Autism Epidemic: Article Analysis

In the article, "Three Reasons Not to Believe in an Autism Epidemic," the authors developed three arguments against the belief of autism as an epidemic. Furthermore, the authors assert that the causes of the increase of autism is affected by raised public awareness of the condition of autism, broadened diagnostic criteria, and improved case finding of individuals with autism. Beginning in 1940, there were only three known symptoms for autism. In 1980, there were six mandatory standards an individual had to meet in order to be diagnosed with autism. Then, in 1994, the provisions were broadened to sixteen optional criteria, eight of which had to be met for an individual to be diagnosed, but what was not mentioned was that before 1940, there was no record of diagnoses of autism.
This gave the public the impression that autism was a newly discovered mental illness; this assumption was supported by the dramatic growth in the statistical data, which was employed to describe the increase of autism since the 1940's.
Because of a better understanding of the intricacies of the human mind, in more recent years, more individuals have been accurately identified as autistic. The purported rise the in numbers of individuals diagnosed with autism was of major concern to the authors; many people did not understand the implications of the broadened criteria. So, this lead the public to believe that there was an ‘outbreak' in the population of individuals with autism. Also, due to increased public awareness, the Department of Developmental Services began to make school districts responsible for classifying individuals with autism, and setting up special programs to cater to the needs of these children. Yet, even with this implementation of the IDEA, there were problems with the way that each state carried out this law because each state, school district, and school system
vary.
Essentially, all of these things have increased public awareness of autism, but have given the public misleading facts as to the reasons of the tremendous increase in the autism population. Although the autism epidemic has raised public awareness about autism, it also carries negative connotations for the individuals with this condition. When I think of epidemic, I think of life-threatening disease that is contagious and can be passed on to me, but that is far from the truth. Yet, when the public hears epidemic, they become alarmed for themselves as well as their children that may have autism. Also, the idea of autism as an epidemic labels children as outcasts or unclean. This could have serious effects on children mentally, socially, and cognitively because they have been labeled by society as different and are alienated from society because of this label. Therefore, I think it is good that the public is more aware of autism, but the word epidemic scares people into thinking that it is a fatal disease that anyone can catch. Furthermore, there is no research that supports the autism epidemic. I think more scientific research needs to be done to gain a better understanding of the increase of children with autism. Also, the individuals classifying children with autism should be certified in that particular field, and they must also have criteria that they meet in order to classify children with autism. And though, the criteria for autism has been broadened to identify more cases, there needs to be a stricter criteria as to how these children are being diagnosed, and who are diagnosing these children according to this new criteria. Overall, I think that raising public awareness of autism is a good thing, but it can also lead to children being misdiagnosed, and that could be detrimental to a child.