I see this as a disaster. The NY Times article today now has parents who's children are nonverbal agreeing with them so more money will be available for their children. What happened to the US striving to help children be all they can be for the good and productivity of society?

"Many comments, on the Web site of The New York Times and elsewhere, expressed the view that autism was overdiagnosed: Come on, 1 in 100 children today? one commenter wrote. This pathology did not exist in the past because we did not label it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/us/as-specialists-debate-autism-some-parents-watch-closely.html

the amount of diagnosis has gone up because the population has gone up. I read the article, our population will double in 12 years if we continue at this rate so of course you're seeing more diagnosis. I may be autistic, but it doesn't take a genius to see the holes in their argument.

I see why they want to revise it but I think they may be going about it with out considering everything. Yes there are more and more people diagnoised with ASD and ADHD because of population growth but I think alt of doctors are just slapping on those labels for every little thing. When it could just be the childs diet, I found out my daughter is allergic to red food coloring because it made her crazy hyperher favorite candy was red jolly ranchers) but once it was removed from her diet you would have never known she had adhd.

I think they need to spend the time and money on why there is such a increase. There have been people with Autism all along, the dx just wasn't official.
I do not like the way that ADHD is dx'd as here at least you can go to any Dr for that. For Autism we had to find a qualified Dr. and we looked for the best available here and found him.

You actually CAN'T just go to any doctor for an ADHD diagnosis. My nephew was required to see a psychologist in South Dakota, as I am having to do here in Arizona. Maybe it depends on where you live??
I also agree they don't know everything about various lesser known medical conditions and may just lump different things into one group.
I think the reason we are having more and more diagnosis has to do with many factors, including better knowlege. There was research to be done to find out these things even existed.
(When my Grandma was a child she used to be punished for throwing tantrums. It wasn't until she was older that they found out she was actually having seizures because she hypoglycemic.)
Then you have to take into account all the polutions we are putting into our bodies as our brains develope. When our parents were babies they didn't have this much crap in their food or water or air.
THEN there are also newer medications coming out all the time. Many negative side affects can be negative and may not even be known.
Take simple acid reducer for example. We get heartburn and it sucks. I know, I get it ALL the time. So we take an acid reducer? What does it do? It reduces stomach acid. Why do we produce stomach acid? To digest our food. Can we still digest our food affectively if we are constantly reducing the acid in our stomach?

OKAY, I see this as getting to be a VERY long post, so IF you are actually interested in the whole environment effecting genes thing, here's a link on the general subject...

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/phenotypic-range-of-gene-expression-environmental-influence-581

All I keep hearing in my head is the president saying that the fight was on to reduce the numbers of children on the autism spectrum. I see how they plan to do it. This is about saving money, not about what is best for the children. They would never say a high functioning Down's Syndrome child was just quirky or odd.

I raised an ADHD daughter without meds and now have a grandson on the spectrum. I see huge differences in how each fits into society. Saying that only the most extreme children are worthy of social support through programs and schooling needs when success is everything in our culture seems very counter productive to the future of all.

I do believe in the callous nature of of current gov't. They want to slash away all the social strides made over the last 100 years. Those who cheat the system are actually very few and the cost to us as a whole is too high when we through out the baby with the bath water.

Remember, under the new proposed criteria, Temple Grandin would no longer be classified.

I wish I were diagnosed as Autistic. Why? For monetary help? No. All I want to do is to have doctors understand me when I visit with them and to have them put forth just a little more effort to make sure I understand them.

I suppose I might be diagnosed as "High Functioning Asperger's" if anything, but to me it is all "Autism".

To me the differences on the "Spectrum" are mostly differences of native intelligence. Intelligence is a continuum already. But when a person has an impairment in their ability to communicate, it often comes about that their basic intelligence is also thought to be lower than it actually is. Hence, the hearing-impaired who had trouble speaking were once thought to be "dumb"--with all its implications of low intellect.

The rest of the differences are just variations on the theme, I believe, due to how the brain interprets input from the various senses. One doctor who specialized in brain damage studied autistic children and wrote a book talking about how they would exhibit certain behaviors due to being some combination of: Normal, Hyper- or Hypo- sensing with each of the senses: vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.

I consider my situation to be hereditary. My father was "the strong and silent type" who actually seemed to need an extraordinary time to formulate what he was going to say if it was to be truly from his own thinking. Otherwise, he would just repeat in other words what others were saying so he always came across as agreeable in social situations. My Father's mother was the quiet one in her marriage, and most of her brothers and sisters were also limited verbally.

I, myself, am 63 years old, went to college full time for over 4 years, but didn't come close to graduating. I consider it a miracle that I was able to marry a very understanding and supportive man and that we have lasted 30 years in our relationship. Reading and writing are my best forms of communication because I also need a lot of time to formulate what I really mean to say.

I've already addressed this with our doctor and my son will still be covered under the new dsm codes.

I truly truly believe that there were several factors that played into my son's autism, the environment being one of them.

what i am finding disturbing where i live is more and more special education paraeducators are being let go and regular education teachers are trying to do both their jobs and special education stuff as well. can I just give my opinion that this has been a total disaster? I've had more problems with violations of bip and iep than i have had in all the years he's had autism.