More AS or More Diagnoses?

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Autism diagnoses have risen 1,000% in the last few years.
I wonder whether there are a lot more autistic people being born, or whether rising awareness and the diagnosis of young people with Asperger's (young people who would just have been 'nerds' a few years ago) is causing this dramatic increase.
What do you think?

Perhaps one reason is that once upon a time the symptoms were hidden by much more rigid social structures and "manners".
People tended to stay where they were born or with people they knew well.
More and more jobs involve socialising ( whereas many didn't involve talking from dusk to dawn in the past).
The modern search for an "authentic-self" has exploded or exposed many of the old "social-shells" and " by-rote" responses.

And because the world is much noisier and faster and more crowded .

Evolution of society is about to shunt us off the cliff!

Personally I think Autism and Asperger's are in the limelight, so a lot of people will be diagnosed, many incorrectly. Combined with the already wide range of symptoms, and you'll get a lot of people seeing parallels to themselves or others.

Honestly, reading stories online you can see the paranoia, a five year old wont sit still in preschool, and immediatly people start wispering AS. It's the new ADHD, and in ten years it'll be replaced with another, even more serious prognosis.

ouinon, is right, to some degree, but your whole premise is FALSE! It is TAINTED! By older standards do you think ALEX would qualify as autistic? I can tell you I wouldn't. A number of people here wouldn't and, though they DO, they DIDN'T! Some have even been diagnosed both times. I think I am an ASPIE. I understand probably 80% of the related stuff here because I have LIVED it. I KNOW that if the AS diagnosis existed in the 60s here, I would have been diagnosed with it. It DIDN'T exist then though. So I am one guy that is off the radar. Take that in REVERSE though! A person might get tested just before the diagnosis fits, and just after. SAME PERSON! DIAGNOSED!

If not for that though, I could only say that it is because some people appear more accepting now, they don't see it as personal failure, and autistics can seem wierd, but have you seen some of the "NORMAL" people?!?!? YIKES!

Steve

More diagnoses.

i gotta say that its probably because people are getting smarter and know what to look for. in the past this wasnt a issue, theres probably not more autism on the planet just better diagnosis

In 10-20 yrs time I'll bet that 10-20% of the population will be labelled with ASD neurologies.

So it's better recognition and assessment as far as I'm concerned.

More diagnosis.
In 1980 no one at all was being diagnosed with AS...

Since AS was not diagnosed a mere few decades ago, and since diagnosis is concentrated on children, it stands to reason that as awareness spreads, the large adult population with AS (which is larger than the child population given it is a life-long condition there are more adults than children in most populations) will become aware of AS and know darn well that it means them.

So we have an increase in diagnosis because children are being diagnosed, and a further increase as adults become aware and seek diagnosis for various reasons.

More diagnosis. You guys are everywhere (or is it that I just live in the state with the highest rate of autism). I think nerds are nerds and are NT, AS is different brain reaction to stimuli. I don’t even think AS is autism, but I don’t know enough about autism to know that. I just know there is a world of opposite people that would be just fine if they acted like themselves and stopped trying to fit in. NTs are very flexible and accepting. Don’t take random rude interactions with strangers or bullying by classmates or coworkers as typical NT thinking. No one knows about AS. If more people knew it would be as accepted as much as left handedness (which used to be thought of as the devils work). Anyone up for a public awareness campaign?

I think it is more diagnosis based on the premise of a widening definition for what is an autism spectrum disorder.

20 years ago, I wasn't labeled as anything but that weird scary punk girl that everyone avoided. Would I have been labeled? No, definitely not. My son certainly would not have been labeled. Even the neuropsychiatrist told me that he might be too high functioning for a label....until the meltdown over the bathroom.....

So, I think it is better awareness. When I give presentations in the community on autism and its causes, I always cite one cause as "the nerd herd is reproducing". The geeks and dorks and nerds or whatever other label you've put on yourself are finding their way in the world. Also the world itself is a much smaller place. So these people that are not on the radar or barely on the radar are finding members of the opposite sex that they have things in common with. Marrying. (gulp) Having children. And if we follow the premise that our children are technically born with the predisposition for our genes and then multiply it....our children have our problems but magnified. At least, this is what is true in my house. I was weird, the dad was weird, the kid was going to be weird. Weird begets weird.

More diagnoses. I think autism and Asperger's have been around forever, but our understanding has grown and will continue to be redefined over time.

Clearly mercury is to blame.

/sarcasm

I think there actually are more autistic people, just because I started teaching 20 years ago and there just weren't any kids in our entire school population who seemed to have anything remotely like this.
We saw our first autistic child in the school somewhere around my 7th year of teaching. Another one a couple of years later, and then it seemed like there was a new one every year. I'm sure aspies were around before that, because obviously we were adults before I started teaching, but I don't think that there were quite so many! I mean, how many quirky kids do you remember seeing in your entire school when you were little? There are currently 5 kids in my son's grade level with a PDD-NOS dx, plus one with HFA.
Or maybe it's just that they are getting dx'd earlier, getting therapy earlier, their behavior doesn't get so disruptive, so they aren't being sent away to those special schools. Who knows?

I know some people are going to think I'm crazy, but I think it has to do with all the light and sound "educational" baby toys that are on the market. Plus the noisy and super sized mega malls, etc. that we take our babies to. My nervous system goes nuts. Why do we think a delicate infant's nervous system can handle that *@!?

I was the only kid in my class that was "off" quiet and went off into my own world. It wouldn't surprise me if there were people getting the wrong diagnosis since this tends to happen when people see something brought up in the mainstream media more often.

As far as kids and psychiatric drugs go, WTF! Can't people see that maybe ritalin is the wrong answer for children and anti-psychotics?? Sure maybe in the most extreme cases but come on, now alot of kids are getting on ritalin and it's alot like meth!

There should be age limits set here and guidelines. It's all big business.