Where are these 1 in 166 autistics?
The increasing diagnosis of autism may be being accompanied by a decrease of other diagnoses, and it may be just that more people know what autism looks like now.
The largest part of the increase in autism among the California DDS numbers is in high functioning autistics, though the calamity howlers would have you believe that we have low functioning autistics coming out of our collective pores.
Not that there is anything wrong with being a low functioning autistic, but saying that they comprise the majority -- it's just a symptom of the heavy handed lying that is going on to promote a non-existent autism epidemic. They want everyone to fear being stuck with a low functioning autistic child...who they say would be better off never having been born. (go to http://www.mering.com/home.htm click on "portfolio" and then "UC Davis MIND institute", then "brianna" it's a pdf file of a print ad)
As it turns out...if you think about it, there are not 1 out of 166 people in the United States getting services on account of being so terribly disabled by autism.
That would include 1 out of 166 adults being disabled with autism and getting services.... no way. The numbers from the federal IDEA report that tracks the number of school aged people (up to 21 years old) getting special education help don't show that they are providing services to that many school aged kids.
The California DDS (which provides services to adults in their homes as well as children) doesn't show that they are providing services to one out of 166 Californians under a label of autism.
The California DDS system has
26,576 people with the autism label which represents
15.06% of their clients (they only serve a restricted group, it isn't for all disabled people, just the developmentally disabled) the estimated population of
California for 2003 from the federal govt. census is
35,484,453
If you divide the population of California (over 35 million) by the number of children and adults given services under the label of autism by the California DDS (over 26 thousand)
one arrives at one person with autism getting services for every 1, 335
Californians.
Oh. Now lets see. California has suffered a tsunami with 800+ new autistics entering the DDS system in the last quarter (they were included in that total of 26,576 from the last quarterly report) this according to Rick Rollens.
But still there are not anywhere near 1 in 166 Californians getting services for their hideously disabling autism.
No, there are 1 in 1,335 Californians getting services
with the label of autism... but perhaps more autistics are getting services with the label "mental retardation".
There are a total of 176,465 clients of all types in the Cal DDS system (cerebral palsy, mental retardation, autism and epilepsy are the main dxs) if you divide the
total population of California by the whole case load of the California DDS
you get 1 DDS client
per 201 Californians.
We still aren't up to 1 in 166 now are we?
If you go to www.oddizm.com you can find links to more analyses of the stats
that are badly abused to support a non existent autism epidemic.
http://www.geocities.com/autistry/bmjrrletters.html
Autism Diva has a letter there that mentions the 800 new cases of autism...turns out that they aren't all toddlers, some are middle aged and old folks with a new dx of autism just now entering the California DDS system, or just now moving to California or just now applying for services.
There has been no autism epidemic, whether or not there has been an increase at all is debatable.
The largest part of the increase in autism among the California DDS numbers is in high functioning autistics, though the calamity howlers would have you believe that we have low functioning autistics coming out of our collective pores.
Not that there is anything wrong with being a low functioning autistic, but saying that they comprise the majority -- it's just a symptom of the heavy handed lying that is going on to promote a non-existent autism epidemic. They want everyone to fear being stuck with a low functioning autistic child...who they say would be better off never having been born. (go to http://www.mering.com/home.htm click on "portfolio" and then "UC Davis MIND institute", then "brianna" it's a pdf file of a print ad)
As it turns out...if you think about it, there are not 1 out of 166 people in the United States getting services on account of being so terribly disabled by autism.
That would include 1 out of 166 adults being disabled with autism and getting services.... no way. The numbers from the federal IDEA report that tracks the number of school aged people (up to 21 years old) getting special education help don't show that they are providing services to that many school aged kids.
The California DDS (which provides services to adults in their homes as well as children) doesn't show that they are providing services to one out of 166 Californians under a label of autism.
The California DDS system has
26,576 people with the autism label which represents
15.06% of their clients (they only serve a restricted group, it isn't for all disabled people, just the developmentally disabled) the estimated population of
California for 2003 from the federal govt. census is
35,484,453
If you divide the population of California (over 35 million) by the number of children and adults given services under the label of autism by the California DDS (over 26 thousand)
one arrives at one person with autism getting services for every 1, 335
Californians.
Oh. Now lets see. California has suffered a tsunami with 800+ new autistics entering the DDS system in the last quarter (they were included in that total of 26,576 from the last quarterly report) this according to Rick Rollens.
