Faking autism diagnosis

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Absolutely...but more to the point, I have no interest in him, nor am I obliged to have, and he is not relevant to the topic of this thread where you chose to comment on him for some bizarre reason.

...and if you were just interested in "making a balanced case for Aghogday" you would have announced this by pm, not on a public thread to which he had no relevance.

The topic of Aghogday, as Gedrene chose to introduce it as his entire first post on this thread:

I wasn't making a balanced case for anyone. I was making an offhand remark. As I said, no need to blow your top. I'll make sure to remember that.

What ON EARTH were you playing at using an active thread to make off hand, off topic personal remarks certain to provoke off topic posts and posters of the negative kind?

Nothing. Maybe that's the problem. You're a poster of the negative kind.

I can't imagine why parents would want to diagnose their children with something they don't have...or even if they think they may not benefit from being diagnosed with something they DO have. I hope this thread wasn't started because people such as myself have been posting on here about my little girl...and how she barely met the cut-off...because I was about to cancel her evaluation...it was on the insistence of they neuropsych and the OT that I didn't.

Anyway, this makes parents like myself feel a ton of guilt and doubt about getting a diagnosis in the first place...when we were already extremely uncertain of exactly what's going on when behaviors are extremely variable. I think it makes really good parents who love their kids and want the best for them feel like they're doing something wrong.

Isn't that always the case though? While the bad parents keep smirking through, proud of the monsterous thing they have done to their own child and the people they have fooled?

That would be my experience anyway.

If you care whether this is about you and your little girl, you may be sure that it is not.

Apart from that, truly, psychology and psychiatry are not exact sciences, nothing is definate or certain, particularly when they are on the borders.

I have no blame for a good parent who endeavours to stay in the best resourced side of the border in these hard times. That is just doing their best for their child as they should.

But at the same time we cannot turn a completely blind eye to the existance of serious child abuse, that I am very much afraid *IS* still out there, in case we might make a few of the innocent uncomfortable.

Thanks for the open minded comment Gedrene. If anyone could show me ever a specific place here were it looked like I was intentionally harming someone, I would immediately correct it. I appreciate that someone that I have disagreed with on opinions and what I saw as facts, can see that. My opinions don't always match others, but I assure you they are sincere.

I like to find facts to support my opinions and get stuck, sometimes lost, in the weeds at times, but that's what I have always been, a detail person.

I've had the same type of discussion about religion in PPR with people that say it has no benefit; I know there are facts that can't be denied that there are some good things about it that help people, like social connectivity, that are real. I'm not a religious person, and don't get that benefit, but I can see it as objective positive aspect that can be proven by scientfic means.

It's the same with Autism Speaks, I know they do things that many people see as negative, but no one will convince me as an absolute that they do nothing positive for Autistic people. It makes no logical sense to me; I can prove with facts that they do at least some positive things; I see it as an injustice when people present things that I don't see as factual about people and causes, and have a hard time letting it go.

You are doing the same here for me that I was doing for Autism Speaks when I argued the point adnauseam that the organization does at least something positive for Autistic people. I appreciate it.

I really don't care if Autism Speaks cares one way or the other if I was arguing facts about the organization or not. I saw something I didn't think was fair, so I presented facts to support my view.

There aren't too many all bad or all good things in life. Regardless of how many flaws I have, I attempt to be cordial to others.

I like to find facts to support my opinions and get stuck, sometimes lost, in the weeds at times, but that's what I have always been, a detail person.[/quote]

aghogday, I was just protecting your natural right to have your actions judged for what they are and not be judged by past actions. I remember when Zeraeph PMed me saying that I was apparently very compassionate. What she doesn't realise is that this same characteristic can also work against her personal agenda.

As for the young lady above for why someone would want to diagnose their child without reason. To be honest the fact is that when you get a child who is acting strangely and you don't know what to do and you're an NT you'd probably be somewhat scared and not be in the right mind to actually make proper decisions. Afterwards I think it is more of a case of well, not caring about the child as much as a human being because basically your kid is 'ret*d'.

I will refer of course to the most obvious example, Autism Speak's I am autism video where the woman in the video said she wanted to drive off a cliff because of her autistic child, but decided not to for the sake of her NT one all the while her 'autistic' child was on her damn lap, listening to her make this insensitive story, reaching out for her attention. We are not bundles of joy but bundles of misery to these people and it seems for no reason except what their minds tell them.

It is as if 150 years ago one could imagine two southern white parents inexplicably giving birth to a black child: the shame they would feel is a fallacy of cultural stereotypy. Given how many of us were raised by these NTs it is their own fault that they have only managed to turn us in to poster children for suffering, suffering their culture piles on us.

