I am so excited that we have this way to communicate. I want to share with you something that concerns me a lot. I am very concerned about the rising number of children diagnosed with autism. The figure used to be 1 in 2500 children. It has grown to 1 in 150!!! Yesterday, I read an article that said in New Jersey that number was 1 in 94. There was no reason given for the even bigger increase in New Jersey.
Last week I did a talk for a group, and I asked the group, all teachers, how many of them have now or have had children with autism in their rooms. Almost every hand went up. I am curious about your experience with both autism and asperger's syndrome.
Are you seeing the numbers increase? What do you think is the reason?
Looking forward to reading your comments.
Maryln
Monday, July 21, 2008
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12 comments:
Very interesting question. I look forward to reading responses.
Congratulations on this Blog Maryln!! So happy to be a here and have an avenue!! I am an in home child care provider and yes, we are seeing more children with this challenge. Again congrats and thank you!!!! J
Congrats on the blog Maryln! When you speak of autism, are you including any child who is within the range of PDD?
I used to teach high school and have ventured over the last 2 years into preschool and am enjoying it greatly! Loved seeing April in Louisville last spring!
Congratulations on the blog, Marlyn! This will be a fun way to share views and opinions. I'm looking forwarding to hearing comments on the autism questions. As you know, for years they have tried to blame autism on vaccines. I heard someone say that the new 'combinations' of vaccines may be responsible for the increase in cases. Sounds plausible to me.
Quite a bit happening in the Autism community over comments made by a national radio host.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,387662,00.html
I am still learning how to respond to you all. Yes, you can include all students with PDD. That will make it even more interesting. Thank you also for your comment about hearing one of our Appelbaum speakers, April. That was neat. It's always so neat to hear that our speakers make a difference. Our goal is to always not only impart information but to inspire, motivate, and to make the day of learning fun!
I also heard about the news commentator who made those remarks about children with autism! Thank you for giving the link to others to read. I absolutely do not agree! I personally was appalled. It makes me even more determined that we need a voice for children, for parents, for teachers! You can help be that voice of truth. And I will do my best to stand up for children and for all of you. You are difference makers, and we need the world to know that!
Maryln
Congrats on your blog! I think that autism diagnosis is the new "ADHD" diagnosis. In my opinion, it's being overdiagnosed just like ADHD was/is.
Congratulations Maryln! This is fabulous!
I must comment on the autism topic. Our problem is much larger than 1 in 150 children with autism. In fact, 1 in 6 children born after the year 2000 has SOME TYPE of developmental disorder (including, autism, ADD/ADHD, asthma, allergies, speech delay, etc). This generation is now predicted to die BEFORE their own parents! That is how unhealthy our current generation of children are becoming. We can blame vaccines, over-use of antibiotics/medicines, poor food quality (including gentically modified foods, over-processed foods, fast-food), environmental toxins, water and air pollution, electric and magnetic feild pollution, etc, etc, etc).
I have 2 boys (ages 2 & 3) and have spent the last year exhaustively researching this topic. This is an epidemic that affects ALL OF US!
I think that much of the problem is that we have indeed gone too far to grow food faster and bigger from cattle to corn, etc. We have not examined all the possible side effects and these high cases may indeed be in part caused by these. It is sad to see so many awesome young minds being affected by our need to experiment with mother nature.
I agree that if communities pulled together to take care of the environment we would see less health risks. The fact of the matter is that we are living in a flesh material world. What people need is God. I don't know why all these bad things happen to people but I DO know one truth. God is always with us. He is a good God. He will NEVER leave us nor forsake us. If everybody would strive to grow their relationship with the one powerful enough to change things life would certainly be a lot different wouldn't it.
I do see earlier diagnosis and interventions ( 16-24 months). It is good to get help/services faster, but is the "autism spectrum" becoming so vast that over-diagnosis is inevitable for challenging children? Just a thought....
I just first want to say I do not in any way shape or form agree with the news commentator that made the comments about Autism as I think Autism is a very real problem. I do think he was confused more thinking about ADD or ADHD than Autism. I really think there are some cases of ADD and ADHD but I do think they are over diagnosed and gives poor parenting cases an excuse to be poor parents many times.
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