Is the rise of autism diagnostics a sign our society is getting unsane?

rise in diagnosis is due to the rise in awareness and in the internet.

when i was in school computers were just coming out, internet wasnt normal, so spread of information wasnt there and no one had awareness of anything. nothing got diagnosed, no one knew anything.... my parents generation have a huge lack of knowledge on all sorts due to no internet in their day, they dont know what autism is, they heard of it one time and they think its when your kid smears poo on the wall....

I am quite the opposite to what you describe (see my recent thread titled 'irrational fears').

I am autistic, quite irrational, almost always random in my responses. People are always taken back by how unique my ideas are, I've built a creative career from this thinking.

I find your post to be ignorant (I'm sure you aren't being conducending or callous at all) it's just how it feels to me to read.

Given the spectrum to be like a galaxy in my mind, and not a linear chart, we are all many flavours of ice cream from one day to the next. Willy Wonka couldn't make a candy that tastes like us because we would just go cameleon and invent a new flavour.

AI won't keep up with us I know it

I had a similar crazy encounter last month; it felt like I was on a Formula 1 race track.

I agree.  It's really positive to see this volume of differing views expressed without a descent into nastiness.

I think there is alot to learn on this thread. It would have been easy to attack your comments, but everyone has really been very understanding.  I've seen how language can be miscommunicated on the internet and how nasty people can also be.

I work with an individual.  He thinks he own's his own house and is perfectly fine.

The truth is, he is autistic and has other problems.  He also came from a mental health unit and doesn't in fact own the house. He needs support. So what someone may think, isn't nessessarily the cold hard truth.

I do not think in terms of us and them, my view of the spectrum includes the entire humanity. I lack this black and white view of the world. For instance my boss is blind to non-verbal language, facial expression and tone voice, is hypo sensitive (no smell for instance) and has difficulty in understanding feelings at large. She is however not considered by society nor by herself as autistic. This orientation has NOT brought to her heavy life troubles so far. As for my son his sensory perception is more extreme: hyper visual auditory taste and smell and hypo in proprioception and vestibular. He is struggling a lot with recognizing and dealing with own emotions. So I guess my question was more what ASD diagnosis brings to you and this you have answered very clearly! Thank you and please forgive me if I have offended you that was really not my intention. I should improve my social skills ;) 

My sincere apology, I by no means want to minimise your struggle.

You don’t appear to be imagining it very well at all, and you are most definitely minimising and belittling it. I haven’t fully explained in my above comments how it impacts my life, not even brushed the surface. I find your reply offending if I’m honest and have wondered how to word this since I first saw your comment. Do you honestly think autism is just being able to think logically and rationally? Do you really think that if it were the other way around, and those that couldn’t think rationally or logically were labelled instead and I was the ‘norm’  that it would suddenly make my life easier because I didn’t have a name for it? I don’t understand the points you are trying to make at all, other than seemingly trying to disregard peoples struggles and imply that everyone feels like that now and again. It is NOTHING like that. 

Annie

,As an "edgy" as you can put me I question the other side, what wrong with neurotipicals?, which is also a spectrum I find. Shall we send to therapy people who are not able to use logic by the age of 3? Not able to think rationally by x? Sorry I am provocative but I do not admit that the problem lies only on on one side'. 

Your words above.

You are talking to a community of many of whom have struggled their whole lives to achieve the things they wanted to and have now achieved a diagnosis which puts this struggle into context.

I personally had a mother who spent her whole life with undiagnosed mental illness (more than autism) and that deeply impacted her life and caused deep suffering for my father, myself and sisters.

I have to ask you a couple of questions as I still find you difficult to understand:

1.  Your son has been diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

Do you believe that is a correct diagnosis, ie that ASD exists, and what is it about his symptoms that makes you believe this?

2.  You are addessing some of the higher functioning people in society with this diagnosis.

Do you believe that is a correct diagnosis, understanding it is a spectrum, and if not, which appears to be the case, what is it about our symptoms that makes you believe this?

This is the diagnostic triage of impairments (which I am sure you must know, or you wouldn't be on here telling us what you think about us).

I can imagine your struggle, we all have at some point when society evolves in a direction that pushes us out but I do not want to minimise your struggle with that. As an "edgy" as you can put me I question the other side, what wrong with neurotipicals?, which is also a spectrum I find. Shall we send to therapy people who are not able to use logic by the age of 3? Not able to think rationally by x? Sorry I am provocative but I do not admit that the problem lies only on on one side. 

No I do not consider our society sane at all and it worries me.

