Yeah so im thinking around 10% of people have ASD, thoughts?

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Yeah so im thinking around 10% of people actually have some form of ASD if we include all types, thoughts?

Apparently about 1% are actually diagnosed, Shall i make my case as to why i think its more likely 10%?

10% is the percentage of gay people. Even if someone doesn't like it, they actually know gay people. The high incidence makes contact with gays unavoidable for anything close to a "normal" lifestyle.

I know two gay co-workers who are raising kids.

I think that ASD is being used too liberally these days. In my mind unless it is a disability for that person it should not be categorized as ASD. For example I am an introvert and have no friends and have had a lot of difficulty in social situations. Sure I have many ASD characteristics but it has never prevented me from doing anything. I can socialize with people I even worked in sales at one point (it was miserable). Let's not confuse nerdy introverted types with people who truly have a disability.

10% seems about right...for the general population. In the homeless population it's closer to 20% because a lot of autistic people have a hard time fitting into society so they always remain on the fringes.

Autism is such a far-reaching diagnosis that some people are obvious (non-verbal, zero eye contact, no social skills whatsoever, can't take care of themselves), and some not so obvious (college educated, married, have a job & kids, etc). If we were to limit the diagnosis of autism to the very dependent type of person, then we'd say about 1% of people are autistic, maybe even less. That cutoff point has been a bone of contention with the public and academics alike.

Wait, what?

You can speculate that there's 10% of the population with autism... but to conclude that they do is quite backwards without actually surveying incidence.

You suggested that you might explain your rationale if asked, what is your rationale?

It might be a fair approximation if you consider the 68–95–99.7 rule of standard deviations from the norm. By definition, something is "abnormal" if it is too far from the first std dev on a bell curve. And while humans don't typically base their designation of atypical or different-as-a-problem on a statistical calculation, the range is somewhat close.

So, yeah; anyone out near or past the second standard deviation from normal is considered different enough to warrant some sort of diagnosis of something or another to explain their difference. Could be "mental illness", could be "moral failing" but it must be something or else there is no way to define "normal" and therefore, "safe like me".

'Cause that's just how normal humans are; it's a herd/chimp troop mentality.

I personally have no rationale for a percentage such as the OP. But, I do think it is under reported in older people. Many for the fact that they have no idea. We got pounded into us, growing up, that we just were, 'weak', 'lazy', 'dangerous', 'problems' and many other sorts of things that just demeaned us. Couple that with the times of corporal punishment that would get people arrested these days and it's a recipe for hiding, masking and denial.

Many of us are high functioning. Many of us are fast enough to do things at a normal speed when observed by other people who do not realize that we are actually working three times as fast because we are overcoming things several times to arrive at a 'normal' speed and time of conclusions.

An example of this would be that I am clocked as being a fast reader (yes, been tested) and my retention of information is phenomenal. But, I am actually having to read passages two, three or even four times because I invert meanings, the page goes grey while reading and I have to find the last known starting point to make sense of the text, jumping lines, or something doesn't make sense contextually and I have to find the missing piece I missed before. The worst is when something in the text triggers a tangent that I have to follow to its natural conclusion.

So, on many things, I am actually doing a process many times in the 'normal' time for most people.

But, most of us at later ages are under reported. Hell, I didn't even know until 7 months ago myself, so I was one of those I speak of for 55 years.

That depends on where the cut off point is. Autism is a spectrum and it does go beyond the diagnosable area. If you were to say that everyone exhibiting autistic tendencies had ASD then 2 of my 3 siblings and my mom would all qualify even though I'm the only one in the bunch to have a diagnosis. I also am the only one to have significant problems caused by autism who has needed special accommodations in school and has significant impairments.

You are probobaly right about 10% of people being slightly autistic, but it's most often slight enough that it doesn't really cause many problems and it's not worth diagnosing.

Yeah. That cutoff point is undefinable. I sometimes look at the spectrum of autism as being similar to the spectrum of being gay.

1. Bobby prefers the company of boys over girls. Is Bobby gay?
2. Bobby prefers sex with boys over girls. Is Bobby gay?
3. Bobby's visiting James, his friend from high school. Both of their wives and children are out of town. After drinking a few beers Bobby and James start making out. Are Bobby and James gay?
4. Bobby is in a homeless shelter and has no contact with his wife and children. A good looking guy, who is known to be gay, catches his eye and they start "fooling around." Is Bobby gay?
5. Bobby swears up and down that he is straight; however, when he's looking for drugs, he'll do anything to get some, even if it means having sex with a guy. Is Bobby gay?
6. Bobby has a girlfriend who he loves very much. She has a hard time, though, accepting the fact that Bobby has tons of pictures of muscular guys pinned to his bedroom wall or wears tight pink pants or swears The Village People, Boy George, George Michael and Sylvester are the best pop artists in the world. Is Bobby gay?
7. Bobby never watches sports on TV. It's always ballets or cooking shows or soap operas or Sailor Moon. Is Bobby gay?
8. By the way, what is gay? A man who offers oral sex? A man who accepts the oral sex? A man who, when it comes to anal sex, he's a "catcher"? What about the "pitcher"?

When you think about it, the "obvious" gay guys (the ones in black leather chaps, lifetime membership to Hung Like A Horse Social Club, don't mind spending half their rent on Barbra Streisand tickets) are probably only about 1% of society, maybe less.

Redrobin62, that was...amazing. And so very true. Not only do these things exist on a spectrum - many spectra, really - but human perception & language use varies so much from person to person.

Slightly OT from an earlier comment or two: the "page going grey" thing. You may be able to induce it by laying on your back on a fairly soft surface and staring up. Once you are completely relaxed and just about perfectly motionless, find a spot on the ceiling above you and stare at it. If you can keep your eyes perfectly still, even preventing the built in micro movements, your entire field of view will go grey. And if you let the micro movements return for just a second, you'll see something like the edge detection / bas-relief filter from an image manipulation app. With practice you'll be able to do it sitting, too. Our nervous system does not measure things directly; it measures change in stimulus. And to reduce the amount of processing needed, it averages when it can. Another example is to put one hand in hot water, the other in cold - both will feel lukewarm (the temp equivalent to "grey" being an average of black and white).

Thanks for the excellent posts here, i've read all including ones from Redrobin62, Edenthiel - great stuff.

"...society is currently trying to figure out how to proceed and make best use of autistics."

<--- Thinks Bill Gates, Suspected Super Aspie, has started already.

http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2016/02 ... 2e9nvpb0r1

The definition of gay is quite simple, really - 'a marked sexual preference for the same gender, to the point where if choosing partners based on attraction, they will almost always choose the same sex'. If you stick to that definition, classification isn't all that complicated. (Note: people who self-identify as gay almost always use this definition, which is why I think it's the correct one.)

Of course, you can choose sexual partners you're not attracted to, say in order to stay in the closet, or because your preferred sex isn't available. Behavior doesn't always match up with attraction.