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

[LadyS]

Are you from India?

Yep, well my parents are.

 

[Au Naturel]

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.

I was talking about specifically autism and not neurodiverse people in general. There are a lot of different types of neurodiversity and if you let them all stack up, I could see a much higher percentage. Then you add in the kids who simply have bad incompetent parents or suffer from depression or experienced a trauma they need help with. Not neurodiverse but still poorly adjusted to a classroom setting. By the time you add these together you might get a much higher incidence than 1 out of 8.

There's also the issue that there's no objective test for autism, like there's an objective test for COVID antibodies. It is all opinion which varies wildly from one mental health worker to the next. As I mentioned, some will call you autistic if you make the needle twitch and other won't diagnose it until you're solidly in the middle of ASD-1. There even a few who still deny it as a real problem.

 

[Au Naturel]

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.

Thank you.

Autism is very likely to be a complex of genes. Anything that is expressed by multiple genes will show a Bell curve distribution. Height is another trait that is expressed the same way. Saying someone is autistic is like saying they are tall or short. Environmental variables turn what would be many discreet steps into a smooth curve.

Where do we draw the line to say someone is autistic? Practically, it is common to say the diagnosis occurs when there is enough impairment of function to cause a problem in day-to-day living. But again, this is the opinion of the person doing the assessment. Those opinions are in turn distributed on a Bell curve and subject to subtle biases and gross human error. An example is female autism which was long assumed not to be possible. Oops! Sorry ladies, we know better today.

Nationally I have seen studies that indicate perhaps 1 in 50 children would qualify as autistic under a standard autism assessment. That's pretty close to 2 sigma off the norm. I've also seen other studies that range from 1 in 40 to 1 in 100. (Just a matter of the opinion of the researcher.) As mental health professionals become more aware, assessments get better at picking up borderline cases, more women get diagnosed, and other factors evolve, that rate will increase.

An increase in detection rate does not necessarily mean an increase in actual frequency.

 

[Au Naturel]

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.

There's depression and there's DEPRESSION. The same term gets tossed around for a condition that varies wildly in degree and presentation. Makes it difficult to make blanket statements and still be accurate.

Some depression is obviously environmental and some is very likely genetic. It seems the more severe the depression the more likely a genetic component. It even matters if you inherited it from your mother or father or both. Several genes have a decent correlation to major depression disorder, a specific condition. The same is true of bipolar, a different condition that involves both depression and manic phases.

You can also be depressed because you've worked a sucky job your entire life and now your life feels like it is over. That probably isn't genetic but it could still reflect long term physical changes in your brain and therefor not necessarily be amenable to talk therapy alone.

Either way it is possible to be so deep in the hole that talk therapy is useless without an SSRI or SNRI to get you out of that hole.

 

[Matthias]

female autism which was long assumed not to be possible. Oops! Sorry ladies, we know better today.

Leo Kanner identified 3 autistic girls in the 11 children he originally identified as autistic in 1943.
Understanding the Gender Gap: Autistic Women and Girls - Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network (AWN)

 

[Au Naturel]

Leo Kanner identified 3 autistic girls in the 11 children he originally identified as autistic in 1943.
Understanding the Gender Gap: Autistic Women and Girls - Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network (AWN)

But that was not what informed the autism debate in the past. Hans Asperger looked almost entirely at boys in his research. For decades this gender exclusive research dominated psychology to the point many psychologists denied women could be autistic. This was not the theory Asperger was advancing at all but it fit their personal biases. Instead, women typically got diagnosed with anxiety, depression, hysteria, anorexia, and host of other conditions. Still disproportionately happens to women today.

Not the only example of this. Psychology of the previous century, in general, treated women with less respect than men.

I can't find the post but one of the people on this forum talked about the refusal of many (most?) French psychologists to consider a diagnosis of autism for females.The bias persists in some areas.

...metastudies show only 0.5% of studies are conducted on autism in women. This has created an extreme bias in diagnosis, even among psychiatric and medical professionals, with the idea that “autism/ADHD is a male condition” remaining a common misconception.​

The Lost Girls: How Women With Autism Are Hurt by Sexist Science

The accepted ratio of males to females with autism has dropped in the last few years. Current estimates are in the 5-1 to 3-1 range now. And we still aren't really sure exactly what symptoms in females qualify for it because we've been studying all boy groups or mixed gender groups using male symptomology to diagnose with. Females do not display exactly the same traits as males. That ratio will probably become closer as we look harder for it in females.

The harder you look for something the more you'll find it.

 

[Au Naturel]

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.

That's very interesting.

A Bell curve distribution tells us 2% of the population will have an IQ of less than 70. If one in 8 has autism and a quarter of that are below 70 IQ, that's a 3% overall rate. The low IQ contribution of the autistic group already exceeds the expected rate for an average population by 50%. Autism is not the most common cause for a low IQ and I would have to assume all the other causes are present as well. That's a LOT more special needs kids than any school system I've ever worked for.

Thank you for that link! When I did a search it did not show up. Maybe it was because I was not using Google but instead DuckDuckGo?

 

[Greatshield17]

I do not think he actually is n.t. He is most certainly n.d. if not actually on the spectrum. Though he seems to lack the social anxiety that marks many of us.

So why do I think he n.d.?
Obsession with geography
Prone to wearing the same thing day in and day out
Second guessing / indecisiveness
Sensitivity to loud sound as a child, less as an adult
Hyperlexia
Stubborn, contrarian, independent thinker
Feels "alien"
Has close friends but prefers to see them individuallly, not in groups
As a child had a hyper focus on windmills, blade fans of all kinds, at one time had a collection of 30 oscillating fans in our 900 sq ft house.
Collected the entire Miles Davis collection by age 9

--------
Other things that may or may not be related:
Breech birth
Difficult pregnancy
Was very difficult to soothe as a baby

In many ways he fits the stereotype of an autistic person than I do. The biggest difference between us (besides age and gender) is that I exhibit cognitive and executive functioning difficulties and he does not. Also, I have social anxiety.

