andsoitisDemand for autism care is soaring
I have SchizoAffective Disorder, I also have a Major Mood disorder, and depression. When I was 5, they thought I had autism, but I did an IQ test and had the mental age of 12, and said autism didn't apply to me because I have a high IQ. They didn't know about high-functioning autism back then. So I think I was misdiagnosed. I think I am on the spectrum somewhere on the high end. I learn fast, but sometimes forget what I learned. I am 57 now.
I’m 42 but British. I was a weird kid, but over in Blighty autism wasn’t something that was even considered back then - just “how much more do we need to cane him until he’s normal?!”.
It turns out, no amount. Now I’m just a weird adult with an ironclad distrust of all authority.
I am a bit older and i grew up in New Jersey, and it wasn't much different. My teacher once told me she was going to cut my finger off because i always counted with them . Punk rock saved my life .
Earlier this week, the NYT also published this (to me, very moving) account of a nonverbal autistic man going to graduate school and publishing a novel: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/books/review/woody-brown-...
It's amazing how much we continue to learn about these conditions.
This UK government posted a report recently, which I guess prompted this article.
Review into mental health conditions, ADHD and autism: interim report (gov.uk).
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-revie...
Are the soaring diagnosis because the frequency of autism in the general population is increasing? Or just increasing education and diagnosis
This is almost not even up for debate anymore. At this point there is myriad evidence of it being the latter. For example, autism in women was all but ignored until recently, and is still under-diagnosed. Remember Grandma and her lifelong fixation on china saucers or whatever?
Yes, I do remember. That was a latent effect of the great depression mixed with grandma not having to work so that was her hobby. Pretty tired of having a hobby or specific domain knowledge being labeled as "lol autism".
More diagnosis for sure
It is primarily driven by the expansion of the diagnosis itself. DSM-3 Autism (1980) is quite different from DSM-5 Autism (today). Today's autism includes things that used to have totally different names. It also "allows" for a diagnosis much later in life. Autism used to be something very specific and discreet. From another perspective, the diagnosis rate may not be soaring. That is, many more people in the 1980s and 1990s would be autistic by today's new standard.
> Once diagnosed, many children receive Applied Behaviour Analysis (aba)
Shameless plug but to see ABA progress better, I built a site with the Observable Framework[1] that analyzes session data at: https://behavior.today
Thank you