That's the book which inspired me the title indeed ;)

I am indeed noting that society is becoming less well adapted to difference and was wondering wether you also see it this way and yes spectrum feels normal to me as you explain. As you point out where would we be without this "nerdy" way of thinking? Nerdy is another label that worries me. I still prefer "sensitive and rational", that's how I see it.  

To Add: Erich Fromm's Sane Society is also a good read.

My short answer is yes. From enough research one can see is the problem exactly. There were a few philosophers who saw it coming as well. America is colonising the west and pushing east. It sounds odd, but it seems this free-for-all of a nation has taken the psychoanalytical term of the "Neurotic Paranoiac" to a new extreme. (Lacan had stated "We're all a little Neurotic" long before the phrase we're all a little autistic came to exist.)

Anti-Oedipus (Capitalism and Schizophrenia) is a great exploration on how this happens in Capitalism without limits. It's a rather large book. As a politics of economy, the limits of capitalism are always shifting, and in a response, society becomes homogenised and more closed in how it thinks and perceives, and what it expects.

I might suggest we call the Autistic-Analytic 'wiring' a specific distinction from the Neurotic-Paranoiac (this technically means something different than what it appears). The Neurotic being a frame of thinking which keeps the tribe together and the Autistic keeps the tribe from killing itself or allowing the sociopath to do so. What's key is a type of drive, whether one is public about it or not. How far will you go to keep community? Will you be the only one to not drink the poison? The biology of the two differences are quite interesting with a little thought. Not on a surface level but in very instinctual ways. A more analytic reasoning will require a lack of attachment to value judgement. But in order to keep a collective cohesive, language needs to be fluid enough to keep up appearances. It seems an interesting twist that evolution afforded this autistic brain an ability to stay plastic with it's ability to calculate sense perception, while the other is more malleable with language and can filter out unwanted sensations. These two should work together. But in a free-for-all individualised society, a sociopath can end up "Trumping" everyone. And so behaviour becomes a matter of morality - a reflection of the subconscious rather than a differing of strengths and limits. 

A Field Guide for Earthlings also gives a practical explanation of what's currently happening. But the other I mentioned really explains in detail how we got here. 

I've hacked my environment so it's not a nightmare; fewer LEDs, less 'stuff' in general, we cook a lot and have to mind allergies, human friendly sensory (natural fibres & products - watch out for 'sustainable' which is a facade). I've noticed some in our family mature much slower in various ways. My son is quite wise but behind peers in other things. He'll get there like I did, but I'll simply make sure he has help and isn't left compromised like my parents left me. 

Annie, I'm guessing that English isn't your native language and I'm afraid that some of the errors in your writing has caused a wee bit of confusion - and consternation to some extent.  I only mention this in case you are wondering "what the hell have I said to cause such a flurry of responses." Do you have a number of languages at your disposal?

Some of those "small quirk" people will be autistic. Some aren't but have some significant traits. They aren't the graceful the Swans they seem on the surface. Their little legs are powering 50 to the dozen against a neurotypical tide, they do not understand.

Yes, society once tolerated "little quirks", let us find our own niche where it suited us. The IT driven, social media age leaves no room for this being different business.

I'm sort of bemused by your post. I'm not sure whether you are saying: 'We're all a bit autistic. Never mind', or whether you are legitimately noting that society is becoming less well adapted to difference (felt that in the bank the other day, lol).

Might not be our place to say and I might be bang out of order here, but you do astrophysics right? Engineering and science is where some "nerds" aka undiagnosed autistic people do oft gather - odd little quirks and all and are reasonably well treated and tolerated 'cos everyone is like that in those environments. Attwood did call the world's universities "Aspie day care centres". 

And errr, statistically engineer/scientist is a common profession for parent of quirky, autie kid...hmmm, is it vaguely possible that you and your quirky colleagues are on or edging toward the Spectrum too and therefore it''s all a bit "perfectly normal" to you all? Might be speaking out of turn here, but err worth thinking about. If so, not a bad thing, is it? Where would we be without our nerdy scientists, astronomers and engineers? Still trying to figure out how to make fire by rubbing sticks together, no doubt.

No idea what you mean lol you didn't really answer the question?

This is how this site describes it.

'Autism is a lifelong developmental disability which affects how people communicate and interact with the world'.

It is variously described as a 'condition', a 'disability' and a 'disorder'.

It is of course a spectrum which is why you see such variance within it.

I did not so far considered autism as a health condition but I am learning for you and that was the purpose of my question. Thank you for helpng me understand it.