Autism-World

Q: I believe drug companies and doctors are in with each other for financial gains with these aggressive diagnosis.we had the same media blitz scaring everyone into believing they had asthma 10 years ago .there are obviously children suffering with this terrible disease but not to the numbers were led to believe.

Answer:

I don’t agree, at least not with autism. There’s very few children that are autistic and on drugs, so it wouldn’t hold up that drug companies are behind it.

Now, there is a thing called co-morbidity, which is, it’s very common for kids to have multi issues going on, so a child with autism can also be adhd, and that would SOMETIMES require meds, but not always. But just autism on it’s own, the reason why the numbers are so high is because they’re realizing more and more that there are variances between a child who is extremely mild and one who is really affected by it.

So, a few years ago it was only diagnosed if it was severe, and now they’re realizing that kids can be mild, like my child. But autism is very easy to diagnose, using the criteria they use. It’s not like ADHD where if a child is hyper they’re slapped with a diagnosis, that one is REALLY overdiagnosed. There are a lot of insurance companies that won’t even cover a child who receives a diagnosis of autism, so I don’t see it related to money in that regards, either.

To be honest, I believe the numbers are lower than they say. There are a lot of parents who choose not to receive an official diagnosis, for many reasons, so those children aren’t included in the 1 in 166 figures. And, in girls in particular it is very common for it to go undiagnosed, because girls typically are much more mild when they have autism.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 10:48 am and is filed under Ask and answer, Autism Diagnosis.