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ProudAspie
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27 Aug 2011, 9:38 am

Some parents and doctors faking autism diagnosis to get help for kids.Posted in newspaperNSW
From The Daily Telegraph, July 20, 2011

•Students with autism up 165 per cent over eight years
•Rates of other mental health diagnoses up by 75
•Autism attracts more funding, more assistance
SOME parents and doctors are colluding to deliberately misdiagnose school children as autistic so they can get help for other problems, a medical professional claims.

Parents are seeking the autism "label" because funding for the condition has increased and more assistance is available for autism than for other conditions.

The practice may partly explain a huge rise in the number of public school students with autism - up by 165 per cent over the past eight years.

Autism is defined as a neural development disorder and is often characterised by impaired social interaction and communication as well as repetitive and restricted behaviours.

Rates of other mental health diagnoses have increased by 75 per cent since 2003, according to the state government's submission to a federal review of funding for schooling.

Clinical psychologist and manager of diagnostic assessment services at Autism Spectrum Australia Vicki Gibbs said there were various reasons for the surge in the number of children diagnosed with autism.

"The most obvious is that people are more aware of it than before and people are also more aware of the more subtle forms of autism. Another reason is autism now attracts more funding, especially in the early intervention years."

Ms Gibbs said there was a small group of people happy to have their children diagnosed with autism because giving them a label was the only way they could get help.

"Some diagnosticians will give the child that label even when they don't meet all the criteria," she said.

"It's the only way they can get help with their problems."

from http://www.news.com.au/national/some-pa ... autism-d...
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Zeraeph
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27 Aug 2011, 9:47 am

No question, that is happening, and who can blame them?

You do your best for your kids - FULL STOP - feck the rest...

But far more prevalent (because there are few, if any, non-destructive ways to condition a child to fake an ASD well enough to pass an assessment) and more sinister, are the parents who are faking autism in their children in a callous drive to seek attention, funding and even a specific type of social identity and status for themselves in a manner closely related to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.

Imagine the staggering damage it does to an NT child to be conditioned to behave like a near non-verbal autistic for their whole young lives? Some parents even move halfway across the world to create and sustain a fiction of their child as autistic...and it is never as simple as "just about money"...



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27 Aug 2011, 11:55 am

Mental conditioning by diagnoses and an ill-fitting social environment is exactly why half of the pathological problems of otherwise healthy 'aspies' (geh, that word) exist in any case. I mean the amount of anxiety disorders can be explained as basically being teased as a child. The general disinterest with being around peers can also be ascribed to different patterns of social stimulation and different reactions to similar activity.

It's quite obvious to see the dangers of thinking you are inferior socially. Not only does it give you are a pretext to be an underhanded guttersnipe, but it also acts as an all expenses paid excuse for you to tell your brain to not blame yourself for any stupid things you are most certainly culpable for and which it would be stupid to somehow wish away as being caused by your autism.



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27 Aug 2011, 1:50 pm

i doubt this is worth taking seriously,i would believe parents with children with minor mental and emotional problems might doctor shop for the most inclusive dx.i doubt parents make up or have children fake serious neurological conditions just for more services.not to mention what child could fool a trained doctor for a prolonged period of time


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27 Aug 2011, 2:14 pm

vermontsavant wrote:
i doubt this is worth taking seriously,i would believe parents with children with minor mental and emotional problems might doctor shop for the most inclusive dx.i doubt parents make up or have children fake serious neurological conditions just for more services.not to mention what child could fool a trained doctor for a prolonged period of time


I have always found it is easier to pretend nothing is wrong then it is to pretend something is wrong....I mean there are scumbags in every group of people so there could be some parents who try and have their kids fake or whatever to try and get services(don't really see the point, not like they are going to get much out of it)...but I do not think its as serious as this article suggests....not to mention I would like to know where exactly the statistics came from...autism has risen 165%? I find it a little bit questionable.



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27 Aug 2011, 2:20 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
vermontsavant wrote:
i doubt this is worth taking seriously,i would believe parents with children with minor mental and emotional problems might doctor shop for the most inclusive dx.i doubt parents make up or have children fake serious neurological conditions just for more services.not to mention what child could fool a trained doctor for a prolonged period of time


I have always found it is easier to pretend nothing is wrong then it is to pretend something is wrong....I mean there are scumbags in every group of people so there could be some parents who try and have their kids fake or whatever to try and get services(don't really see the point, not like they are going to get much out of it)...but I do not think its as serious as this article suggests....not to mention I would like to know where exactly the statistics came from...autism has risen 165%? I find it a little bit questionable.


Even if it has risen 165% that can't be due to people faking it. If the statements about more accurate diagnosis are true this may make up for an increase.



