So, if you're a guy and you seem more autistic than 62.5 random men that you can think of, remember seeing in your past, or see in your daily environment, you're probably on the spectrum! YAY!

This means I'm probably on the spectrum, either that, or I'm developing schizophrenia.


Actually, if you were to study a little about statistics, it means no such thing.

Remember the coin toss? Most kids study it in school. No matter how many times you flip the coin, even if it comes up heads a hundred times in a row (or 1000, or a million times), the chances of it coming up heads again (or tails - it doesn't matter) is ALWAYS 50/50. That never changes.

Ergo, even if you know 10,000 men who are provably not Autistic, you STILL have a 1/62.5 chance of being Autistic yourself. It dosen't change the odds.


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07 Nov 2011, 12:43 am

^ If there is a tad over .3 billion in the United States, there is a chance you wouldn't meet one. Imagine if you shook hands with everyone lined up on a nation wide street, extending from coast to coast. It's possible, however remotely, that the last 3 million on the 'street' would be the only autistics in the US, or that the first 3 million that you greeted were on the spectrum.

It's possible to live in NYC and never meet one, or live in timbuktu and meet 50.



swbluto
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07 Nov 2011, 1:13 am

Mdyar wrote:
^ If there is a tad over .3 billion in the United States, there is a chance you wouldn't meet one. Imagine if you shook hands with everyone lined up on a nation wide street, extending from coast to coast. It's possible, however remotely, that the last 3 million on the 'street' would be the only autistics in the US, or that the first 3 million that you greeted were on the spectrum.

It's possible to live in NYC and never meet one, or live in timbuktu and meet 50.


Aspies are glued to their computers or their special interest most of the time and rarely go outdoors and when they do, most would never greet someone else, so how could anyone meet an aspie (I'm going to an ASD meeting on the 20th, so that's how I'm going to. :D)? You might've seen an aspie but you wouldn't know about it because it's a "hidden disability".