Stop Bashing Autism Speaks!

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The statistics are provided by scientific research, that is peer reviewed. Perhaps those numbers are absurd where you live, but the government here does not consider them absurd.

Why would a higher percentage of children have a problem with speech here than where you live; I don't know, that's an interesting question, that would be a good one to be answered by further research. Perhaps there are different environmental factors that come into play, but that would be hard for me to believe in two developed countries, if that is the type of country you live in.

Do you have any statistics to provide from your government on what the actual percentage of total ASD's that have issues with speaking are? A link perhaps?

The way the government measures prevalence of autism here is specifically through 8 year old children, mostly though data provided in the school system for the developmentally delayed.

It's not a perfect measure but it is a consistent one used by the Government since 2002, and based on the method started in the Atlanta Metro area back in 1998.

Chances are actual prevalence of autism diagnoses are higher, the method in Atlanta suggests that higher functioning cases of Autism may be missed in the statistics because of the method used.

The government doesn't identify this weakness in their method, but if the method is the same, it seems like the same concern might exist.

The 1 in 110 number is based on 8 year old children no other demographic. It is not based on the total number of people in the US, if that were the case over 3 million in the US would be identified with autism instead of approximately 1.5 million.

The method of diagnosis used in your country could be different as well. Does you country use the DSMIV?

It likely has something to do with differences in statistical measurement and/or diagnosis.

I think Autism Speaks is jealous of the enormous intellect of autistic people.

You just don't get it or you don't want to.

I will not be distracted by a long meaningless debate on differences in statistical measurements and diagnosis.

Your government is putting out misleading and alarmist statistics.

The CDC surveillance quite naturally only picks up on children with a documented developmental disorder so they completely miss out the milder end of the spectrum

You would get a completely different perspective and a much more realistic figure if it said 40% of the lower end of the spectrum rather than 40% of children with ASD. Just ask anybody who works in an SLD school.

I find it an unbelievable coincidence that your government is putting out alarmist incorrect statements at the same time as another organisation is running a misleading advertising campaign of fear.

Peer reviewed bah humbug!

Good night

I think the government has bigger fish to fry, than to get involved in somekind of conspiracy with Autism Speaks. The government came up with the slogan combating autism, so obviously they express as much concern about autism as Autism Speaks does.

If the same method that was used to screen children in South Korea was used in the US, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 1 in 38 instead of 1 in 110, however an accurate measure of increase in prevalence of the disorder requires the same method of measurement over a longitudinal time frame.

Imagine the alarm that would be created if the 1 in 38 number was found by screening entire demographics of children rather than those that already have a diagnosis.

The numbers are only as good as the screening method or research. It is what we have in the US so far regarding government statistics on autism, and what the government uses for information that allows it to plan for long term educational and support needs.

Maybe Autism Speaks is already working in partnership with the government to provide a more accurate measure of autism in the future. Hopefully someone will attempt to measure it in the adult population. There is hardly any knowledge in that area in the US.

Good night to you as well.

I think you're wrong. What Autism Speaks is, is afraid of an apparently retardative disease that can strike anywhere and with alarmingly high frequency and never does anything good.

I'm sorry even though English was my first language I have no idea what you mean right there....

Yet even more evasion from Aghogday.

There is nothing wrong with the way the US measures incidences of ASD.

There was probably nothing wrong with the survey data collected by the CDC in 2004 on children with documented developmental disorders.

But what is obviously incorrect is the statement put out in 2009 (3 years after Autism Speaks went into partnership with the CDC) using the 2004 data to claim that half of all children with an ASD do not talk.

Quote:
•A report published by CDC in 2009, shows that 30-51% (41% on average) of the children who had an ASD also had an Intellectual Disability (intelligence quotient <=70).
•About 40% of children with an ASD do not talk at all. Another 25%–30% of children with autism have some words at 12 to 18 months of age and then lose them. Others may speak, but not until later in childhood.


This is a clear misrepresentation of the data collected by the CDC by implying that over 1 in 200 US children can't talk. The evidence to show that that is false is all around you and you don't need a multi million dollar research project to see it. Just look in the schools.

The only question open to debate here is whether that statement was put out by an innocent employee of the CDC who knew a lot about diseases and knew nothing about the autism spectrum so they used the ASD term by mistake
OR
It was deliberately put out to frighten the public so that the CDC's partners could benefit from millions of dollars from donations and grants from the government to wipe out this apparant non-verbal epidemic sweeping through the children of the USA.

I think you already know what I believe.
Other people reading this will make their own opinion.
I do hope that you will reconsider your blind faith in the infalability of government produced statistics.