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27 Aug 2011, 2:20 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
vermontsavant wrote:
i doubt this is worth taking seriously,i would believe parents with children with minor mental and emotional problems might doctor shop for the most inclusive dx.i doubt parents make up or have children fake serious neurological conditions just for more services.not to mention what child could fool a trained doctor for a prolonged period of time


I have always found it is easier to pretend nothing is wrong then it is to pretend something is wrong....I mean there are scumbags in every group of people so there could be some parents who try and have their kids fake or whatever to try and get services(don't really see the point, not like they are going to get much out of it)...but I do not think its as serious as this article suggests....not to mention I would like to know where exactly the statistics came from...autism has risen 165%? I find it a little bit questionable.
thats what i was saying


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27 Aug 2011, 2:22 pm

vermontsavant wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
vermontsavant wrote:
i doubt this is worth taking seriously,i would believe parents with children with minor mental and emotional problems might doctor shop for the most inclusive dx.i doubt parents make up or have children fake serious neurological conditions just for more services.not to mention what child could fool a trained doctor for a prolonged period of time


I have always found it is easier to pretend nothing is wrong then it is to pretend something is wrong....I mean there are scumbags in every group of people so there could be some parents who try and have their kids fake or whatever to try and get services(don't really see the point, not like they are going to get much out of it)...but I do not think its as serious as this article suggests....not to mention I would like to know where exactly the statistics came from...autism has risen 165%? I find it a little bit questionable.
thats what i was saying


yeah I was agreeing, just putting it in my own words.



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27 Aug 2011, 2:50 pm

Psych diagnosis is always subjective.

In the first place, there are plenty of, at least politically, eminent diagnosticians who are not fit to plead, nobody challenges them, and they use some downright peculiar criteria for diagnosis.

Secondly, there is an huge market in what are, effectively, "diagnoses for sale".

In the third place, nobody is likely to be able to persuade a child to *pretend* autism well enough to pass assessment all you can do is condition a child, intensively (not unlike ABA) to *ACT* only in autistic ways.

It is child abuse on a staggering scale...and something the child cannot possibly come back from whole and intact, ever, but I have seen it, more than once, already.

The horror is that you cannot actually *prove* misdiagnosis by any means. As i said, diagnosis is subjective, people change and develop....



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27 Aug 2011, 9:59 pm

Perhaps there is also a tendency for some parents to interpret any slightly peculiar behaviour in their child as a sign of alarm. I've heard that psychiatrists get paid more for giving a label to their patient than for not giving the patient any labels. So it seems likely that some practitioners might diagnose a patient with a disorder even if the patient does not meet all of the criteria. I don't think it's only happening with autism, though. I can see any popular DSM disorder, like bipolar or schizophrenia, being diagnosed this way.

I've also heard that the 165% increase study was sponsored by Autism Speaks and it appeared that the organization was directly involved in conducting the study. Aut$peaks might have influenced the inflation of the numbers, since the organization itself makes money off of portraying autism as an alarming trend that needs to be eradicated.


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28 Aug 2011, 5:26 am

MathGirl wrote:
Perhaps there is also a tendency for some parents to interpret any slightly peculiar behaviour in their child as a sign of alarm. I've heard that psychiatrists get paid more for giving a label to their patient than for not giving the patient any labels. So it seems likely that some practitioners might diagnose a patient with a disorder even if the patient does not meet all of the criteria. I don't think it's only happening with autism, though. I can see any popular DSM disorder, like bipolar or schizophrenia, being diagnosed this way.


Psychiatric misdiagnosis is actually pretty common, if only because of the subjectivity involved, and, of course the further implications in terms of medical insurance.

MathGirl wrote:
I've also heard that the 165% increase study was sponsored by Autism Speaks and it appeared that the organization was directly involved in conducting the study. Aut$peaks might have influenced the inflation of the numbers, since the organization itself makes money off of portraying autism as an alarming trend that needs to be eradicated.


That makes a lot of sense...anything they do is distorted.



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28 Aug 2011, 5:30 am

Zeraeph wrote:

That makes a lot of sense...anything they do is distorted.


As a side not Aghogday actually did say some nice things about us and not talk about Autism Speaks that's when I most agreed with him. I'll have to link you someday.



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28 Aug 2011, 5:42 am

Gedrene wrote:

As a side not Aghogday actually did say some nice things about us and not talk about Autism Speaks that's when I most agreed with him. I'll have to link you someday.


...and now you have said that he will hijack this formerly stimulating and interesting thread and devote it to the promulgation of irrelevant, nit-picking nonsense.

I sincerely wish you, Aghogday and ci would play competitive semantic gymnastics and strategy on a few threads of your own and leave the interesting discussions alone.

I don't know about anyone else but I am not interested in reading posts that are not aimed at being informative and factually accurate, but rather at some obscure perception of winning for the sake of it, while garnering endless attention, through a variety of forms of semantic manipulation, and, sometimes outright bullying.

I had made myself scarce because I was sick of the head games, but some Aussie guys started making threads that were genuinely stimulating, a few others joined in and it was actually enjoyable to be here for a while.

I knew it couldn't last.



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28 Aug 2011, 6:08 am

Zeraeph wrote:
Gedrene wrote:

As a side not Aghogday actually did say some nice things about us and not talk about Autism Speaks that's when I most agreed with him. I'll have to link you someday.


