As part of the new study which claims one in one hundred Americans have Autism there is another interesting fact. According to CBS News 40 percent of Autism diagnosis are incorrect according to the study. I guess this puzzles me a bit, because how can you increase the diagnosis rate, but then say nearly half of all diagnosis are incorrect. It just does not meet the standards of logic, or common sense. But seeing as one of these studies was funded by Autism Speaks – who never really makes sense in their tactics it does not surprise me.
According to the article by CBS News:
nearly 40 percent of the children ever diagnosed with autism disorders didn’t currently have autism, the parents reported. That rate is much higher than ever found by autism recovery researchers. Outside experts said they doubt it reflects a true rate of recoveries. Autism could have been suspected and later ruled out for some of the children, the authors wrote.
What are your thoughts on this surprising piece of research? What do you think would be the cause of all these misdiagnosis?
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Perhaps autism is the big diagnosis now?
Mostly I wonder if autism is misdiagnosed in girls due to the possibility of autism manifesting itself differently in girls than in boys?
There’s a lot we don’t know and assumptions really won’t help folks to learn more.
OT but this song Hunter by Portishead is awesome.
Girls also tend to be more socially withdrawn.
First, you have to note that the rate of misdianosis is based on parents’ reports, a notably unreliable source. Where’s the research? I doubt that there is any.
The so-called rate of misdiagnosis is simply a way of reinforcing the idea that if, for any reason at all, the signs of autism aren’t present in later life, then the person was never autistic. It supports Autism Speaks’ insistence on autism as a lifelong disability. The organization couldn’t survive, at least not with its present agenda, if people know that some symptoms are eventually outgrown as the nervous system develops, or that people learn how to minimize them and function better.
If the one to one and a half percent incidence that was found in the UK is accurate, then there is no autism epidemic. So Autism Speaks comes up with a figure that lets them sneak out of their obsession with the “vast” numbers of children developing autism.
So you believe Autism Speaks is just spitting out these numbers to get monetary benefit?
Yes.
Yeah, that is a possibility…
According to a Press Release Autism Speaks issued on October 1st 2009, the autism (ASD) rate in the US was 1 in 10,000 in 1999. It appears they use whatever stats suit them at the time for whatever reason…
You might be dx’d with an ASD but you could just be mentally challenged.
I think for an autism diagnosis to stick in childhood, you need to reevaluate at a later period, and just say “possible autism” at the first diagnosis. After all, it’s not just how well someone is doing at a particular time, that the kid might just outgrow (that’s called irregular development), but a pattern that occurs over years. Hard to see in younger kids.
Methodological faults with the survey, lack of academic rigour, it was a phone survey, no checks and balances on subjective reporting.
great info.
Autism is overdiagnosed. Too many professionals think they know what autism is and quickly diagnose children who have learning disablities or sensory processing disorders in the absence of aspergers or autism. Not every kid who isn’t reading or talking is autistic! Autism is the label lazy professionals dump on kids when they don’t know what’s really going on and won’t take the time to discover it.
Amen hannahweiss!!
Beautifully put…I couldn’t have said it any better for these “professional people”…
People who see “patients” by minutes have to ensure their demand’s maintained and at the same time don’t have any time or interest to looks further for cause and cure (which btw is constantly mentioned as “unknown causes” anyway) .
And their cronies sitting at front office are far better off being busy setting the next appointment date so they could squeeze more money out of distraught parents.