2007-04-13 13:29:59 · 7 answers · asked by Julie S 3 in Health ➔ Diseases & Conditions ➔ Other - Diseases
Actually, it probably hasn't. It's just that we know more about now so there's more diagnoses than ever before. And since everyone is panicking, wondering if their child has an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), there has been an upscale of misdiagnoses of other DSM-IV disorders like ADD, Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and others. It's actually very hard to diagnose a child with Autism. They usually do some academic testing (depending on age), observe the child in a range of settings for various lengths of time to see where they are developmentally, and ask both parent and child (if applicable) a series of questions. When all is said and done, they wait about 1-3 months for all the paperwork to go through to see the results.
2007-04-13 14:02:39 · answer #1 · answered by eet2006 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
When my son was attending his small school 25 years ago he was the only child with autism and there hadn't been any children before with the diagnosis so the teachers didn't have a clue how to teach him but we still knew he had autism and not just retardation. Maybe fifty years ago they confused the two but not in recent history. I talked with a teacher from that school recently and there are now three children enrolled in grades k thru 4th grade diagnosed with autism. I've heard of numbers increasing in most schools. I'm not sure about the "better diagnosis" theory? I think there is a genetic predisposition and that something environmental triggers the autism after the child is born.
2007-04-14 00:02:35 · answer #2 · answered by A Mom 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There are two schools of thought that I know of one being that autism is on the rise because of modern pollutants & because of vacination shots.
Secondly, the diagnosis of autism is given to children who normally would of been called retarded. In fact if you take the stats from 20 years ago and compare them to now there are less children identified as retarded than 20 years ago. The number less is just about the same as the increase number of children diagnoised as autistism. Thus there isn't really an increase. Non the less it is alarming how many children are diagnoised. I belive it is 1 out of 150 children are diagnoised with autism. Very scary!
2007-04-13 20:50:25 · answer #3 · answered by clcalifornia 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
is it really on the rise OR are we just getting better about diagnosing it? we have learned so much about autistic spectrum disorders over the past 10 years it is unbelieveable, but we still have a long way to go. i would argue that we are just getting better about diagnosing autism and that it really isnt on the rise.
2007-04-13 20:58:43 · answer #4 · answered by seastar23552 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
letme tell you my opinion...before all the rise of doctors and famous plls and drugs, nature was handling it's own way with people. Weak would die even before they were born....there is no natural selection anymore, tha's why. I know we suppose understand and axcept enything we get on us, but you must admitt, if only strong and healthy would survive, there would be no need for hospitals, for vaccines, for drugs....or anything else which is considering helping weak to sustain.
Or you can think, that food, air and water today are so poluted that whatever you eat...on the end just veakens your imune system......and with two people with bead genes...you have authistic, or epileptic or this or that....I could talk about this forever....but you got the point....god bless
2007-04-13 20:39:29 · answer #5 · answered by joy_lol 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
In a program I saw on cable recently the writers said no one knows why it's on the rise, but it is. I wonder if perhaps it's not really on the rise, but that our ability to recognize and diagnose it, is.
2007-04-13 21:14:09 · answer #6 · answered by Jeanne B 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I wish we knew, they maybe we could stop it
2007-04-13 20:37:17 · answer #7 · answered by laura n 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