It is my belief that one component in the rise of autism is the relative decrease in the exposure of most parents/older siblings to their preschoolers. Rush them to the babysitter (where the babysitter is likely to turn on Barney or Sesame Street), transfer them to the "early learning center" where they learn how to handle keyboards rather than share toys, have both parents and the older siblings (if any) be in the commute or at work or school/afterschool over 10 hours a day... This may impair abilities of those preschoolers to work with others. I would think some of those who have trouble figuring out hon their own how to do that wind up with autism diagnoses.
Compare this to the old order Amish, where there is no electronic entertainment, no getting away from the family and all the siblings (unless one is alone in a field or walking down a road), etc.
We're also contributors to the National Alliance for Autism Research where they KNOW what they're talking about.
This is interesting. I completely disagree based on our own experience -- autistic children do benefit from stimulation but lack of stimulation doesn't CAUSE it -- I think this is directly connected to the vaccination issue: when you use daycare, you are necessarily exposing your young child to a population he/she would be otherwise unexposed to. Frinstance, the possible P.A.N.D.E.S. effect we may have also added to our already-autistic child's problems came from a church nursery on Mother's Day. I had largely kept our children out of daycare-type situations and even church nurseries; that was a standout exception, and a very lax mother who had been raised in a very lax tropical environment (missionary's kid from the Philippines) warned me only AFTER our baby sucked on her baby's bottle (as opposed to helping prevent that, including keeping her child at home that day) that her baby was suffering from BOTH impetigo AND strep infection. (To prevent a tangential thread from developing: I didn't catch the bottle-grabbing and inserting-into-mouth until just a bit too late -- typical with autistics kids who have wonderful peripheral vision and grab things off to the side without even looking directly at it before you know what's happened.)
So you bring up an interesting thing that all daycare-using parents already know: all diseases within a family go up with daily exposure of their children to communal settings, including regular public school -- and that includes the adults' exposure, as well.
"It is my belief that one component in the rise of autism is the relative decrease in the exposure of most parents/older siblings to their preschoolers."
Interesting theory. We certainly do put stresses on young children today that weren't formerly a factor.
I totally disagree that it is anything like that because people with autism usually have some brain defects. Something damaged the brain, and it takes quite an insult to injur the brain.
I know plenty of kids that have autism who have stay at home moms. In fact, I don't know anyone with autism who has both parents working.
The interesting thing is that autism does run in areas where there is lots of education. So in the Bay Area of California, we have high instances of autism. Why???
Maybe when two highly technical people mate, there is something that can cause autism in the offspring. Once again, this is a genetic link, and could explain why the Amish don't have high rates of autism.