An opinion article from a medical student I found interesting (STAT is legit enough for me to feel confident this isn't quackery). I also wonder to what extent rampant undersocialization, which...
An opinion article from a medical student I found interesting (STAT is legit enough for me to feel confident this isn't quackery).
Writing in the weekly journal MMWR, CDC researchers reported that autism rates in the United States increased from 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 54 in 2016, and the rate now stands at 1 in 44 children.
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As the deinstitutionalization movement took off, many children who would have been diagnosed with mental retardation [author mentioned previously they do not condone this term, but is simply repeating the term that was used] were instead diagnosed with autism, not because the diagnosis was more accurate but because its treatment was preferable. As autism diagnoses increased, diagnoses of mental retardation and other learning disabilities decreased.
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Insurance mandates increase autism rates because, in borderline cases, practitioners and parents push for a diagnosis that ensures a child receives coverage for the help the child and family need.
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In its 2018 and 2020 reports, however, the CDC used both the psychiatric association’s older broad diagnostic criteria and its newer narrow criteria, inflating rates. In its December 2021 report in MMWR, the agency went a step further, including not only children with autism diagnoses but also those with an autism billing code or a special education classification of autism. That meant a child didn’t even need a formal diagnosis of autism to be counted as a datapoint in the “autism epidemic.”
I also wonder to what extent rampant undersocialization, which beyond some point will have significant structural effects on the brain, is driving a potential overdiagnosis of autism.
The core problem with Autism as a diagnosis is that it is a description of a set of symptoms, like "fever" or "hepatitis", rather than an actual prognosis like the flu or malaria. What is the...
Exemplary
The core problem with Autism as a diagnosis is that it is a description of a set of symptoms, like "fever" or "hepatitis", rather than an actual prognosis like the flu or malaria. What is the elusive cause? What are the possible causes? How would one assign a specific cause or set of causes in an individual? One could go on, but these are open questions that are the subject of vigorous and important research. My hope is that, one day, we will look at the current state of understanding with the same bemused curiosity that we feel when we look at the causes of death in the 17th century London. "Those poor souls. How could they know?"
Unfortunately, practitioners and patients alike must live in the present and make due with the imperfect framework that exists right now.
Given the ambiguity of the spectrum diagnosis, it should be no surprise that it would cover many conditions. I, for one, now count myself as grateful to have received an Autism diagnosis and not a "mental retardation" diagnosis, though some of my colleagues might beg to differ.
Offtopic, but when I clicked the link, I got a pop-up that said "[Name starting with a H] shared this with you." I don't know if that's you, but if it is, you might be unintentionally doxing yourself!
Offtopic, but when I clicked the link, I got a pop-up that said "[Name starting with a H] shared this with you." I don't know if that's you, but if it is, you might be unintentionally doxing yourself!
An opinion article from a medical student I found interesting (STAT is legit enough for me to feel confident this isn't quackery).
I also wonder to what extent rampant undersocialization, which beyond some point will have significant structural effects on the brain, is driving a potential overdiagnosis of autism.
The core problem with Autism as a diagnosis is that it is a description of a set of symptoms, like "fever" or "hepatitis", rather than an actual prognosis like the flu or malaria. What is the elusive cause? What are the possible causes? How would one assign a specific cause or set of causes in an individual? One could go on, but these are open questions that are the subject of vigorous and important research. My hope is that, one day, we will look at the current state of understanding with the same bemused curiosity that we feel when we look at the causes of death in the 17th century London. "Those poor souls. How could they know?"
Unfortunately, practitioners and patients alike must live in the present and make due with the imperfect framework that exists right now.
Given the ambiguity of the spectrum diagnosis, it should be no surprise that it would cover many conditions. I, for one, now count myself as grateful to have received an Autism diagnosis and not a "mental retardation" diagnosis, though some of my colleagues might beg to differ.
Along these lines, here is an article on how the DSM differs from the way that psychiatric symptoms actually tend to cluster.
Offtopic, but when I clicked the link, I got a pop-up that said "[Name starting with a H] shared this with you." I don't know if that's you, but if it is, you might be unintentionally doxing yourself!
That was a really interesting article, thank you for sharing that. I'm going to have to reread it several more times.