But still there are not anywhere near 1 in 166 Californians getting services for their hideously disabling autism.
No, there are 1 in 1,335 Californians getting services
with the label of autism... but perhaps more autistics are getting services with the label "mental retardation".
There are a total of 176,465 clients of all types in the Cal DDS system (cerebral palsy, mental retardation, autism and epilepsy are the main dxs) if you divide the
total population of California by the whole case load of the California DDS
you get 1 DDS client
per 201 Californians.
We still aren't up to 1 in 166 now are we?
If you go to www.oddizm.com you can find links to more analyses of the stats
that are badly abused to support a non existent autism epidemic.
http://www.geocities.com/autistry/bmjrrletters.html
Autism Diva has a letter there that mentions the 800 new cases of autism...turns out that they aren't all toddlers, some are middle aged and old folks with a new dx of autism just now entering the California DDS system, or just now moving to California or just now applying for services.
There has been no autism epidemic, whether or not there has been an increase at all is debatable.
posted by Autism Diva at 12:58 AM
17 Comments:
First comment on a virgin blog! (I always wanted to do a virgin, lol)
Way to go Camille! This is so needed.
Thank you. :-D
One can only wish that one can live up to one's reputation as Autism Diva. sigh.
Heavy lays the head that wears the tiara.
(cute kitty photo!)
I always wanted to do Kathleen.
Oh, and I think these stats could be part of a diagnosis "epidemic".
eric! what do you mean you always "wanted" to do kathleen? you do do kathleen, lol.
Ignore him Camille. He's my bf.
Cam, I just thought of something. The NT visitors know nothing of an autie's tendency toward topic hijaking, lol. I guess they'll learn once they start following the comment threads of a particular post to see that said comments may not actually reflect the content of the original posting. Similarly, they won't know that it's not considered rude but natural and acceptable.
Tangentiality, that's the 10 cent word for topic hijacking. It is permitted by Autism Diva. Notice how Autism Diva uses a sort of royal 2nd person reference to Autism Diva's self. It's quite royal is it not?
Eric, behave yourself!
I need to post the "Welcome the autistic underground" and explain the meaning of "mind the gap."
It's like "welcome to the other side of the looking glass."
Autism Diva
In my own defense, I detangentialized (R) when I said that I thought that this was a diagnosis epidemic.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
I've written somewhere on aut advo (je crois) - have to be a bit formal in the presence of royalty - that this 1:166 is the last word in fraud.
Since it's a damn sight easier to dig up the reference than to search autadvo, here's the prevalence figures used by Prof Chris Gillberg - IMO, one of the sanest in the field.
http://www.nas.org.uk/pubs/archive/prevalence.html
Note that 1:166 must be including a large proportion of the 35 per 10,000 who DO NOT MEET the FULL criteria for Asperger's Syndrome (AS, which is a very long way from the autistic with mental retardation in need of institutionalisation and/or whole of life care. That is not what these con artists are implying, is it? They use the stats for all ASD s and conveniently forget to mention that those in need of all that care and tax money are a fraction of the whole.
Now what is going to happen when the public finds out they've been scammed?
Btw, I wrote this to some organisation quoting 1:166 and the reply back was that we all had to 'work together'. Oh yeah? Not on your life, Nelly. The ends do not justify the means and if these folk could get out of the pity party long enough, they might begin to realise that in the long run honesty pays, along with some recognition that all those damning epithets they use actually do damage to their own children.
[/rant]
Al
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Problems with this blog - it told me twice that it couldn't send the post - and then it did - ah well
Al
I removed the duplicate of your very cogent and wonderfully written comment.
I see that on the St John's Autism Listserv that anyone who questions the "1 in 166 as tragically autistic and ruined" myth is told that they aren't a team player and not helping advocacy for "All the autistics" by questioning it.
Criticizing Ray Gallup is not allowed, either.
sigh,
c'est la vie.
dit moi
Autism Diva
http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=299&a=3527
The address that Alyric gave didn't work, but this one seems to say the same thing.
117,000 or so people in the UK, children and adults with lower functioning, IQ less than 70 and an autism spectrum disorder.
417,400 with IQs of 70 and above who are described as needing help and understanding when ther are young but who are likely to be self supporting as adults.
And still need understanding, I might add.
Thank you Alyric!
Autism Diva
Dear Ms Saint-Saens,
There's a serious error in your anti-increase calculation.
Pity about your musical compositions, but at least it is nice to meet some calmer, more reasoned, even nearly-amusing verbiage on this subject, almost free from abusiveness or excessively colourful language.
