“Probably”? Can someone point me in the direction of something slightly more conclusive? Cuz it could be that… but I could totally also believe that it’s chemicals and shit in our food and environment.
I remember having a discussion woth someone many years ago who vehemently insisted that mental illness didn’t exist until the late 1900s and that nobody were mentally ill nor dealing with disorders before psychology was invented. His conclusion was that mental illness and disorders were made up by psychologists to make money off of people.
Some levels of stupid are so severe that you just can’t do anything but sit and stare in disbelief after awhile.
Did he not ever read about the Romans or any other country with a monarchy
People still believe that long debunked “study” Wakefield did? it’s because autism is more recognised now. my mom recently got diagnosed and she’s in her 50s
Do we know if autism is genetic? Otherwise the question is not entirely wrong. There could be a cultural influence that we should figure out.
Autism is almost certainly genetic. It’s prevalent at such a young age, seen in similar proportions across many different social groups and nations.
Whether autism is genetic is not related to the question at all. More people are diagnosed with autism because we have better tests now than before and we test more kids.
And finally we also broadened what is considered autism.
I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the factors is ‘we stopped beating kids’. Back in ye olden days, they’d hit kids until they stopped being ‘weird’. You obviously can’t do that today.
The Science Vs. podcast just did an episode on this.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2eKgmLJZrEKTbVzCVYzp0u
Spoiler: It’s exactly as the meme describes. Autism rates are rising not because more people are becoming autistic, but because we’ve expanded the definition and improved how we recognize and diagnose it.
improved how we recognize and diagnose it.
Well, we at least have changed how we recognize and diagnose it, I’m not totally convinced it’s 100% an “improvement”. We’ve kind of jumbled up a whole bunch of people under a common umbrella and diluted the implications of the term, to the point where it tells you negligible practical information when someone is described as “autistic” or “on the spectrum”.
Yeah, that’s a totally fair concern and is one of the points the episode addresses. Researchers acknowledged that the definition has broadened, but they also emphasized that it reflects a better understanding of autism as a spectrum. It does make the label less specific, but it’s also helped a lot of people. Especially women and people of color. It helped them get more accurate diagnoses instead of being misdiagnosed or ignored.
Overall, it’s a stat worth celebrating as it means more people are getting the support they needed all along.
I hope that’s the net result, just afraid that so many others will be dismissive of someone asserting autism, particularly with certain folks seeming to think being autistic is a license to be inconsiderate while claiming it also means you are smart and so is worth declaring a self-diagnosis.
There are a few dirks like Elon Musk and Richard Dawkins but I don’t think the average person is aware enough of these people to really care
hey guys! If we stop testing for covid, the number of covid cases will go down!
slowbro.pcx
Telescopes cause autism, got it.
No no, you’ve got it the wrong way round: autism causes telescopes
You’re right. First I was autistic, THEN I got a telescope. Evostar 90mm refractor, thank you for asking.
I thought it was the planets that were making autism.
Autism telescopes causes, got it.
No, no no, it should be; causes autism telescopes.
Radio telescopes are notorious for that because they’re on the far end of the spectrum.
They’re literally a tool designed for hyper fixating.
As they say take my upvote and GTFO.
So…what I’m getting is
we need to make space illegal?
Quad City DJ’s are in danger
Please don’t give ‘em ideas…
This has the same vibe as
I wonder what happened in the 1890s to scare that many left-handed people back into hiding…
My late 70’s experience probably didn’t help. My first grade teacher tied my left hand to the desk. The next year they stopped doing that. I later found out the school district lost a long ongoing lawsuit and it hit them where they kept their heart. In the wallet.
My grandmother had her left hand tied to her high chair or behind her back by her mother before she even went to school. People are fucked up.
I’ve heard the stories. Thing is some of the most creative people I’ve ever met were left handed.
Ain’t that what they say? That creative people are left-handed? 😁
Corporal punishment
That’s the general thing yeah, but I’m pretty sure that they were already doing that BEFORE the dip…
Probably the same reason there’s so much more breast cancer since the invention of the mammography machine.
Sick burn.
Wasn’t Pluto “discovered” around the time autism was first “diagnosed”?
Aha! So it was Pluto causing autism and the push to reclass it as a dwarf planet was an attempt to reduce its power!
This is so on point it kinda hurts.
Why are people so fucking dumb?
somebody get that graph of left handed people
Have you thought maybe there was just some errant cheese on the stench coil?
