Why are SOO many kids on spectrum now???

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If you think of it that way both mindsets are equally dangerous because they can go either way-- with yours it could be a result in parents not vaccinated their children and giving them dangerous "treatments".

Sure there could be something in the neighborhood making people ill, but it is pretty rare it only affects behavior. I've seen copper poisoning and those lost all their hair. Usually with some kind of poisoning people get problems with their organs, start looking pale and their tummies are messed up.

Why clusters happen? No idea. I live on the poor side of town. In some areas near me, immigrants clustered up, which is not weird, either they are places there or they want to live near people similar, but on the other side of me there are also immigrants. I live on one block that is no different from places around me. But we have NO immigrants. And I've lived here for 14 years. The same landlord similar houses have immigrants. Flukes happen.

Also why so many more kids of ANY disability is seen more these days, because in the past parents were encouraged to put them in an institution!

I chewed my own hair and the limbs off all my dolls. I was a chronic truant at the age of 8. Both got me yelled at but not much more.

The son of a friend of mine is chewing on his shirts now. I tried to tell her that you have to give something appropriate to chew, that just saying "don't do that" won't help, but I don't think she heard me.

There will always be "extremes" especially those bent on selling a "cure" so that they themselves get rich in the process and helpless parents that fall for the scam.

But there is something to be said for reducing your exposure as much as possible to harmful chemicals, chemical additives to foods and GMOs.

That was what it was like when I was a kid.

It might be that you live in a bit of a 'hot spot'. If you live in or near, say, Silicon Valley (that's quite renowned for a high incidence of people on the spectrum), or perhaps in a city with lots of tech companies or universities or hi-tech engineering industries (I'm guessing here when I say Seattle, Microsoft, and Massachusetts, MIT), then wherever you get lots of jobs or tech students, you're going to have a higher proportion of people on the spectrum than the average across the whole population.

And since there's supposed to be a genetic/hereditary element, then it would stand to reason that if you have lots of adults who have congregated in a particular area (which they've been attracted to for reasons of work or studies), then when they settle down and have children, there will probably be a higher than average number of children on the spectrum, because statistically speaking, if there's a higher than average number of parents on the spectrum, and there's a genetic/hereditary component, there's going to be a higher than average number of children on the spectrum. And this genetic/hereditary link could apply to, say, living in a predominantly Jewish area as well.

So there could be factors relating to statistical quirks that mean there's a higher incidence than the average for the whole population. There's a whole science that looks at things like that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology

And it's important to remember, a lot of people get worked up about things - for example, vaccines MMR in the case of autism, but mobile phone masts and electricity power lines and lots of other things in the case of cancer - but as it points out on the epidemiology page, correlation does not imply causation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlatio ... _causation

Now a mom like you could be looking at this local group of children and thinking all these children on the spectrum, in my neighbourhood, children in my neighbourhood are more likely to be on the spectrum, therefore it must be something in the neighbourhood that's causing it. Nope. If that's what's you're wondering about/worried about, that's a huge and erroneous leap of the imagination, perhaps a correlation (due to other possible factors, such as local industry/university or belonging to a particular religious/racial group), not an implied causation.

Now moving on from the it's happening in my neighbourhood, it must be something in the soil/air/water (no it's absolutely, categorically not) hypothesis!

Generally speaking, why are so many kids on the spectrum nowadays? Well, kids were always on the spectrum, it's just that they weren't diagnosed. For example, I'm 40-years-old, British. When I was born and growing up, it just wasn't a possible diagnosis. I've always been Aspie. I just wasn't labelled as such.

It was quite usual, in years gone by, before Asperger's Syndrome became more commonly diagnosed, for Aspie males to be misdiagnosed with some kind of schizotypal disorder, and Aspie females to be misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

I think at school, we were just labelled naughty or defiant, or having 'behavioural probems' and many would have been sent to... what do they call it over there in the US? Approved school/reform school? Something like that, we used to call it borstal, a secure home/educational unit. Young people with behavioural problems who had problems recognising or respecting authority figures were often criminalised.

