http://autism.freedomblogging.com/how-common-is-autism-in-orange-county/
"According to data collected by the California Department of Education, autism rates continue to rise, with about 1 in 68 of this year’s kindergarten students being reported autistic. In 2000, that figure was 1 in 293."
I think that in these numbers, which cover a much wider range of the autism spectrum than previously, we're looking at the very beginning of a long-term shift in thinking about cognition and behavior: 'Wait a sec, a rather large portion of people perceive and think in a different way.' At least, that's the direction I hope it will eventually go in. It'll be decades in the making if so. Currently, of course, cognitive differences that have been there all along in the population are marginalized and pathologized. Perhaps with more recognition, that will eventually change. The parallel with homosexuality eventually being removed from the DSM comes to mind, though there's oversimplification in that.
And I have to ask: how much of pathologizing the new recognition of the range of the autism spectrum is driven by a pervasive, notoriously rigid institution like the public educational system? Is it possible that children are being identified in droves as autistic not because there's a rise in autism, but because the current educational system is broken? If that's driving it, the system as a whole is struggling to patch cracks that have been there all along, cracks children have been falling through for decades. If you add up just all the kids with school-diagnosed ADD/ADHD and autism, you're looking at a rather large percentage of kids for whom the current school system does not work.
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