...and now you have said that he will hijack this formerly stimulating and interesting thread and devote it to the promulgation of irrelevant, nit-picking nonsense.

I sincerely wish you, Aghogday and ci would play competitive semantic gymnastics and strategy on a few threads of your own and leave the interesting discussions alone.

I don't know about anyone else but I am not interested in reading posts that are not aimed at being informative and factually accurate, but rather at some obscure perception of winning for the sake of it, while garnering endless attention, through a variety of forms of semantic manipulation, and, sometimes outright bullying.

I had made myself scarce because I was sick of the head games, but some Aussie guys started making threads that were genuinely stimulating, a few others joined in and it was actually enjoyable to be here for a while.

I knew it couldn't last.


I think you need to cool it. I made a little post about something you might be interested in and you go ballistic.

As for keeping to the subject I sincerely think that there are people who are said to be autistic when they are not and I think it would be important to remember that they did not wish to be called autistic but because they sincerely believe it they are damaged in a way that only feeds an incorrect system of diagnosis.

As I have said before in other threads autism has been used as a sort of fad diagnosis for difficult children, especially asperger's because that doesn't add the deadly connotation of an impairment in IQ. Another point: Given how much we hear about the apparently large number of people who are said to have asperger's that were extremely important such as Einstein and Newton it is also easy to see why adults would want to 'discover' that they have autism in order to feel a sense of achievement by association rather than do anything themselves.

I shouldn't just restrict this to a single dimension. The idea that we all have that special genius that einstein had in order to mnake up for our apparent 'social communication deficiency' is something I am sure brings a lot of comfort to real 'aspies' but then they do nothing to prove this excellence. And it's not as if they can't. Einstein was nowhere near to a university degree when he was creating the theory of relativity. He was on a tram in the kingdom of Wurttemburg I believe. So aspies themselves also fog up diagnosis by making it so attractive for people who don't do well to want to 'jump on the bandwagon'.

In the end I think there is a gray area to 'diagnosis' that must be eliminated, although like anything that people want to obfuscate for their own nefarious ends you have to keep pounding again and again all the points in to their correct place and of course I am sure that will require massive patience.

Last point: If telling you where someone sounded surprisingly agreeable isn't somehow informative I don't know what is.

Claiming I am somehow bullying people when I say how someone seemed very agreeable doesn't work either.

Also you said you would leave wrong planet. Seems funny that you haven't...



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28 Aug 2011, 6:21 am

Gedrene wrote:

I made a little post about something you might be interested in and you go ballistic.


You made a "little post" about something you know full well I *actively* have no interest in (because the man's nonsense bores me rigid), that has no connection to this thread, and is bound to bring Aghogday in to discuss himself (instead of the topic - not that he could be blamed once he is being discussed at all) shortly followed by ci...

Which is the end of all discussion of the topic, which was actually interesting, not only to me, but to a few other people, who actually wanted to communicate and exchange thoughts and information, *ON THE TOPIC*, but hey, WHO CARES as long as you, Aghogday and ci get to play semantic gladiators while flogging your own favourite dead hobbyhorses?

You did get the "ballistic" part right though...



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28 Aug 2011, 6:47 am

Zeraeph wrote:
Gedrene wrote:

I made a little post about something you might be interested in and you go ballistic.


You made a "little post" about something you know full well I *actively* have no interest in (because the man's nonsense bores me rigid), that has no connection to this thread, and is bound to bring Aghogday in to discuss himself (instead of the topic - not that he could be blamed once he is being discussed at all) shortly followed by ci...


So you aren't able to compute or care of the possibility that something positive could be said about aghogday? I find that to be somewhat insane actually. Having an open mind is why we get anywhere. If I saw ci say something positive then I would agree with him with no snark. I did actually once. Also where did that whole stop attracting them thing come from? I doubt aghogday does that. Now you might want to stop going off topic and trying to prove anything.

Now, continuing on the subject of faking diagnosis I believe that it is true that another reason why shomebody might want to claim asperger's is because of the various abuse it gets from people online. Although I am sure it is (thankfully) rare some people have a particular kind of seige mentality that makes them want to seek out pain and if there is something that attracts trolls it's the claim that someone has 'teh assburger's' as those garrulous vagrants like to call it with no little amount of sardonic, trite bile.

As for 165% I would like to claim that there are several studies that pointing out that there is no appreciable rise in the incidence of autism at all between generations when they apply new diagnostics to older patients.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... nosed.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 090611.htm

Even more strange is the apparent unstoppable rise of autism across the world in some places. I think that might be due to some amazing form of bad diagnostic methods because I doubt the veracity of the claim in this study that 3% of Korea's population is autistic.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm ... ic-marches
3% are autistic? Stimming must be a national sport.
Then again in the same sentence there is the claim of 1/100 children in America being autistic, a claim made by Autism Speaks, a claim I think many would be willing to challenge. I wonder how somebody says Autism Speaks in Korean?

One thing I can be sure of is that there is a strong correlation about paranoia about autism and the incedence of autism.