On this thread, you'll see both of those posting here, and it will be clear "who is who" - as ANYONE can clearly see it from their posts.
This article does provide a good overview and is a good "starter" for those who "had no idea". Believe me, your fellow Freepers are directly affected by this.
Aspergers is common. I’m not sure it should be classed with Autism.
Asperger’s is hereditary. It runs in my family.
It is both a blessing and a curse.
You might be interested ...
Interesting info and thank you for posting, Star Traveler. I guess I fit into category number 3... not directly affected but I have several friends with Asperger children. I have known one woman with a child with Autism... and their life would just break your heart.
Yes. One of my daughters is mildly autistic. An example of odd, repetitive behavior is her habit of photographing her food with a large SLR before she eats. When I ask her why she does this, she has no answer.
When she was a toddler, she used to run away from the beach, screaming hysterically. One day my wife carried her to the beach and put her on a blanket. No problem. But as soon as her feet hit the sand, she would cry and run away. She couldn’t handle the feeling of sand on her feet.
Most people wouldn’t notice her disorder at first, but people who have known her for a time notice.
People have told me that her emotional and social maturity will be delayed, and that corresponds with our experience.
People who for a wide variety of reasons are "different"
Something is changing, so what is it?
It is not the boys.
A small part of it may be over-diagnosing normal juvenile male behaviour, but I'm going to propose that the elephant in the room is diet.
Over the last half century, the following issues have crept into diet, and are rising (as are the trend lines for a distressing number of ailments, including ASD):
Are all of these to blame?
Probably not, but some of them are.
Dr. Perlmutter ("Grain Brain") reports excellent results in treating ADD simply by getting kids off grains and adding EPA/DHA supplements.
For anyone facing this, changing aisles at the supermarket may be the cheapest most effective thing you can do. And switching to a low-carb high-fat grain-free diet can benefit the whole family.
My grandson and 4 other people I know are ASD. All males. 2 high functioning, 2 low, and grandson ‘to be determined.’ Not clear to me how much of the increased incidence is just diagnostic and how much is real.
It keeps getting more common because there is a push to have everything slightly atypical labeled as a condition or disorder. Autism just because the catch all name for every kid that is weird, introverted, or awkward.
Very little has changed and the true issues are really not any more common then they were 50 or 500 years ago, it just gets named and bemoaned more today. Although there are at least a few of the kids that have just been spoiled rotten by having never met a firm hand that loved them enough to spank their backside in their life.
I saw some unusual speculation, that what could roughly be called “focused rationality” is actually a flawed genetic mutation. That is, that the autism spectrum actually includes rational intellectualism. So the entire range would incorporate:
intelligence—high intelligence—genius level—Aspergers—and then autism.
Even when autism first came to light, it was noted that often, both parents of an autistic child were unusually intelligent, at least based on their education. (But education is not synonymous with intelligence.)
This suggests a common genetic pattern, that if one parent has a trait, it only comes out “halfway” in their children; but if both parents have the trait, it is fully expressed.
For one thing, I have a hard time believing that something that affects 1 out of every 60 in a group is anything that remotely qualifies as a "disorder." We are dealing with something whose very name (Autism Spectrum Disorder) suggests an inherent vagueness and lack of clarity in diagnosis. As a result, there's no question in my mind that lot of what has been diagnosed as a "disorder" is really nothing more than normal variations in human behavior and psychological makeup.
Flame away, if you will!
I would think I am category 4. Acknowledges its existence ( and has family members with it), but wonder why the increase. Has the existence gone up? Or is the existence the same, but more people are being diagnosed? Or has the criteria changed? I ponder the same thing about other things, too, like peanut allergies, etc.
According to a CDC report, it affects 1 in 42 boys
Can you explain that? It could be seen as people from both sides.
From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/index.html
Has anyone run into this?
In talking about our boy and if it comes up in the conversation some way, we may say that he’s autistic. Then the other person says something like ... “Oh, that’s cool! I’m ‘artistic’ too.”
... LOL ...
So I read the NIH website on this, and am stunned at the “spectrum” of inconsistencies and unknowns. Perhaps 5-10% of the content may actually be useful in detecting autism—the rest is leave-it-up-to-the doctor (and parents) to guess if the child has autism. What is clear to me from that content; when I was growing up, I remember seeing most of those characteristics in kids around me—lack of eye content (I call shyness), repetitive movements, lack of social interaction (shyness again). I was very shy at those early ages, and not social like the rest of the kids. So what. So rather than let children nowadays progress in their own way, the government set forth guidelines to identify all those kids who “should” be more normal. Again, autism is real. And many of you say there are real noticeable changes in kids theses days. But the guidelines need to far more definitive than what currently exists.
autism later