And I happen to agree that thimerosal is not (mainly) to blame.
HOWEVER ...
Your maths concerning the 1 in 166 is seriously misinformed. That figure does not mean n/N where n is number of autistics in Californicatia and N is number of people in same. No, the n means number of autistics born in Cal in year x (e.g. 2004) and the N means number of Californicatians born in that same year x.
The method of miscalcuation you used is guaranteed to give a rather useless gross underestimate because it is heavily diluted by the years preceding the increase (real or otherwise).
Now, the big question ... are either of your two heads capable of admitting a big mistake?
Cheers, A. Expert.
Just a clarification. The 1:166 number from the CDC is speculation. The hard number for children receiving services in public schools for full-blown autism in 2003 is 1:500. That is up from 1:10,000 in 1990. However, the CDC admits this number (for full-blown autism, not ASDs) is a low-ball figure, as many children are missed, not being in public schools or being diagnosed with multiple disabilities, which is counted under a separate category. So let's talk about apples and apples here, since the diagnostic criteria for Kanner or Infantile autism did not change in the 1990s, and, in fact, has changed little from when Kanner and Asperger first diagnosed it 70 years ago.
In my state, which saw an increase in school-aged children (5-18) with Autism (not ASD) rise from 100 in 1990 to 2000+ this year, that national number is wrong. For us, it's 1:130.
What's interesting is your argument about the lack of adults receiving services actually bolsters the recent epidemic argument. California's study indicates that 80% of new cases are in pre-school and school-aged children, not teens and adults. So just where are those hidden hordes? (And since we're talking about apples and apples, let's be clear that the California numbers are in fact full-blown autism, not ASDs, which they count separately.)
Too bad you don't know what your are talking about.
Dr. Fombonne the world's premiere autism epidemiologist says that worldwide the rate of autism spectrum disorders is probably 1 in 166 (60 in 10000) and that number has been stable for many years.
If you do a search on this blog for Fombonne's name you can find some links to his work, one is a free lecture that he gives on tape that explains in detail why he thinks that is true, giving many studies as references.
The California numbers don't just count "low functioning autistics" 55% have no mental retardation. Several years ago the same agency had a much higher rate of autistics with MR, because they were using a different definition of autism, a more extreme one.
The criteria for autism now would definitely have "caught" the Kanner autistics, but they weren't retarded for the most part. Look at Donald T. He and another of Kanners' 11 went on to work independently. The ones that didn't do that might have if they hadn't been abused. They lost track of one of them who might have gone on to get married or become a professor like Temple Grandin, who fits Kanner criteria for autism.
Only abou 25% of autistics regress, regression isn't new. Dr. Down described it in the 1800's.
The California numbers represent whoever the regional centers decide need help. Some of them are "high functioning" autistics, Autism Diva knows that for positive because she knows a very "high functioning" boy that gets services from them and yet until he was 11 he was never diagnosed as autistic, people just didn't understand why he was so different. He paces and flaps his hands and uses neologisms, he had a huge head when he was a baby and was very passive. He doesn't make eye contact. He's homeschooled because of kids bullying him, but he's at normal school level for his age.
His uncle was diagnosed as having "childhood schizophrenia". His uncle is now about 40 years old and is married and has kids and a job. He's autistic just like his nephew.
There has been no autism epidemic.
I havent read all of the comments or anything so perhaps this was addressed but my 4 yr old brother is diagnosed with Autism. We just went to a series of interviews and evaluations to get him enrolled in special ed pre-k thru the public school system. During the interview process a teacher acknowledged that while she knows he is on a special diet and that goldfish crackers are not allowed to be eaten on that diet she gave him some anyway b/c a little won't hurt anyone. Since then he has been self mutilating by biting the skin off of his feet, toes, fingers, etc. He is also extremely violent which has never happened before. We cannot trust the school system any longer and will not allow him to participate in their programs. I'm sure there are more ppl that feel they cannot trust others with their child with autism. therefore, while i am not well researched in this area, I'm wondering if maybe the statistics dont add up to 1 in every 166 b/c ppl wont enroll or seek the help from outside sources due to mistrust. Furthermore, we have to worry about department of family and children services b/c of cancelling the request to get special needs program services since it is a concern under GA state laws that DFACS conducts several investigations after a decline for help in a special needs case. I'm not at all saying you are wrong, just wondering if maybe the stats are low for a reason and not due to a shortage of an epidemic.
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