Spoiler: It’s exactly as the meme describes. Autism rates are rising not because more people are becoming autistic, but because we’ve expanded the definition and improved how we recognize and diagnose it.
Well, we at least have changed how we recognize and diagnose it, I’m not totally convinced it’s 100% an “improvement”. We’ve kind of jumbled up a whole bunch of people under a common umbrella and diluted the implications of the term, to the point where it tells you negligible practical information when someone is described as “autistic” or “on the spectrum”.
Yeah, that’s a totally fair concern and is one of the points the episode addresses. Researchers acknowledged that the definition has broadened, but they also emphasized that it reflects a better understanding of autism as a spectrum. It does make the label less specific, but it’s also helped a lot of people. Especially women and people of color. It helped them get more accurate diagnoses instead of being misdiagnosed or ignored.
Overall, it’s a stat worth celebrating as it means more people are getting the support they needed all along.
I hope that’s the net result, just afraid that so many others will be dismissive of someone asserting autism, particularly with certain folks seeming to think being autistic is a license to be inconsiderate while claiming it also means you are smart and so is worth declaring a self-diagnosis.
The Science Vs. podcast just did an episode on this.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2eKgmLJZrEKTbVzCVYzp0u
Spoiler: It’s exactly as the meme describes. Autism rates are rising not because more people are becoming autistic, but because we’ve expanded the definition and improved how we recognize and diagnose it.
Well, we at least have changed how we recognize and diagnose it, I’m not totally convinced it’s 100% an “improvement”. We’ve kind of jumbled up a whole bunch of people under a common umbrella and diluted the implications of the term, to the point where it tells you negligible practical information when someone is described as “autistic” or “on the spectrum”.
Yeah, that’s a totally fair concern and is one of the points the episode addresses. Researchers acknowledged that the definition has broadened, but they also emphasized that it reflects a better understanding of autism as a spectrum. It does make the label less specific, but it’s also helped a lot of people. Especially women and people of color. It helped them get more accurate diagnoses instead of being misdiagnosed or ignored.
Overall, it’s a stat worth celebrating as it means more people are getting the support they needed all along.
I hope that’s the net result, just afraid that so many others will be dismissive of someone asserting autism, particularly with certain folks seeming to think being autistic is a license to be inconsiderate while claiming it also means you are smart and so is worth declaring a self-diagnosis.
There are a few dirks like Elon Musk and Richard Dawkins but I don’t think the average person is aware enough of these people to really care