Inferring?

He was making a rhetorical question Aghogday. I don't need you to try some apologetics on me just because your parent of an autistic worldview might be shattered by my rightly criticizing a parent of an autistics.


Which is a convenient response since everyone who read that quote read it for what it was, a damned slighting implication, and not the backpedalling response he made out afterwards.

Aye, which is why when they seem completely absurd in saying that 1 in 200 children are autistic and are unable to speak, and that doesn't include people that are not autistics and are still unable to speak, there's much reason to say that there is foul play behind the scenes because the statistics are absurd. Furthermore why does autism speaks use US statistics that are over 6 years old? Why should I believe them? Also why should I believe you about the convenient start date?

Can I actually have a person who wont blindly peddle hard to justify statistics to give me proof of any of this from a reliable source>

Regarding Aghogday's off topic comment about the incidence of autism in adults.

This study was recently completed in the UK

http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/conten ... t/68/5/459

Interestingly they found 9.8 per 1000 adults with ASD, remarkably similar to the incidence of ASD children in the USA.

I would suggest that this was one of the reasons for Autism Speaks abandoning the epidemic propaganda.

Peer reviewed by an organisation linked with an organisation that you are extremely enthusiastically supportive of because you had an autistic child. It suggests a rate of children unable to speak over 1 in 200. What other assurances you can make are highly suspect and I'd rather have proof than you just report proof.


Telling whether a child cannot speak is not that hard Aghogday.


Which instantaneously makes it less reliable in a number of ways.

One person asked him to clarify whether or not it was an implication that all autistic people were low functioning, and he made it clear that was not the implication. I think he understands what he meant better than what you can infer that you think he meant.

You are asserting that he meant something that he clarified he didn't, suggesting it was a backpedalling response. The facts are the facts, as evidenced in the quotes. You are welcome to your opinion but there are no actual words in the text to back it up.

You aren't rightly criticizing a parent of an autistic child, you are making a false assertion, which is only your opinion, based on an inference of the statement "was autism good to you", to mean that applied to all autistics, even though the individual that made that statement clarified it was not an implication that all autistic people are low functioning, and a genuine question.

The sources is provided and dated for that information on the website:

There are two sources for the statistical data on the CDC website one from 2004 and one from 2005. The specific source listed on the webpage, in the link I provided, for the statistical data on speaking is:

[quote]2.Johnson, C.P. Early Clinical Characteristics of Children with Autism. In: Gupta, V.B. ed: Autistic Spectrum Disorders in Children. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 2004:85-123.[/qutoe]

The Government is responsible for the 1 in 110 statistic in the US that is quoted by many other sources besides autism speaks. The study for the 1 in 110 statistic was taken from data from 2006, but the study itself was not completed and presented until 2009. The information is availble on the CDC website. There is absolutley no evidence that their is foul play here, the reseasrch is an open book that anyone can look at that cares to go to the trouble to look at it. All references are availabe on the CDC website.

Per Wiki Autism Speaks didn't actually form until February of 2005. So there is no way they influenced this research on percentages on the number of autistic children that cannot speak that was published in 2004.

If you don't believe the information the US government is providing that is your perogative, but it has nothing to do with me, it is infomation that is quoted and used throughout the information, and considered as a reliable source here.

It's no more Autism Speaks problem than all the other organizations that quote the same 1 in 110 statistic provided by the government, and the same 40% statistic provided by the government on the number of children with ASD's that cannot speak.

Do a google search if you like and you will find the same statistics quoted by dozens of sources other than Autism Speaks.

I haven't seen the 40% statistic on children with ASD's that cannot speak, as a reference on the autism speaks website, but other organizations do cite this government statistic.

I don't need to say anything when I have such diligent like-minded people on my side.

It appears you misread the quote, the report put out in 2009 was regarding intellectual disability not the 40 percent statistic on speaking referenced in 2004. You were reading the first bullet in the quote, not the correct second bullet for the speaking statistic.

This 40% statistic has been reported and listed as sourced as a statistic from the CDC as early as May of 2005, per the webpage quoted from Google below:

Quote from google search on the statistic "About 40% of children with ASD do not talk at all":

If you do a search on the statistic you will find hundreds of sources that have quoted this statistic from the CDC since 2005. This speaking statistic has nothing to do with Autism Speaks. As far as I know, it's not a statistic quoted on the Autism Speaks website.

I've mentioned this study several times in this thread already, and suggested that Autism Speaks do a similiar study here in the US. I've already also suggested in this thread that is evidence against the idea that Autism is an epidemic, and a reason for the idea to be put to rest.