New study finds clusters of Autism spectrum

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I gotta say that my first reaction to the idea that higher rates diagnosis are more likely to be because of better recognition than because of actual higher rates of the disorder was "well, duh." It's the same as how the criminal justice system also tends to send affluent, white people to treatment and poor minority people to jail. When a kid's behavior is problematic, if they're wealthy, they get "diagnosed" and "treated." If they're poor, they get punished. It's also difficult to tell if all the cases that are diagnosed are actually real. Sometimes a diagnosis is just a way out of trouble.

But has anybody ever doubted that kids without access to decent healthcare aren't going to get diagnosed?

I doubt so. Autism can be diagnosed in public school, in my opinion, even if one doesn't know what is autism...

The question is, what kind of education do these highly educated parents have? Are both parents doctors? That explains the increase in diagnosis. Such groups might have higher diagnosis rates across the board because they are more aware.

well... yes. i think the numbers are so skewed in terms of socio-economic level. if your family is struggling just to put food on the table, you don't have medical insurance, etc., then how do you get a diagnosis? i wonder about autistics in school systems that are struggling as well. struggling school systems aren't good at nurturing strengths (and it seems that many people with AS have skewed strengths in one direction, deficits in others.) so if the strengths aren't being nurtured or recognized, are only the deficits seen? (ex: this child is struggling with math, or with "fitting in," or with... well, fill in the blank.) so if people with AS in such school systems are noticed at all, are they seen as having learning disabilities? or as problem children?

sorry. obsessing a little.

this would also explain why such an increase of autism cases, because people are more aware.

however it would be good to check within the same school district (here comes the assumption that AS would be noticed in school so nothing to do with financial aspects) what is the distribution according to the education of parents. i noticed that they mentioned education not income so if it the knowledge it would make more sense that MD would be more aware than engineers however i do remember some article from couple of years ago that mentioned science and engineering parents that have more autistic kids.

I think it could be because people who may have both some ASD traits marry... probably an ASD person is more likely to marry someone who also has ASD traits.

I would guess that I live in one of those clusters.

When you look at the families with the AS kids, it isn't hard to see a pattern. Yes, there are exceptions, but pretty much always we're "off beat" in one way or another. This area attracts people who are off-beat. We've got fun industries that value talent over appearance, a social culture that does the same, and so on. Its a great place to fit in when you don't fit in. So, given that AS has a strong genetic component, why wouldn't educated Aspies choose to move here and build their families here? Most of us weren't born here. We chose it.

Hence we shouldn't be surprised by the results of the study...

Another factor to consider is not only sheer dollars, but also the amount of time that the family has to worry about a socially awkward kid.

The more a family has to worry about, the lower the likelihood that they will notice a smaller problem with another family member. Families that have less to worry about are more likely to notice small flaws in their children.

For example, my parents were dealing with working opposite shifts, looking after aging parents (one with Alzheimer's, one with cancer, one with fragile bones who was frequently in the hospital) and dealing with on and off drama with my mentally ill older sister.

Did they really care that I occasionally walked on my toes, or would flap my arms when I was excited? Did they care that I barely had any friends other than the kids on my street? And this was from an otherwise "well to do" family. Income and access to health care had very little to do with it. They could have tried to stick me into therapy and take me to psych appointments, but wouldn't that have just been more stressful for everyone involved?

This is a more exteme case, but look at the case of South African runner Caster Semenya. Sure, she was showing tell-tale signs of being intersex that would alarm anyone in North America. But coming from a poor family in rural South Africa, would they even think to pay attention to it? Or would they focus on the positives of her condition? When easily preventable illnesses and hunger are a very real threat, do you really care if your daughter never got a period and has muscles and a deep voice?