CDC now says Autism Disorders are at 1 in 150

Update October 5 2009 -

The CDC now says 1 in 100 children have now been diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder!

Sadly it would seem that my dire predictions below are closer to coming true than when I first wrote the article...



February 9, 2007

So, the latest findings are now that 1 in 150 kids/people has Autism or Asperger's or PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disability - Not Otherwise Specified) or Rett's or some type of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Couple problems with the study, one of which makes me think it's probably even worse. They studied only 8 year old kids because "most kids are usually diagnosed by this age".

Huh? Not by what we've read, and experienced.

Our son was 11 (one month shy of 12) when he was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and by what I read online there are a significant number of kids/folks who are diagnosed way beyond the age of 8.

The other problem is, while folks are saying this is a wake up call to get services in place for these kids (which I'm definitely in favor of), nowhere am I reading about the experts saying anything about how this is going to affect our society as these kids grow up and are unable to contribute as much to society as they'll drain from society.

Our son will almost definitely need more support from the government than he'll be able to contribute. And what about the ASD folks who have kids and end up not being able to support or take care of those kids.

My sister is one. She wasn't diagnosed with ASD, instead she was diagnosed with Hyperactivity and treated with Ritalin. I know in my heart that she's dealing with what our son is dealing with but even our own parents won't acknowledge it.

Probably because they're more worried about how it'll reflect on their parenting skills than they are about getting her the help she needs (no love lost between us, they say our son is purposely misbehaved and under-punished).

But anyhow, my sister has been in trouble with the law quite often and now finds herself in a half-way home with her 14 year old son living with my parents.

Correct that... Was living with my parents. They recently gave up on him because "it's just too much" to continually have to tell him what to do "brush your teeth", "put on your shoes", "eat", etc. and shipped him off to his dad (who we love but my parents hate).

So anyhow, we've got an adult who can't contribute to society and who can't raise her child. And the child who most likely won't be able to contribute as much as he'll need.

Our son wants children although we know it wouldn't be in his best interest or in the best interest of any children he might have but we can't stop him. We are struggling both financially and emotionally to raise him and we still need to afford to send our daughter to college.

Do we now have to look forward to raising troubled grandkids as well? BTW, our daughter has decided to never have children because of all she's seen in our troubles in raising our son.

This is going to grow and grow until we've got more people with an ASD than without, more people who will be drawing on the government rather than contributing to it.

Admitted epidemic or not, we're in trouble... Anyone remember "Dark Angel"? While Manticore might be beyond the limits, the dark world and miserable life existence is not...

Wonderful Autism Apps / Applications ... and ... some of my favorite books and other goodies

Books that I'm currently reading

Fiction, Non-fiction, Auto-Biographies, Instructional books, etc. I'm interested in them all. :) And if you autograph it that would be SUPER cool! ;)