is autism gonna get so bad eventually

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like will almost every person just have autism?

1 in 68 people are born with autism.


there was a survey saying 1 and 45 have autism.

which wasnt the official. just a test.



do u think its gonna get to the point of 1 and 2 have autism. or 1 and 15.


autism seems to be growing.

is the 1 and 68 only in the us?

Autism is a spectrum disorder. This means that at one end, you have people that are so severely autistic that they need round-the-clock care and supervision. We call them "Profoundly" autistic. In the middle, you have people who have found ways to cope and are moderately successful. We call them "Moderately" autistic. At the far end, you have people who are so well-adapted to their personality disorders that they can socialize, manage careers, marry and become parents, and maybe even become sickeningly wealthy.

We call that last group "Neurotypical", for some unknown reason.

i know that.

but more and more people are getting it.

More people are "getting it" because the definition of autism has become broader over the years. Most of the milder cases (almost all cases of Asperger's Syndrome) wouldn't have been diagnosed as autism at all back in the 1980s.

It's not because of vaccines or whatever. Vaccines came before autism. If vaccines caused autism, you would have had a dramatically increased incidence of autism in the 1950s-1960s.

Who knows? Maybe something in the environment is also causing an increased incidence of autism---though not really as much as the broadened definition of it

No, that's a myth. More and more people are being diagnosed with it, especially since the definition has been broadened so much that practically anyone can be diagnosed with it.

Besides, there seems to be a large percentage of people who claim to be autistic who are really only self-diagnosed - they should not be counted in whatever calculation is used to determine that "1 in X people are autistic".

In my case, these traits run in the family. There are a couple of older people that I can think of in my family that probably could have been diagnosed with ASD, had they been born more recently.

So it really has nothing to do with in increase due to environmental factors or anything like that, for me, at least. These traits seem to be common in those in STEM fields, and there are many people in my family employed in those fields.

Get enough autistic traits together and eventually someone will have enough of them to be considered autistic. People tend to be successful when employed in these fields, can afford to have more children, and probably are attracted to others with these traits.

BAP (broader autism phenotype) is now likely to make a person more successful, as STEM fields have become more important with the changing culture and rapid increases in technology. So I actually expect that more children with ASD will be born. Plus advanced paternal age seems to be a risk factor.

There isn't very much research aimed at accurately figuring out how common autism used to be, but I've heard about a UK study which determined that adults with autism seem to be about as common as kids with autism.

I think some of the neurological problems associated with autism might become more common, but I don't think that will manifest as "more people with autism" (the way we're thinking about autism), but maybe as more people with ADHD, or people with "high functioning" autism having worse symptoms.

I think that's a good point--it's easier to be at least moderately successful in fields that work well with the ASD/BAP mind. Also there are more women going into STEM fields (ASD and NT women), so on-the-job dating in STEM workplaces is more likely to happen than in decades past. When I was a kid, my brother advised me to stop talking so smart, because boys wouldn't want me. Now I see my friends posting videos of their daughters with their home chemistry sets and assembling robots. Go, GirlGeeks!

I don't think the rate of ASD is increasing, although there may be slightly more favorable conditions for some autistics to have families. And maybe that's okay.

The more the seriousness of autism is glossed over and watered down, and it also continues to get sensationalized as being something that makes a person a unique artistic genius whatever, the more people are going to decide they want it or that they have it, and also it will continue to be over diagnosed.

I would agree, with more understanding and knowledge on the part of the wider community, that many people who have autistic traits, or who are autistic, would probably be successful within the STEM professions.

It's better to allow a person to make a living--than to consign a person to disability status because of ignorance.

Well, that's pretty mean.

It's a spectrum. Just because someone doesn't have it as severely as you do doesn't mean they only sought out the diagnosis to feel special. Get over your pity party.

And the seriousness of autism is not watered down - just the opposite. Apart from the occasional "neurodiversity is a thing" articles, the majority of news coverage of autism is "these low functioning nonverbal kids have constant meltdowns, ruin their families' lives and will ruin the economy with the cost of caring for them". Which is painting it out as a lot more serious than it is, since the majority of autistics are high functioning and even low functioning autism isn't as bad as they paint out.

That is not what she said. Insults are against the rules, too.

I think what EzraS is saying is that he believes that to some people autism has become "cool", and since he is disabled by his autism, he doesn't appreciate the way it's being represented.

I don't know whether or not there are people who are not autistic that are being misdiagnosed as autistic because they think it's trendy. I had to take quite a few tests myself, and have several interviews before I was diagnosed. And my parents had to fill out questionnaires regarding my childhood behaviors.

I think it's more likely that people are going to start using the medical term "autistic" to describe certain traits, as has happened with OCD.

I was quite annoyed when people that didn't have OCD started saying things like "Oh, I'm so OCD, I just have to have my clothes arranged by color in my closet," or something similar. As a person that was once actually diagnosed with OCD and severely affected by it for a time, it irritated me that people just threw the term around without realizing that it is a serious disorder for many people.

If people start saying "Oh, I'm so autistic, I really don't socialize that much," or "I'm so autistic, I hate loud noises," I'd probably get pretty irritated.

I really don't want autism to become trendy, because then people won't take it seriously. It has held me back for most of my life, and I don't want it to be seen as some kind of a joke, because it is serious to me.

Autism is "growing" in number because (a) they get better at finding it, and (b) they have expanded the definition of it from one narrow range of (what we now call) "low functioning" dramatically effected people to a broader range of folks on whole spectrum ranging from low, to middle, to high functioning.

Its not growing because it is actually "growing" ( ie more folks are born autistic than have always been).

Next question.

I'm not talking about people who don't have it as severely as me. I'm talking about people who don't really have it at all. I think there are people who convince themselves they have it after reading and reading about it. I think there has to be a line drawn as to what is truly autism, otherwise it becomes so broad and vague it stops having any meaning. I'm kind of surprised how many seem threatened or whatever by my opinion on this.
And I was referring to is social media and trends, not CNN or whatever.

I think the misunderstanding comes from your claim that you're only against erroneous and frivolous self-diagnosis ('people who don't really have it at all') - and yet the phrase 'it will continue to be over diagnosed' implies that you already think it's over-diagnosed, and that autism can only be correctly diagnosed by you personally, rather than by mental health professionals, who are apparently unqualified for the task.

If your point is that you disagree with the current DSM-V criteria, and feel it needs to be revised, that's fine, that's a valid opinion. But own it, and don't be surprised if others seem 'threatened or whatever' by your opinion.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time, and I do respect your viewpoint. I just think this is a case where some of us will just have to agree to disagree, as to where the line ought to be drawn. For me, it comes down to meeting the official DSM-V criteria, to a degree that causes significant impairment in functioning, as determined by a qualified professional.