The criteria for diagnosing ASD today are vastly different from those that would’ve resulted in an autism diagnosis shortly after the abolishment of lobotomy, it is hardly surprising the rate keeps going up as you widen the net.
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A main thing is that people with autism would just be classified as generally mentally disabled and the rise in autism is highly tied a drop in that general diagnosis. I don't think that covers 100% of the rise but does seem to make up the big majority.
U.S. special-education autism classification was created in 1994 and tied to a big rise in diagnosis.
https://news.wisc.edu/data-provides-misleading-picture-of-au...
If expanding the definition is the feature required action should be taken to mitigate the bug. True?
Not that much.
The difference between now and 50 years ago is that a) we don't just throw them into asylums, b) we actually have accessibility of getting diagnosed, c) employment opportunities suitable for many people with mental disabilities (such as factory line assembly) have gone down the drain.
That's an important bit of context whenever RFK Jr. talks about how conditions like Autism and ADHD weren't a thing when he was growing up - his own aunt, who may well have had one of those conditions, was dealt with by giving her a lobotomy and then hiding her away. Those are the supposedly better times he's harkening back to.
Yes, this absolutely. You can't study something after altering it.
The "treatments" for people with any kind of neurodivergence (real, or imagined) in the past were often interventions that destroyed enough of their brain or body to prevent them from exhibiting any neurodivergent symptoms (e.g. lobotomy, EST/ECT, teeth-pulling[1], etc).
[1]: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2019/01/henry-cotton-psychiatr...
Very much so. What we now call Autism Spectrum Disorder was referred to as "childhood schizophrenia" in the DSM-2 [1], things only started moving in the right direction with the DSM-3 [2] when it was finally sort-of recognized as an independent disorder of "infantile autism", but some core elements of ASD like sensory processing differences were only recognized in the DSM-5.
There's a good overview at [3]. It's good that criteria are different today, the criteria from decades ago failed to include majority of ways that autism expresses itself, many of which benefit from support and accommodations even though they're not obviously debilitating.
[1] https://www.madinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/DSM-...
[2] https://aditpsiquiatriaypsicologia.es/images/CLASIFICACION%2...
https://slowrevealgraphs.com/2021/11/08/rate-of-left-handedn...
The very much same applies here I think.
You're only getting a diagnosis if a) you have access to a psychiatrist and b) you are running into enough issues in your daily life to warrant having it looked into.
Life has gotten a lot more complex over the past few decades, so people run into issues more often - and earlier in life. Someone who would've just been "a bit of a weird guy" 50 years ago is getting an autism diagnosis today, simply because these days they run into issues as a child and are being put in front of a psychiatrist.
> The symptoms do not occur exclusively during the course of a pervasive developmental disorder, schizophrenia, or other psychotic disorders and is not better accounted for by another mental disorder (e.g., mood disorder, anxiety disorder, dissociative disorder, or a personality disorder).
The DSM-V states that they can exist together. In fact something like 28-44% of people with Autism exhibit some form of ADHD. [1]
It just goes to show that we’re still evolving in how we understand things. And then we can get into things like twice exceptionality and Asperger’s…and yeah. Lots to learn.
[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519712/table/ch3.t3/
[1]: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...