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What are your thoughts on this article?

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firemonkey
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19 Apr 2019, 6:47 am

Quote:
As alarm grew over autism prevalence at the turn of this century, there was much public talk of a growing “epidemic.” That language has since softened, and it is now clear that many autistic people were there all along, their condition unrecognized until relatively recently.

But what is the cause? The emerging narrative today is that there is no single cause — rather, multiple factors, roughly sorted into the categories of genetics and environment, work together in complex ways. Because of this complexity and the hundreds of gene variants that have been implicated, developing human brains may follow many possible paths to arrive at a place on the autism spectrum.


http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/ ... edicine%29



magz
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19 Apr 2019, 7:07 am

It's a question that has been answered many times but it's still presented as a mystery.

Growing prevalence of autism diagnoses is a direct result of broading the definition of autism and changes in diagnostic criteria.
The prevalence of autism itself is constant but thirty years ago a masked Aspie would not get any diagnosis.


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kraftiekortie
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19 Apr 2019, 7:08 am

I find the article to be informative and accessible to “laypeople.”

It shows that autism has many causes—and that one particular treatment for one person might not work for the other person.

There is no “quick fix,” in other words. It is too complex a disorder. It’s not something like syphilis, curable with a few shots.

It is sort of a culmination of the results of years of research....put in terms most people can understand.



littlebee
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22 Apr 2019, 2:37 pm

.Thanks. Did not read the article (yet), but what you quoted is imo very intelligent and makes perfect sense.



ASPartOfMe
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22 Apr 2019, 7:34 pm

I think the language around the autism "epidemic" has grown not softened as evidenced by the anti-vaxx movement.

It might have softened as the 2000s went on but has hardened in recent years.


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MrsPeel
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23 Apr 2019, 2:55 am

I know many people attribute the growth in autism to improved recognition - that is, we are now diagnosing all the autistics who've been there all along, previously unrecognised or wrongly diagnosed. This makes a lot of sense to those of us who previously flew under the radar and were only diagnosed in adulthood.

However, there's been a scientific study (sorry I can't remember where I saw it), which worked out that there has been a genuine growth in autism cases, over and above the growth attributable to improved diagnosis.

Personally, I believe there are still a lot of undiagnosed aspies out there (especially women), but there has also been a genuine growth in classic autism cases as well, perhaps related to environmental factors.