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Autism rate skyrockets to 1 in 14 children, 1 in 8 boys in parts of New Jersey

Matthias

Well-Known Member
The USA already has one of the highest rates of ASD in the world with more than 1 in 50 children affected (it's around 1 in 150 in Europe and less than 1 in 1000 in less developed countries). A Rutgers study found the rate is even higher in some communities. They found that 7.3% of children and 12% of boys in one part of New Jersey have ASD.

Toms River's Autism Rate In Children Highest In NJ: Rutgers Study

Link to full paper: https://njms.rutgers.edu/departments/pediatrics/njas/documents/Shenouda & Zahorodny 2021 ASD NJ.pdf
 
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The article brings up an interesting suggestion - if the area provides better supports to children on the spectrum, then those programs would act as a magnet and attract parents to relocate their children to attend such programs.

It would also be interesting to know if the area has traditionally had lots of jobs in engineering or other fields that tend to have higher natural rates of workers on the spectrum.
 
The USA already has one of the highest rates of ASD in the world with more than 1 in 50 children affected (it's around 1 in 150 in Europe and less than 1 in 1000 in less developed countries). A Rutgers study found the rate is even higher in some communities. They found that 7.3% of children and 12% of boys in one part of New Jersey have ASD.

Toms River's Autism Rate In Children Highest In NJ: Rutgers Study

If ASD keeps increasing at the current rate, it won't be long before there are communities where the majority of children become autistic.
Do they clarify how many are level 1, level 2, level 3, etc.? I’m really starting to get sick of these studies and the like not clarifying this.
 
It's just that maybe they're recognizing it better than before. Think about all the people you know, and start to kind of psychoanalyze them. You'll start to see that a lot of them might be on the spectrum, but were never diagnosed.
 
Do you think 7.3% of women and 12% of men everywhere have ASD? Do you think 1 in 8 men where you live who are around the same age as you are autistic?

This sort of thing has probably happened a thousand times before but nobody noticed because they weren't looking.

The last time we supposedly had a big surge in autism cases, it was Silicon Valley. Con artists picked up on this and started the mass hysteria over thimerisol in vaccines. We had junk lawsuits flying all over the place and parents refusing to vaccinate their young children. Hysteria and a rush to judgment do not turn out well. Turned out to just be a place where borderline autistic people flocked.

I understand they have a highly rated special needs program there. Migration to go to this program will be part of the explanation.

At this point, the numbers themselves are meaningless. Far too many possible explanations. When they start working on a "WHY?" I'll start listening.

Things to look at before getting excited.
  1. Will they test the parents in a follow-up study? Probably not. That's something they didn't do in Silicone Valley either. High rates of autism in children should be coupled to high rates in parents but most parents of autistic children won't go there. There is any number of reasons why parents on the functional end of the spectrum might cluster together. If parents show autistic traits at far lower rates than children, then we get excited.
  2. Did they compare the rates between children born in Tom's River and children who moved there say a year or more after they were born and children who moved there at school age? A wealth of information is available here.
  3. I don't see a link to the actual study so I can't verify anything in the study. Had to dig just to find the abstract. Not going to pay $12 to get 12 hours of access to a taxpayer-funded paper and $50 to download. If you want to, it is at: Prevalence of autism spectrum disorder in a large, diverse metropolitan area: Variation by sociodemographic factors
Right now it is nothing more than "Hmmm. That's interesting. Wonder how they got that?"
 
Do they clarify how many are level 1, level 2, level 3, etc.? I’m really starting to get sick of these studies and the like not clarifying this.
Yeah, those ratios are as important as the aggregate numbers. It may be in this study but I'm not paying money to find out. If the data exists, it will out eventually.

And what about the people who might be level 0.5 on the spectrum? Do you call someone autistic if the needle twitches or when it gets solidly into ASD-1 territory? These are real issues because the diagnosis can flip depending on who is doing the diagnosing. This lack of consistency and repeatability is why psychology is so dismal at being a science.