So there hasn't been an "epidemic" like you read about in articles or hear about and see on tv. We've always been here, except we have been misdiagnosed, or mislabelled. Years ago, someone on the spectrum might have been just perceived to be a bit "eccentric" but nowadays they have to be given a label.

It seems strange, to me, how people can think this 'disease' has come out of nowhere and there's an epidemic and it's really strange and frightening and something must be done to cure it!

Like I said, we've always been here, but we've just not been labelled Aspies or spectrum cousins, we just used to get on in life, as the "eccentric" or the "black sheep of the family" or criminalised or hospitalised... or artistic or creative or technical geniuses.

Btw, can I ask you, before epilepsy was "invented" as a term, i.e. before epilepsy became a recognised medical condition referred to by that term, do you think epilepsy existed? I don't think anyone would think of epilepsy as something that one day didn't exist, and then someone thought up the term, and then all of a sudden, it was like an epidemic, because all of a sudden there were all these people who were diagnosed as epileptics, so it must be like an infectious disease or something, because there wasn't any before, and now there are loads of them in my neighbourhood! But of course, people with epilepsy existed before the term was invented, it's just that a few centuries ago, having fits, they probably would have been accused by people associated with the churches as being possessed by demons, or engaging in witchcraft or something.

Anyway, I don't particularly like to use medical analogies, because I don't really appreciate the medical model of disability, I prefer the social model of disability, and I don't like to medicalise Asperger's, as I don't think of it as a disease or medical condition, it's just something I am, it's just a matter of neurodiversity, not illness.

Oh, and some of those kids might just have parents with poor parenting skills.

I'm going out to cough on some people.

I would also add....

1. Environmental concerns. We don't know what causes Autism. Even if you say it's solely genetic, chemicals we ingest (or mothers ingest) can affect DNA. With all the pollution and chemicals in our food and water (never mind the number of drugs they shove at us), I'd not be surprised that this has had an impact.

2. Over diagnosis. Too many people have the power to slap a label on a kid who really is not qualified to make a proper diagnosis (easier to drug a kid who's ADD than realize the kid just needs to get out and play enough to burn off that excess energy).

As others said, mostly because we're better at diagnosing. In the bad old days, if you could talk and refrain from peeing your pants, you weren't autistic. Now we understand that milder variants exist (Asperger, HFA, etc).

But also, there's the fact that putting a label on someone is easier than dealing with a complex social problem. It's easier to just label kids with ADHD and drug them up than introduce a better school routine where they get to go outside and use up energy rather than sitting down all day long. I don't have ADHD but I get ADHDlike symptoms if I stay still for hours on end. Now if they've actually undergone the diagnostic tests and they have it, I don't dispute that. But I've seen so many young kids labeled as ADHD WITHOUT A DIAGNOSIS just for being normal young kids.

I heard that a child of a family friend's sister was suspected of Asperger's. I later met this kid at a party, and I severely doubt he has Asperger's. He uses normal language for his age, makes the usual amount of eye contact, doesn't seem to feel violated at being touched, no sensory issues (he doesn't mind loud sounds or bright lights). He is just a brat who likes to hurt animals.

Said family friend's own kid was unofficially diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder because she disliked certain textures and tastes and avoided them. Guess what...she's growing up just fine.

In a nutshell? Yes, it really is more widespread than we used to think, but the over-DX problem is real.

There is any evidence of that, besides an old article of Wired (who is constantly re-called when someone says that there is much autism in Silicon Valley)?

Yes; people who study the phenomenon of the "broader autism phenotype" often find engineers, artists, scientists, writers, and musicians (of various levels of talent) in the same families as autistic children.

"What's done to children, they will do to society". ~Karl Menninger

Good, quick reads recommended by professionals:
(Viewable at the website of Parents and Teachers Against Violence in Education)

Plain Talk About Spanking
by Jordan Riak

The Sexual Dangers of Spanking Children
by Tom Johnson

NO VITAL ORGANS THERE, So They Say
by Lesli Taylor M.D and Adah Maurer Ph.D.

I was gonna say something like this but Callista said it so much more eloquently. Kudos!