Autism disorders increased by 57% in just four years, the CDC today reported.
By the end of 2006, one in 110 U.S. kids had an autism disorder diagnosed by age 8: one in 70 boys and one in 315 girls, reflecting a nearly fivefold higher risk for males.
"Two decades ago we were looking at a prevalence of one in 5,000 children. Now we're looking at one in 100. That really is a staggering increase," Geraldine Dawson, PhD, chief science officer of advocacy group Autism Speaks, tells WebMD.'
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The term autistic has been misused to describe persons with anything from cerebral allergies and schizophrenia to attention deficient disorder and post traumatic disorder. Sadly, few doctors and educators understand true cases of autism to make a correct diagnosis. So they go with the latest media driven flow. Pick and choose from a broad and ever expanding spectrum. Or worse, they guess. The hallmark traits of autism are: sensitivity to sounds, specific tastes in food/drink, strange body postures, repetitive behaviors, inability to control emotions or excitement, poor reasoning skills, needs routines, resists changes, sense of direction and memory better than other skills, thinking based on association, not reasoning, once distracted by olfactory, visual or auditory stimuli, they become preoccupied. This is markedly DIFFERENT than ADHD, in that ADHD presents as easily distracted by stimuli, BUT, the person bounces focus from one thing to another. ADHD people don’t stay hyper-focused or fixate on something. That is what you will see a truly autistic person do. Fixate.Autism research examines high functioning Autism (and Aspergers) but continues to ignore low functioning (severely) autistic subjects. So, if research is focused exclusively, or almost exclusively, on participants with high functioning autism or Aspergers, HOW much do we REALLY know about Autistic Disorder which, by definition, includes those with low functioning autism if we don’t’ study low functioning autism? Let’s be honest, many researchers are uninterested in an autism case that doesn’t have a direct bearing on a positive grant flow. That’s why they hyper-focus on high functioning autism. Good Autism research begins at ground zero: the lowest functioning. The key to unlocking the mystery of autism will be found at ground zero: the bottom of the spectrum.
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