I'm not sure how one in eight boys could be autistic without a school exploding.
 
I'm not sure how one in eight boys could be autistic without a school exploding.

I can see it being one in eight very easily.

If 1/8 is bigger than 1/10 then in a classroom of thirty children, there would be at least three children who were exhibiting symptoms of being neurodiverse. There are always at least three kids who are hyperactive, geeky, quiet, shy, socially awkward, in a fantasy world, etc.

If you really start to look at childrens' behavior, and the kids that are "maladjusted" and get lots of calls and notes home from the teacher, you'll start to really see the true rate of neurodiversity.
 
you really start to look at childrens' behavior, and the kids that are "maladjusted" and get lots of calls and notes home from the teacher, you'll start to really see the true rate of neurodiversity.

Or, as in my case, so quiet I slipped through the cracks entirely.

I think @Au Naturel has a very valid point though. Psychology isn't backed by the scientific method and autisim, in particular, has no standardized diagosis method. We see that lack of consistency frequently on the board. One person says diagnosis took days of assorted tests, another says their psychologist "identified" them within minutes of meeting.

In the area where I used to live rates of a.s.d. are quite high also. But the area is affluent and there are many "autisim centers". My guess is that there are more centers for autisim here because there are many more people that can be counted on the pay for services. My pediatrcian even suggested we should get our son tested, not because there were any concerns, but as a matter of routine due diligence. (We did not). Doctors in poor areas do not suggest that parents have their kid tested for autisim as a matter of routine due diligence!
 
Considering it's likely genetic - bigger population means more prevalence of autism.

Secondly - I can only assume that there are more autism assessments carried out with a bigger population.

I read about the Silicon Valley claim in a book about autism. It theorised that certain professions might have a higher number of autistic people in them eg coding and IT. So if you had a location with many businesses that might cater to those on the spectrum's strengths, then you will inevitably have higher rates of autism in that area. Plus if these people settle down, have families etc. then their children may also exhibit autistic traits.

Ed
 
Do they clarify how many are level 1, level 2, level 3, etc.? I’m really starting to get sick of these studies and the like not clarifying this.

This sort of thing has probably happened a thousand times before but nobody noticed because they weren't looking.

The last time we supposedly had a big surge in autism cases, it was Silicon Valley. Con artists picked up on this and started the mass hysteria over thimerisol in vaccines. We had junk lawsuits flying all over the place and parents refusing to vaccinate their young children. Hysteria and a rush to judgment do not turn out well. Turned out to just be a place where borderline autistic people flocked.

I understand they have a highly rated special needs program there. Migration to go to this program will be part of the explanation.

At this point, the numbers themselves are meaningless. Far too many possible explanations. When they start working on a "WHY?" I'll start listening.

Things to look at before getting excited.
  1. Will they test the parents in a follow-up study? Probably not. That's something they didn't do in Silicone Valley either. High rates of autism in children should be coupled to high rates in parents but most parents of autistic children won't go there. There is any number of reasons why parents on the functional end of the spectrum might cluster together. If parents show autistic traits at far lower rates than children, then we get excited.
  2. Did they compare the rates between children born in Tom's River and children who moved there say a year or more after they were born and children who moved there at school age? A wealth of information is available here.
  3. I don't see a link to the actual study so I can't verify anything in the study. Had to dig just to find the abstract. Not going to pay $12 to get 12 hours of access to a taxpayer-funded paper and $50 to download. If you want to, it is at: Prevalence of autism spectrum disorder in a large, diverse metropolitan area: Variation by sociodemographic factors
Right now it is nothing more than "Hmmm. That's interesting. Wonder how they got that?"

I found the full paper available free online from Rutgers University. I added the link in the OP. The study looked at 8 year olds attending public school in four counties in New Jersey. I don't think they specified autism severity but they did report that around 25% had an IQ < 70.
 
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Considering it's likely genetic - bigger population means more prevalence of autism.

