One of the Aspects of Autism Most Interesting to Me

I first became interested in autism many years ago due to a child that I knew. I suspected his autism was more environmental – as in his family life – than typical, as it came on much later than is typical and there were circumstances… his parents became crackheads and the children were locked in a bedroom for hours upon hours while the parents and others were sitting around in the living room smoking crack. I knew the child before and after, as well as one can know a child that one sees regularly out and about in the neighborhood. I was stunned when, after a period of not seeing the child, I ran into the father – after he stopped smoking crack daily – and the child, who was suddenly displaying hardcore, classic autism symptoms. Autism is what the father said to we as we were in the checkout line… but right then, I started to wonder.

The shocking, stunning, absolutely amazing increase in autism during the past two decades is one of the most interesting aspects of autism for me. The Mercury News reported today:

“The disorder has increased more than 600 percent in recent years, now affecting about one in every 150 children. It is the fastest growing serious developmental disability in the United States.”

While certainly, a fair proportion of that increase can be attributed to the broadening of the diagnosis to include symptoms beyond the classic autism, i.e., autism spectrum disorders, it seems to me that there must be something else going on here. And, what that something is or those somethings are interests greatly, as I’m sure it does many other people. There are many theories and much conflict concerning the cause or causes of autism, and many factors at play.

The history of autism and the statistics of its occurrence in the population make for interesting reading. I find it quite interesting that we see families, like this one, with 6 children diagnosed, and this one, with 5 children diagnosed with varying degrees of autism. The word epidemic is starting to be used more commonly in mainstream media to describe the increasing rate of autism. And, it seems to me, with good reason.