california's autism increase not due to better counting...

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 095429.htm

I found this quote interesting:

Scientist can be wrong you know, look at all the people who have claimed to have found the cause of autism or the cure for autism none of the were right. Scientist are human they are not gods their findings could be right or they could be wrong we won't know until more research is done to verify the accuracy of these claims.

I second what PhilosopherBoi said

The study, in its quick call to examine environmental causes (again), fails to take into account all relevant data.

1) Asperger's Syndrome is a form of high-functioning autism. It would be reasonable to suppose that the genetic complexes are related. (In fact, available family histories, from a number of families, would seem to confirm this.)

2) Many aspies are drawn to careers in computers, both in the programming and manufacturing (hardware and software) ends. (This may be in part because when a computer is functioning properly, its response to a given input will always be the same; when it differs, it's time to fix a problem. People aren't nearly so -- well -- neat.)

3) California plays host to, among other centers, Silicon Valley, UCLA, and the San Diego biotech centers. These all call for a substantial number of gifted computer experts, of both genders. Social expertise is not considered necessary.

Therefore, in California you will have a substantial number of people who either are themselves autistic, or carry the genetic complexes behind autism, placed into an environment where they will meet a number of others of similar bent. Some of those will be of the opposite gender. Is it really surprising that such couples may reproduce? Is it further any surprise that their children will, statistically speaking, be more likely to inherit autism than is generally the case?

Does it not seem reasonable that the above information might be affecting the count?

It does seem very reasonable indeed

I didn't see anything wrong with their research methods. It seems to me like their approach made sense.

I don't understand this insistence that the cause of aspie/autism has to be genetic. Is this part of the "We're the future of evolution that almost never reproduces" idea?

Asperger's would usually go undiagnosed because the condition is subtle, unless you're an aspie, in which case it ain't subtle at all. Full blown autism is not so subtle that nobody would notice if somebody is autistic.

The first rule of investigative journalism is "follow the money." Considering the amount of money the multibillion dollar pharmaceutical companies pour into research funding and bribes, it demands skepticism when their salesmen in the medical and "mental health" industries say that their fountain of money never did anything wrong.

I don't see any obvious conflict of interest in this study.

Science is not as aspie-friendly as a lot of people seem to think. Note that the aspie scientists that post here aren't exactly living in aspie heaven.

California has the largest population of any state in the US. Silicon Valley gets a lot of attention in the media, but I doubt that people in high-tech represent a significant portion of the population. Like everyplace else, most of the people in California are driving a forklift in a warehouse.

From the article:


I'm impressed. It's about time somebody figured out that autistic kids grow up to be autistic adults.

Autism Street and Natural Variation have good posts which examine the study's limitations.

A sevenfold increase of autism+asperger, which was only "autism" before 94, is in fact explainable by change in diagnostic criteria and awareness. In the eghties it was believed that most autistics did not speak, that seems like nonsense compared to what we know today.

Yes'rly, the only known and known biggest factor of the increase of diagnosis is criteria/awareness.

For better understanding, what difference do you make between the words 'Asperger's' and 'aspie'?

Um... and how can you define any increase when you haven't the slightest clue what the original rate was? Information on rates of autism are still too sketchy for me to pay much heed to any of them, and are mostly guesswork.

I have to agree with you, Orwell. Where are the numbers coming from? If it's from the school systems, I'm already going to suspect those number as being inflated because of parents pushing for the diagnoses that will get their kids the most services...

The other thing I'm leery of is that these numbers have already been used before. How are they coming up with ever greater numbers of Aspies? They are changing their criteria every time they look at these numbers.

There's only one way to confirm the true number of ASDs in any given population, and it's to come up with a representative sample, and have the researcher re-dx people in blinded trials, or something. This type of study is expensive, and no-one wants to do it right.

These types of statistics are too easily manipulated, as we see in politics all of the time, and if the numbers are questionable to begin with, these studies are pretty meaningless in any kind of scientific way.

metta.

The psychologist who most recently diagnosed me with Asperger's gave a lengthy diatribe against psychiatrists and their disease model of autism, but then eventually muttered that at least with that way of viewing things I could get services from my school.


And that would give you the numbers at that point in time. To demonstrate an increase, you'd have to perform several such tests, with identical criteria, over a period of years. You can't retroactively make up numbers that are more or less than your current numbers and expect to be taken seriously.

Very true, and thus any claims of increasing autism rates should be looked at with a grain(or a salt shaker) of salt.

What I didn't realize when I was in college is that there are continuous studies measuring the rates of various diseases going on all of the time through CDC and NIMH. I have been part of a study that has gone on for forty years, and I've been part of for thirty, to track life time changes of certain conditions. Of course, ASDs are much harder to quantify than a disease like Addison's or cancer.

Metta.

Said salt should then be applied to the rim of a large fluted glass containing a strong margarita. This will facilitate the necessary creation of numbers designed to support one's pet theory, while enabling one to ignore, for instance, the Icelandic data on inheritance of autism.

QFT.

And yumminess, because that's the only way to take it.