Numerous twin studies have conclusively proven that autism is not genetic. When only the severest cases were diagnosed, twin studies found that genes contributed to over 80% of the risk of developing ASD but the rate drops to less than 50% for milder cases of ASD. Twin studies found that genes contribute to 50% of the risk of developing depression and anxiety but people have fully recovered from those mental health disorders with talk therapy alone which proves they aren't genetic conditions despite genes increasing the risk of developing them. Cases of identical twins where one twin is autistic and the other isn't which shows that genes are merely a risk factor for ASD but do not cause the symptoms.
 
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It's just that maybe they're recognizing it better than before. Think about all the people you know, and start to kind of psychoanalyze them. You'll start to see that a lot of them might be on the spectrum, but were never diagnosed.

While I exhibit a lot of autistic symptoms and issues, I was never formally diagnosed. School was hell for me and I was only diagnosed as "retarded". No one in my part of the world even even knew the word Autism.
I had a cousin that I now know was autistic. He was also considered retarded. There was never any diagnosing anything "mental" - at least in the area I lived in.

I believe society is simply becoming more aware of such things, thus resulting in more "diagnosis". I believe autism is a natural genetic ratio of the population. I don't think it has really changed. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances that, since learning about autism, I now know are autistic. Everybody is unique, thus different. The autistic ones are just different in their own unique way, just including some autistic elements. Now, knowing what autism is, I can see the autistic traits in peoples unique differences. I'm sure there are other undefined differences in the population. Once anything becomes defined and then focused on there will be an uptick in diagnoses of it.
 
Numerous twin studies have conclusively proven that autism is not genetic. When only the severest cases were diagnosed, twin studies found that genes contributed to over 80% of the risk of developing ASD but the rate drops to less than 50% for milder cases of ASD. Twin studies found that genes contribute to 50% of the risk of developing depression and anxiety but people have fully recovered from those mental health disorders with talk therapy alone which proves they aren't genetic conditions despite genes increasing the risk of developing them. Cases of identical twins where one twin is autistic and the other isn't which shows that genes are merely a risk factor for ASD but do not cause the symptoms.

I am not sure the effectiveness of "talk therapy" does actually prove that depression isn't a genetic condition. It could also be true that the neurological conditions that help ensure the effectiveness of talk therapy, could also be genetic, and comorbid with a genetic predisposition to depression.
 
I hear that depression and anxiety are "treatable" but I think to claim it can be "cured" is improbable. I don't think someone could just turn off my ability to worry, obsess or fixate. CBT techniques etc might help me to slow down the worries, or try and divert my attention from it. But I still instinctively react to most things in life with a negative mindset. Asides from animals and nature. Well, unless it's roadkill of people's litter in beautiful places.

Ed
 
@Raggamuffin, that is a very good point. I was depressed for most of my adulthood. I am not depressed at the moment and have not been for at least 10 years. But I am ever mindful of my own negative mindset and actively work to ensure I remain depression free. For now I have found my strategies sucessful but it maybe that I simply have not regressed back into depression yet. Scary thought!
 
Numerous twin studies have conclusively proven that autism is not genetic. When only the severest cases were diagnosed, twin studies found that genes contributed to over 80% of the risk of developing ASD but the rate drops to less than 50% for milder cases of ASD. Twin studies found that genes contribute to 50% of the risk of developing depression and anxiety but people have fully recovered from those mental health disorders with talk therapy alone which proves they aren't genetic conditions despite genes increasing the risk of developing them. Cases of identical twins where one twin is autistic and the other isn't which shows that genes are merely a risk factor for ASD but do not cause the symptoms.

Twin studies have shown the exact opposite, actually. The correlation between autistic traits in one twin vs the other among monozygotic twins is .98, which is almost perfect, and in fact within the range of correlation you'd expect for retesting the same child multiple times.
 
I think if I wasn't stuck in these office jobs and could sell enough from my art and photography to do it full time - then my mental health would improve dramatically. As it stands, I've been stuck in 17 years in jobs I hate and my mental health is steadily declining, as is my patience, tolerance and compassion.

Ed
 

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