Humans have always been intolerant of things that are not like them. One only need look at popular media to see that. Of course the good kind exist, but obviously most of them aren't vigorous or willing to pound the bad in to the ground.

I didn't like the video you refer to either, and have expressed it many times in previous posts. I saw it as a mistake; and haven't seen evidence of that kind of thing out of Autism Speaks for years, so it seem like they have corrected an issue that some have seen as offensive. People have suggested here they won't ever forgive them for it; I accept that, that's their business.

I presented some additional information in my thread on Autism Speaks, to allow people the opportunity to see what they are doing now, and if they saw an improvement in response to Autistic criticism; some did, some didn't.

My only real specific issue as stated before was the assertion that the organization does
nothing positive for Autistic people. Stating it as opinion is fine, but stating it as fact, I consider an injustice.

It's not a logical statement, when there is clear evidence to the contrary, and not fair to the Autistic people that do benefit from the positive actions of the organization. To me it is not an issue as to whether or not someone should support the organization, just an issue of what is fair, whether or not it is a charitable organization or an individual.

If I took the opposite stance and stated that the organization only did positive actions as a fact, I would expect the same level of disagreement that I presented, because logically I know that some Autistic people are still offended by the actions of the organization.

Does this sound reasonable to you? To me it is just a matter of logic.

While parents will do anything for their children, there is more going on.

Since it only made the DSM in 1994, after most were out of school, training the new crop took time, and autism rates went up, because there was a place to put them. There is always a lag.

Some parents have shopped for a Dx just for extra time on tests, which leads to better grades, and getting in a better school with a Scholarship. This can be worth $100,000.

We thought we had it in Louisiana, we had an outbreak, next to a chemical plant. The CDC moved in in full force, tested everything, and found one autistic child in a trailer court, who had gotten SSI, and the shrink then wrote up all the children in the trailer park for extra income for all.

He is an X Shrink, in prison I think, the parents had to pay back the money, and State Social Services, Children's Protective, are watching them all.

Humans will be humans, you have to watch them.

I think the CDC does good work, I would go with their head count, and it is a new condition for most in the business. Before the Awareness actions of Autism Speaks, people on Wrong Planet claimed their medical services had never heard of it.

I have watched it go from an unknown, the curse of autism, credit here given to Autism Speaks, to becoming trendy, to being out of fashion, psycho emo, and look forward to it becoming just what 1% does.

Discovering humans is such fun, but why is everyone bypassing the one group trained in these things, Anthropoligists?

I am not going to all point out the possibility that the possibly flawed methodology here has been used to claim that the level of autism in the land is much higher than everywhere else despite your attempts to press forward a conservative interpretation. Also there is a possibility you can't consider: Autism diagnosis is based on subjective value judgements of a child's personality. You cannot actually measure the cause and with that in mind you should be criticising the roots of what you are seeing.

It's the statistics our government provides for autism in the United States. I don't expect you to accept them, but they are accepted here in the US, as well as the methods they used to arrive at the numbers. I provided the source, just to clarify they were not autism speaks numbers.

Again, the scientists are not suggesting that autism rates are higher in South Korea than other areas of the world. They are using a different screening method that has measured higher rates that has not been used in other areas of the world, so they won't know until they use the method in other areas of the world.

Maybe there are some that point to this evidence that autism rates are rising, but if so, they are interpreting the research in a way that it was not meant to be interpreted by the scientists that reached the conclusions in the study.

I understand psychology is not a perfect science and diagnosis is based in part on the observations of a psychologist. Those that do a thorough examination, do extensive testing to arrive at their results as well, whereas others just do a physical observation and may come to the same results.

I'm not sure how they do it in the UK, or what is commonly accepted; this could have a great deal to do with the results for any individual not to mention the whole country where the statistics are gathered.

These kids in South Korea were screened for Autism; it is a suggestion for rates there with the screening method, but not conclusive in the sense that the children have not received individual diagnoses through a thorough examination, just as was done by a method among the Amish not too long ago that attempted to screen an entire county of children that brought the stats down from what was thought to be 1 in 15,000 to close to 1 in 300. Again though, screened, not a thorough examination for diagnosis.

If either the Amish or South Korean method was used in New Jersey here in the US where diagnosed rates are stated to be 1 in 94, there is no telling what the rate would be there. I, however, wouldn't see it as conclusive, though, until each child was individually diagnosed through extensive examination by a psychologist or a psychiatrist. I'm not sure that would ever happen because of the costs involved. So, even if the screening method were used here it might remain a suggestion of higher rates, rather than a conclusive one, used in government statistics.

So, in both Amish Country and South Korea these screening measures are a suggestion of Autism Rates, but do not necessarily provide the same type of evidence that intensive individual psychiatric/psychological evaluations might bring.