Fascinating , (sorry it took me so long to reply) I didn’t hyper focus on windmills and fans as a kid, but I do remember liking them; with fans, as well as helicopter blades, propellers and the like, I was interested in how they would spin so fast they’d look like one solid disc or object.

 

[Greatshield17]

I guess should look into this county, find Catholic parishes there and mail Claritas pamphlets to them.

 

[SDRSpark]

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.

And the time period during which someone is assessed - I probably go from ASD 0.5 to ASD 2 depending on the day. Catch me on a 0.5 day and I come across as "quirky". Catch me on a 2 day and oh boy.....

 

[Au Naturel]

Everything in the phenotype is result from genetics interacting with environment, to say that something does or does not have a genetic component does not make any sense.

Is the common cold genetic? If your genes give you bad protection it can be labeled as a genetic condition. You may say that its not genetic because it's because it originates from outside the body, but by that logic you wouldn't be able to say that thick bones are genetic either, since calcium also extracted from your environment. Your genes can't do anything on their own.

Oh yes, they can. They can kill you. A genetic defect can cause a fetus to spontaneously abort or be still-born. There are a number of heritable conditions that will kill you as you grow up, or even as an adult, that the environment has little or no influence on.

Sometimes genes influence the outcome and sometimes they dictate the outcome.

 

[Au Naturel]

Different studies have different results. One study found that "If one identical twin has autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the other twin has a 76 percent chance of also being diagnosed with it." I think the fact that 24% of people in the study did not have ASD despite their identical twin with the exact same genes having ASD proves it's not genetic.

Source: Twins Study Finds Large Genetic Influence in Autism | Interactive Autism Network

They also concluded:
"High levels of autism symptoms are genetic in origin. Less severe symptoms are not as likely to be inherited."

The first error is to assume that identical twins are actually identical. They aren't - for a host of environmental reasons - all the way back to conception and right up to how each felt the day they were tested. A significant percentage of people who think they are identical twins, really are not. (Actually called genetic chimeras. Nonidentical twins who shared the same placenta and blood supply and swapped stem cells.) And it is important to understand that even identical twins are not genetically identical.

Do identical twins always look alike?

Identical Twins' Genes Are Not Identical

The fact that there was a 76% match overwhelmingly demonstrates a genetic cause. It could easily be that an unknown number of the remaining 24% was autistic as well but were masked by epigenetic conditions. This would naturally happen at a higher frequency with twins who were near the borderline on the tests. That needs to be investigated.

 

[Matthias]

The first error is to assume that identical twins are actually identical. They aren't - for a host of environmental reasons - all the way back to conception and right up to how each felt the day they were tested. A significant percentage of people who think they are identical twins, really are not. (Actually called genetic chimeras. Nonidentical twins who shared the same placenta and blood supply and swapped stem cells.) And it is important to understand that even identical twins are not genetically identical.

Do identical twins always look alike?

Identical Twins' Genes Are Not Identical

The fact that there was a 76% match overwhelmingly demonstrates a genetic cause. It could easily be that an unknown number of the remaining 24% was autistic as well but were masked by epigenetic conditions. This would naturally happen at a higher frequency with twins who were near the borderline on the tests. That needs to be investigated.

Interesting that their genes aren't completely identical. One problem with twin studies is both twins are usually raised by the same parents and exposed to the same environment. I remember reading a study awhile ago that suggested air pollution causes autism. Both twins will be exposed to the same amount of air pollution if they live in the same home so I'm not even sure if a 100% match could prove autism is genetic.

 

[stevens]

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

Well there you have it. Some people have what might be called "endogenous depression," or depression that seems to come from nowhere. The rest of us have what I'd term "exogenous," or situational, depression that arises from environmental conditions.

So, in 1992 when I'd graduated with three highly desirable college degrees could obtain only a menial job doing data entry from lousy wages, it created a level of near-suicidal depression I'd rarely experienced. Half a dozen years later, when I'd finally found employment related to my skills and had a higher income, my "depression" improved. Now that I'm "retired" and have lost connection with my core peer group of techie-type people, I find the depression is coming back. A lot of us were quite happy children, however socially disconnected we were, until we discovered that we are dependent on others for a significant amount of well-being.

For people with free-floating clinical depression antidepressant drugs can work. For the rest of us, a better deal from life would be a far better treatment.

 

[Au Naturel]

Interesting that their genes aren't completely identical. One problem with twin studies is both twins are usually raised by the same parents and exposed to the same environment. I remember reading a study awhile ago that suggested air pollution causes autism. Both twins will be exposed to the same amount of air pollution if they live in the same home so I'm not even sure if a 100% match could prove autism is genetic.

The gold standard of twin studies is twins who are separated at birth. The problem is the very small number of people who fit this bill - then multiply by .02 which is the proportion of people typically diagnosed autistic.

If you really want a definitive study, rather than one that is just interesting, the study needs to standardize the diagnosis process as much as humanly possible. In the real world, there are too many variables. A person's diagnosis of autism will vary wildly from one diagnostician to the next, from one day to the next, and according to current opinions at the time of the diagnosis. Autism on the borderline is an entirely subjective call.

In and of itself, the 76% number is pretty impressive but it is in comparison that it gains real value. Fraternal twins had a match rate of 38%, exactly half of what the identicals had. Exactly what you'd expect of a primarily genetic condition. Almost too close for comfort because you don't expect an exact number match in such a small sample.