You have to be careful with diagnosis rates of a disease with unknown etiology and fundamentally subjective presentation.

but some doctors may find diagnosis lucrative

and the environment may be reaching a tipping point.

So to hedge your bets, all three may be correct to some extent.

closer to an answer...

"This is a call to action for the state and providers of all disciplines to endorse and utilize evidence-based practices" to give individuals with autism and their families the best odds for an improved quality of life, said Suzanne Buchanan, interim executive director of Autism New Jersey, a non-profit organization.

She found it remarkable that 80 to 85 percent of the children in the study had the most severe form of autism. "While the vast majority of individuals on the spectrum need support services, individuals on the severe end need them even more so," Buchanan said.

Last edited Thu Dec 20, 2012, 01:59 PM - Edit history (1)

And, again, the presentation is subjective.

You cannot be serious that "the most severe" forms of autism are subjective diagnoses. Sorry, no dice.

I said the *presentation* was "subjective", which has a specific meaning in psychology and psychiatry.

I misspelled PDD-NOS, you're right. But it remains the case that "severe autism" means "ASD that is neither Aspberger's nor PDD-NOS".

Tip: Edit your posts to fix spelling for Asperger, too.

Mother Jones came out with a great article on the affects of Lead in gasoline. Though in many states lead in gasoline has been banned, the lead is still in the environment especially in large urban areas.

The thing about lead poisoning is that it affects boys worse than girls and mimics many types of diseases. And the lead levels in the blood decline but the damage stays with children through adulthood.

Mother Jones only has a portion of the article on-line, but I have a subscription. Here is a link http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/05/lead-prisons-and-crack-explaining-drop-violent-crime

"Mental health" has always been a poor fit in the Medical Model.

DSM-5 isn't going to make things any better.

Though "Intermittent Explosive Disorder" is a pretty cool name.

anyone brings that one up.

I get so mad I could just…

.... what I want to know is WHY.

And why did it just suddenly appear out of nowhere in the '80's? It is rising at an alarming rate all over the country. I personally believe that aspartame is part of the reason, just my gut feeling & it matches the timing.

Lead is everywhere in our environment because it was added to gasoline (though it has been banned). It settled everywhere and gets kicked up especially on hot days. The damage to children from lead follows the poverty areas because that is where the largest concentration of gasoline use is found. Private planes still use lead based fuel so people near private airports are still at high risk. But if you do any renovations in your older home, you kick up that lead all over again.

Checkout Mother Jones article. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/05/lead-prisons-and-crack-explaining-drop-violent-crime

If that is the case then you'd need to go back a generation or so to find other likely causes.

Perfectly normal, healthy circumstances, a child will be conceived and born, carry whatever "autism genes" (as yet unidentified) and never have cause to see a developmental pediatrician. But the same couple, living in a genetically hostile environment (polluted) gives birth to a special needs child.

I think I carry the genes. But I never needed speech therapy or any other therapies. Not the case with my son. He's very autistic (PDD-NOS), has severe receptive and expressive speech problems and learning disabilities.

I think health of the environment makes the difference.

This information is from the recent Congressional hearing on autism and is included in the Congressional Record.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/12/safeminds-mark-blaxill-testimony-at-autism-hearing.html#more
SLIDE #5 - Autism Time Trends

increased dramatically in those born in the '90's & after.

I'm not versed enough to say that accounts for the entire rise in autism, but I do have these experiences to go on.

1. My best friend is a special Ed teacher. He sayss there is an absolute ton of mis-diagnosis going on. For one thing, while teachers jobs are being cut left and right, budgets for Special Ed are gaining money and throughout massive teacher layoffs year after year, my friend (and special ed teachers) are left untouched. It's a money maker for the school system.

2. He also told me a lot of parents are now fighting to put their normal kids into special ed classes to cheat the system for getting into colleges. He's told me that he's had numerous kids in his class that are just fine, but parents just want them to have perfect grades. The teachers try to get the kids out of their classes, but the parents are fighting to keep them in. It seems counter-intuitive that parents would want their kids to have the stigma of being in special ed, but apparently it's happening. The benefit they are getting is that they can take exams basically as many times as they want until they get it right, if they are considered to have an emotional, or mental disability.

3. Teachers wanted to have my nephew tested for Autism a number of years ago. He's not even close to it. He's just an introvert. My brother/sis n' law fought it hard enough so that they didn't have to test him. They weren't worried he wouldn't be diagnosed fine, but they didn't want it on his record and to have people in the future make judgement about him. He's in college now (for the record) and perfectly fine. They handed them a pamphlet that asks questions and tells warning signs and said he shows a number of them...most of them are completely ridiculous and could be applied to most kids. But like in #1, my nephew's school district at that time had a high number of special ed classes and was receiving among the most money for it in the state. They were basically just trying to get as many diagnosis as they could for their students as a cash grab.


So, are cases of autism increasing? Maybe, but the number is clearly heavily inflated. Also, in general, mental and emotional illness was completely covered up and hidden only a few short decades ago out of embarrassment, and the stigma is rapidly going away which does also make legitimate reported cases of it more likely. I'm skeptical that there is some kind of epidemic and that it isn't mostly a combination of the above.

But my nearly 3 year old grandson most certainly is on the 'autism spectrum.'

Not to bore you with symptoms, I want to mention he was born January 11, 2010 in Panama City Beach FL and has lived there his entire life until he and his family (he drove) moved up here to Columbus OH late October.

Also, he has the 3 anagram precursor to COPD (as you can tell, I can't remember what the anagram stands for much less the actual anagram). His doctor says it's too early to tell if he will/will not develop full blown asthma.

His 7 yo sister, who was a very healthy girl up until Deepwater Horizon, has since also developed the same 3 letter anagram. She is close to a full blown case of asthma and has been to the emergency room twice. She has also developed a bad case of allergies, yes you guessed it, all after the spill.

My son and his wife seem to be symptom free. This makes me think it's the younger lungs that are mostly affected.

Since I mentioned my son, he actually was one of those hired by BP to do clean up a bit west of Panama City. PC got some tar balls (I went to PC just after the spill and collected half a dozen of them. They are all much smaller than my little finger nail.)

He got sick and passed out on the beach. He tells everyone that it was because of dehydration but he is part of the 'payout' BP has to pay to those physically affected. He is hard hardheaded and pretty macho so there is speculation that the cause of him fainting was much more serious than the combo of heat, sun and not enough water.

Autism rates correlated with paternal age.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/health/fathers-age-is-linked-to-risk-of-autism-and-schizophrenia.html

In cities, I think you're seeing a lot of older fathers having kids with their second, younger wives.