On the other hand the studies down by the CDC and the study done in New Jersey, relies on results from actual diagnosis, so it is the best evidence we have in the US, although it will never be perfect.

Screening Autism to determine the prevalence in children at 8 years old is a specific measure that can reliably capture all ASD's. It's not a vague method at all.

Aspergers often does not show up until later in childhood so by limiting the study to children at age 8, they were able to ensure that they captured all ASD's in children; if they had used younger children in the study it is more likely that some ASD's might not have been diagnosed at earlier ages and captured in the study.

If I'm not making this description clear enough, I can provide further explanation.

It doesn't matter if I don't right now. What I want to ascertain is that given the assumption that you are 'autistic' what is the reason you believe in this data over all other reasons?



Yes they say that. They say screening eight year olds is specific. Yes, it is specific. But why does a specific age have anything to do with accurately measuring a disorder that happens among all ages? Furthermore why are no adults being checked at all for autism? If they don't can that not lead to the incorrect assumption that autism is apparently increasing in incedence as has already become the case?

I'll be charitable and say go ahead.

The data was provided by the government, it is the most objective source that I can think of. I might question the methods further if it was provided by a private organization done on a small scale. They list the scientists involved in the project that was no small endeavor at the bottom. It was a diverse group of individuals across the country here.

I can't think of a better source than our Centers for Disease Control for objectivity; it's the same place we get government statistics for all other health related conditions in the US. I haven't seen any effort to refute these numbers. 1 percent is close to the numbers studied and accepted in other countries in the western developed world, if it shot up 165 percent like it did in the the topic article here, there would be plenty of reason to question it.

There is no accurate way to measure aspergers in Adults in the US because the diagnosis was not made available until 1994. We've had TV shows and movies on the subject, but while most people are familiar with Autism, the general public still doesn't have that good of an understanding of Aspergers.

And if they have problems with employment and insurance coverage, they would not likely be able to afford a diagnosis if they knew the condition existed. The government has identified this as a problem and is trying to increase opportunity for affordable diagnosis in the Adult population, but no serious goals in this area have been accomplished yet.

The only way for the government to keep a baseline to see if the actual prevalence of the disorder is going up is to keep the demographic measured consistent.

Autism and Aspergers is a life long condition it doesn't go away. I think a misunderstanding that may occur for some (not you) is that it is 1 in 110 of the population of children that the statistics refer to not 1 in 110 of the entire population.

We have well over 300 million people in the US, and the last total number estimated for Autism in the population that I can remember was 1.5 million; that's an estimate of course; no one really knows because so many people haven't had an opportunity to be screened in the Adult population for Autism.

In 1960 it was something like 4 in 10,000. I had a language delay until age 4, that wasn't even considered a problem in 1964, with my pediatrician. I didn't get diagnosed until age 47. I had absolutely no idea, that Aspergers even existed until about 2005; happened to see it on the internet.

And by the way I am not diagnosed with Aspergers, initially I was until the doctor found out about the language delay, after that I was placed in the PDD NOS category Things have changed much since 1964 in the screening of Autism. All children are routinely screened for it that get medical care in the US, today.

Considering I missed diagnosis that included a language delay, it's hard to imagine how many adults out there may living without a diagnosis of Aspergers. I adapted with the condition for a long time quite well, it is possible to do it, if one is fortunate. If it were not for other health problems, it is possible I would have never been diagnosed.

If they did measure the under represented numbers of adults diagnosed with Aspergers in the US, it would look like a tremendous increase of Aspergers has occured, that would not be accurate because we don't have a full count of Adults diagnosed with Aspergers.

So many have had to adapt, chances are they have cognitively adapted well enough, for people to think they are odd, but that's probably a description given to half the population to the other half, anyway, by individuals that don't think they are odd.

At least, in the US, people march by many different drummers, not just the autistic ones. The ideal in the US is perfection. It's an idea marketing people came up with on TV. You don't often see it in real life.

The thing is as I had an issue with the other poster (not Vernandi), things are different over here in the US. The issues you have with some of my opinions and mine with some of yours, have to be colored by where you live and the conditions there, as are ours here.

This 165% issue is a problem over there, not one that has been identified here. Going in for a diagnosis, for Aspergers here and getting one, results in little likelyhood of assistance in the US, some don't get one because they are afraid of the stigma of any diagnosis in the workplace; that is fairly clear from many of the responses here on this website.

My problems are associated with physical health, Stress from adapting to my condition might be part of it, but the condition itself, I lived with pretty well for 47 years. I managed to become financially independent, but I'd take the minimum wage and the health back in a heartbeat if I had a choice.