Vaccination & epidemic

[TheMercenary]

A few good friends of mine have high level functioning Asp kids. One mother is also most likely Asp as well although it was not being diagnosed per se at that time in any capacity.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

And thus you have provided additional evidence that even today, kids who are a little "off" behaviorally, but not significantly developmentally delayed, are not diagnosed with autism when they shouldn't be. ADHD, perhaps. But we're not talking about the rates of ADHD, we're talking about the rates of autism.

I don't believe there are any studies that have looked at this specifically. Do you have any links to anyone who has studied the rate and diagnosis or misdiagnosis of ADHD, Developmentally delayed, vs autism of any kind?

[Clodfobble]

I do not have any online links, no. What I have is this:

The California Legislature commissioned the University of California's Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (MIND) Institute in Sacramento to study the possible causes of the rise in the numbers of reported cases of autism in California.
...
In cohort #1, 88% met the current criteria for autism compared to 89% for cohort #2. There was no meaningful change in the CDER or ADI-R criteria over the intervening decade. Their conclusion: "There is no evidence that a loosening in diagnostic criteria has contributed to the increased number of autistic clients served by the Regional Centers."
...
They found that some children in the mental retardation group did in fact meet the DSM-IV criteria for autism. There were 18% in Cohort #1 and 19% in Cohort #2. Since both cohorts had similar numbers, misclassification could not explain the rise.
...
Their final conclusion was: "Without evidence for an artificial increase in autism cases, we conclude that some, if not all, of the observed increase represents a true increase in cases of autism in California, and the number of cases presenting to the Regional Center system is not an overestimation of the number of children with autism in California."

Finally, in 2004, the CDC published an autism "ALARM," acknowledging that the current rate of ASD in the US was one in 166. They also noted that a developmental disability and/or behavior problem was being diagnosed in one child out of every six.

No way to know how many are misdiagnosed, but if only 1 in 166 is being given the actual autism label, when that many are being diagnosed with other things, I'd say it's pretty likely the autistic kids actually have autism.



You get one guess where I copied those quotes from.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Tiki

"high strung" or "difficult", as I was as a child.

No, really?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Sigh. No, you're not reading. The language development specialist at the school said that her language is not significantly delayed, but that she thought there was something going on, nonetheless. We were suspicious because of her behavior at home, which in the past would have been considered "high strung" or "difficult", as I was as a child. Therefore, we took her to a neurological center, where they confirmed that there is a significant neurodevelopmental delay and sent us on for further testing.

We discussed it with her pediatrician and the next step is finishing the intake process at OHSU and getting her tested at the neurodevelopment center. The pediatrician suspects high-functioning autism. It's up in the air until after the testing at OHSU, other than the fact that she has a very high IQ and a neurodevelopmental delay of some kind. The high IQ helps to "hide" the delay. I suspect strongly that high-functioning, highly-intelligent children are being diagnosed now due to higher awareness and better diagnostics, when they would have slipped through the cracks in the past.

Anyway, the only reason I brought it up was that you stated that I have never lived with a high-functioning autistic child. The fact of the matter is, my best friend's son is autistic and I had him after school every day for two years, plus he spends two nights a week here because my son is his best friend, and it is very possible that my youngest daughter is also autistic, so your statement was inaccurate.

I can easily see, from my own experience, how these children would have failed to be diagnosed in the past. Greater awareness and more resources mean that they are being diagnosed and helped now, rather than living their lives at half-potential.

If there is no significant language delay, it is not autism, by medical definition. Your daughter may end up with a diagnosis of Asperger's, ADHD, or any number of other diagnoses which are not autism, and they may rightly apply. If she ends up with a diagnosis of pure autism, then you must be correct, the diagnosis is being watered-down by some inexperienced medical professionals, because she does not have autism.

The fact remains that I have sat in a conference room with 50 other Pre-K autistic children all from my school district, all of whom had serious and obvious developmental delays, most of whom were completely nonverbal. Given the size of my school district, that works out to slightly less than the national rate of 1 in 150 (1 in 90 boys, because boys are affected 4 times more often than girls,) because of course this was a PPCD meeting and it didn't include any of the older autistic kids already in the system. If you could have sat in that room with me, you would understand the despair. None of these children could have slipped through the cracks in years past, ever. There are always going to be a handful of borderline cases that could persevere and cope on their own, but they are insignificant in the face of the total numbers. At any rate, I'm done discussing the topic with you, Tiki. I get enough of the "they'll grow out of it" head-in-the-sand bullshit from my older relatives, I don't need to subject myself to more of it here.

