More autism diagnoses: The new fashion?
April 12th, 2008From the Economist, United Press International:
British research supports the theory that the rise in autism may be due in part to changes in how it is diagnosed.
The study, published in Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, revisited adults diagnosed with developmental language disorders as children who had attended special schools or classes for children with language impairments. The researchers found about one-quarter of them met current diagnostic criteria for autistic spectrum disorders.
“Our study shows pretty direct evidence to support the theory that changes in diagnosis may contribute towards the rise in autism,” study leader Dorothy Bishop of the University of Oxford said in a statement. “These were children that people were saying were not autistic in the 1980s, but when we talk to their parents now about what they were like as children, it’s clear that they would be classified as autistic now.”
Wrote the Economist’s editors: ‘…. it now looks unlikely that there are more autistic people around than there used to be. It is just that it is now fashionable to acknowledge their existence.”
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