That's a meme, not based in reality or scientific data.

If that was true, then 70 year olds would have the same increase in autism diagnosis, but they have not.

Nonverbal autism has increased significantly, by at least one order of magnitude. There is no way anyone could have missed that.

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kadoban 8 months ago | parent | next [-]

~Nobody is diagnosing 70 year olds. Children get looked at _far_ more than anyone else, anyone older that would have been diagnosed has learned to cope, died or been written off by society in one way or another.

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o11c 8 months ago | parent | next [-]

And let's not underestimate the influence of "died" on statistics. People with autism tend to die either before age 40 or before age 60 (it is strongly bimodal, depending on comorbidities).

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voidspark 8 months ago | parent | prev [-]

I am talking about severe cases where they need full time care for their entire life. Nonverbal. Obvious. Impossible to miss.

Autism ranges from mild to extremely severe.

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saxonww 8 months ago | parent [-]

I think the answer to your question is that most people impacted to the severe degree you're imagining don't live till 70.

I don't know what the condition was, but I had an aunt who was affected by 'something' and was disabled in many of the same ways you imagine; she was nonverbal and needed full time care from a young age. She lived to 43, and towards the end they had to put in a feeding tube for her.

I have a couple of questions for you:

1. Have you ever personally seen a 'severe case' of autism where someone needs full time care for their entire life? Where are you getting your information about the degree and prevalence of this?

2. Putting "cases are clearly on the rise" alongside "where are the 70 year old severely autistic people" implies that you (via RFK Jr.) think that the number of severe cases is on the rise, not just that more people are being diagnosed with some level of autism. Do you know severe cases are on the rise, or are you (or RFK Jr.) just making some assumptions?

The reason I ask #2 is that the 'severe autism' we're imagining in this narrative would be, as you point out, obvious. But what if our understanding of symptoms has gotten better, and we're diagnosing more not-obvious cases, i.e. not severe cases.

Please keep in mind that the first person officially diagnosed with autism only died a couple of years ago. Donald Triplett. He lived to be 89, by the way.

	▲	voidspark 8 months ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Have you ever personally seen a 'severe case' of autism where someone needs full time care for their entire life? Yes I have seen it in person. Search on YouTube to see what "profound autism" looks like. https://youtu.be/9Wx5cdjJ0Cg?t=1435
	▲	8 months ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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8 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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viraptor 8 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Post those statistics then, that account for all the changes in the criteria, tested population, extended reach/understanding, starting to include women, and still show the 100x increase. If couldn't be missed, someone showed that with proper data, right?