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autism and race - how common is it across the different groups out there

Iain

I mentioned here a few weeks ago that I was interested in finding more about the origins of autism as it seems to have a strong genetic component and I wondered if cultures which were more genetically isolated would have different levels of autism.

Well the bad news is that I couldn't find much data at all - the info on the communities I though would be most useful is not available or in a language that is too challenging to translate with accuracy.

The most interesting research info I came across was US based and talked about the differences between ethnic groups for diagnosis.

https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/addm-community-report/spotlight-on-racial-ethnic-differences.html

This is a 2018 US report but is well written and quite accessable to read.

Note that the CDC has an alert at the top of the page that Trump is making them change the website so they don't know if the article will remain available.

The key points were a little surprising with whites being the least affected:

For the first time, the ADDM Network data found the percentage of 8-year-old children identified with ASD was higher among Black, Hispanic, and Asian or Pacific Islander (A/PI) children compared with White children.
Black - 2.93%
Hispanic - 3.16%
Asian - 3.34%
White - 2.43%

This is a surprise for me as the vast majority I have come in contact with have been white, certainly far more proportionally than their level of representation in the community.

There could be a lot of factors involved here - maybe my social circles are more exclusive than I though, maybe they have different views on sharing their diagnosis or maybe the higher rates of diagnosis are really only for youngsters who I don't really mix with much outside of my charity work.

Anyway, I just wanted to share the info here in case any were interested. I don't think there are any conclusions to be drawn from it but it does illustrate the genes seem present across all main cultural groups.

Parents

  • Interesting. The OU course I did on autism showed lower rates of diagnosis in many countries outside the UK and US - it was theorized that maybe this was partly due to cultural differences, for example in some cultures lack of eye contact is seen as respectful. 

  • in reply to Lotus

    I think it’s also due to differences in quality of the system in many countries. In Poland where I grew up people still often don’t believe depression exists. I heard “are you depressed? Go clean the kitchen it will help you, stop creating your problems” cleaning kitchen indeed helped a bit but having my problems ignored and being gaslit only made it worse. In my country even currently if you are not insane, running in streets and being danger to others, they will not help you. An appointment to a psychologist covered by insurance takes around a year wait. Just a consultation. I heard from a “therapist” that not having friends is not a problem at all and the whole time of our conversation she behaved like she had to listen to my nonsense and wasn’t really interested in what I wanted to say. She was polish. This is the quality of mental health professionals in my country and I know of even worse cases. For sure there are good ones too but I wasn’t lucky to meet one. Here in Germany my experience is better so far. 

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  • in reply to Lotus

    I think it’s also due to differences in quality of the system in many countries. In Poland where I grew up people still often don’t believe depression exists. I heard “are you depressed? Go clean the kitchen it will help you, stop creating your problems” cleaning kitchen indeed helped a bit but having my problems ignored and being gaslit only made it worse. In my country even currently if you are not insane, running in streets and being danger to others, they will not help you. An appointment to a psychologist covered by insurance takes around a year wait. Just a consultation. I heard from a “therapist” that not having friends is not a problem at all and the whole time of our conversation she behaved like she had to listen to my nonsense and wasn’t really interested in what I wanted to say. She was polish. This is the quality of mental health professionals in my country and I know of even worse cases. For sure there are good ones too but I wasn’t lucky to meet one. Here in Germany my experience is better so far. 

Children
  • in reply to Alien0n3arth
    Alien0n3arth said:
    I heard from a “therapist” that not having friends is not a problem at all

    Just going off of this, pain is an "illusion". However, it is a very useful illusion and we still very much feel it. Likewise, we can feel psychological (social/emotional) pain just as we can feel physical pain. Loneliness is just as bad for you as smoking is, and smoking is very bad for you.

    I know that's probably not what people want to hear because loneliness I think is something that affects many of us, but it's just something that sprang to mind.