I for one am very pleased that this search for a cause has ended.

There is no link, the environment does not cause modern day Autism.

The DSM4 has a lot to answer for the creep of autism overdiagnosis.

The reason why there are so many, far too many, people, diagnosed with autism, is because over the last 10-20 years, the spectrum has been expanded so much that an introvert could get a diagnosis of autism.

Look at me! The classic introvert, meets the requirements of autistic diagnosis.

My myers Briggs = INFJ. yes, that 1-2% of the population

well well. And I am a retired psychotherapist too.

How on earth did I manage 25 years practicing as a psychotherapist, when my life was overwhelemed by autistic traits. At the time, I thought I was just a simple introvert.

So I could in fact get a diagnosis tomorrow and claim I am autistic.

How wonderful is that?

I could become a member of the ever increasing population of autistic people.

I remember back in the 80-90's every autistic person I ever met, and there weren't that many, were non verbal.

Now we have likes of Lone skum masquerading as an autistic person who in my professional opinion is simple a narcissist.

Narcissism and autism on the same diagnoses, what ever next.

I count ADHD as part of this ever growing trend of overdiagnosis.

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add-sub-mul-div a day ago | parent | next [-]

I don't understand this rant. You acknowledge the spectrum has been expanded but then contradict yourself or display a serious lack of understanding by saying that a diagnosis implies being "overwhelemed by autistic traits". A level 1 diagnosis is defined as not being overwhelmed the way a level 3 would be.

I'm diagnosed as level 1 and I assure you it's something different than introversion. Not that it's necessarily a stronger thing. I didn't even get diagnosed until recently because my life has always been so functional that there was no reason for me to think I needed to be tested. The way I hear serious introverts talk sometimes, I'm glad that I have my traits and not theirs.

I have never been able to understand what it is about autism as a topic that drives people mad.

	▲	Moomoomoo309 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I have a similar opinion to the person you're replying to, and here's why: The spectrum is not particularly useful to anyone outside of the medical community. If you say "I have autism", that tells the other person very little. That could mean a vast array of things, it is so poorly descriptive of what that actually means for you that it's hardly even useful at all. I think the spectrum in and of itself isn't a problem, the problem is that there aren't more names for it. Clump common clusters of symptoms together and make a name for that specific clump, for example, and call it Foo Disorder, and now people can actually understand what that means. By expanding the umbrella so wide, it has made the disease confusing. If there were more specific things you could point to, it would be much easier to grok.

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jaggs a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Maybe return here when you have in fact been diagnosed as autistic, and you'll have proved your point? Right now it's just a lot of supposition?