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

If there is no significant language delay, it is not autism, by medical definition. Your daughter may end up with a diagnosis of Asperger's, ADHD, or any number of other diagnoses which are not autism, and they may rightly apply. If she ends up with a diagnosis of pure autism, then you must be correct, the diagnosis is being watered-down by some inexperienced medical professionals, because she does not have autism.

The fact remains that I have sat in a conference room with 50 other Pre-K autistic children all from my school district, all of whom had serious and obvious developmental delays, most of whom were completely nonverbal. Given the size of my school district, that works out to slightly less than the national rate of 1 in 150 (1 in 90 boys, because boys are affected 4 times more often than girls,) because of course this was a PPCD meeting and it didn't include any of the older autistic kids already in the system. If you could have sat in that room with me, you would understand the despair. None of these children could have slipped through the cracks in years past, ever. There are always going to be a handful of borderline cases that could persevere and cope on their own, but they are insignificant in the face of the total numbers. At any rate, I'm done discussing the topic with you, Tiki. I get enough of the "they'll grow out of it" head-in-the-sand bullshit from my older relatives, I don't need to subject myself to more of it here.

Delays in communication and social interaction are part of the diagnosis, not just language development.

Language delay is subjective for each child, based on where the child *should* be for their abilities. That is my point; that is why very intelligent, high-functioning autistic children have great difficulty being correctly diagnosed, and why there is reason to believe that in the past many did not get diagnosed with anything at all. Aspergers is included in the overall statistical rise in autism figures, as it is a form of autism.

The school language development specialist said there is no significant delay compared to statistics for her age group (there is a slight delay compared to average, but not enough to be considered pathological) but when assessed as an individual by the neurology center and by our pediatrician, she was found to have significant delays compared to where she should be based on her IQ. She was performing at an average for the general population, but was delayed for where she, as an individual should be. J, my friend's child, had the same difficulty with getting the school to recommend testing... because his extremely high intelligence was masking his disorder, he was able to function at a reasonable average despite the fact that without the disorder he would have been performing far beyond his peers in all areas, including communication.

This is why there is a disconnect between what schools will perceive as an indication of a disorder, and what specialists, treating each child as an individual, will perceive as an indication of a disorder. The schools are basing their expectations on an average, and any child who meets that average is assumed to have nothing wrong with them.

There is a question about whether high-functioning autism can really be distinguished as a separate disorder from Asperger's, because, as a spectrum disorder, there is no clear line at the high-functioning end that divides the two. J, for instance, has a diagnosis of autism rather than Aspergers largely because he exhibits classic hand-flapping, pacing, and aversion to touch. He is also unbelievably articulate for a ten-year-old, though there are long pauses in his conversation.

You might find some of these links interesting:
http://www.autism-help.org/points-autism-epidemic.htm
http://ww1.cpa-apc.org:8080/Publicat...r/tidmarsh.asp
http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopo...?d=1049&a=3337
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-sym...vel-autism.htm
http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec04/definition.html
http://www.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/autism/aspergers.html
http://www.autism-help.org/

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

No, really?

Have you gotten your daily dose of personal pot-shots in today?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Tiki

You might find some of these links interesting:

Yes, because if there's one thing I haven't done, it's research on the internet.

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Yes, because if there's one thing I haven't done, it's research on the internet.

Some of your statements indicated to me that your understanding of the autism diagnosis was incomplete, so I thought I'd try to be helpful by providing more information. Sorry about that.

[Flint]

Oh, come on...

I know. Posting informative links that reinforce what I'm trying to convey about autism diagnosis was bad, wasn't it? My mistake.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I know. Posting informative links that reinforce what I'm trying to convey about autism diagnosis was bad, wasn't it? My mistake.

I think it was the part where you tried talking down to someone with superior knowledge that got you in trouble.

[Flint]

oh no you di'n't!

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Griff

I think it was the part where you tried talking down to someone with superior knowledge that got you in trouble.

Cite, please.

[Griff]

She has a diagnosed child in her home. That trumps web searches. Based of previous discussions she knows the disability, Tiki was taking a potshot because clod didn't cut and paste the entire DSMIV.