Study links Autism and wealth in the US

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momsparky
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22 Sep 2010, 8:51 am

Chicago Tribune - University of Wisconsin study of Autism and demographics

The part I find most interesting in the article is that this link does not necessarily exist in other countries.



Asp-Z
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22 Sep 2010, 8:53 am

That'd be because, in the US, only people with a lot of money can afford to get a diagnosis.



momsparky
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22 Sep 2010, 8:58 am

The article states that they used methodologies to include those who don't have a formal diagnosis, expressly to address that issue (you could argue that this won't account for everyone, I suppose.)

My inclination is that this has more to do with genetics and American culture than other factors: I think we culturally select for genes that may include the gene for Autism.



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22 Sep 2010, 11:07 am

Asp-Z wrote:
That'd be because, in the US, only people with a lot of money can afford to get a diagnosis.


Or people with no money who end up in the right place at the right time.


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Janissy
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22 Sep 2010, 1:06 pm

They gave a possible reason at the end of the article. Money also correlates with having children later, so that you can get your career off the ground. Perhaps the actual correlation is not with wealth but with age of the mother. If they recorded the ages of all the parents in this study they could go back and look at the data from that angle.



Asp-Z
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22 Sep 2010, 1:13 pm

Janissy wrote:
They gave a possible reason at the end of the article. Money also correlates with having children later, so that you can get your career off the ground. Perhaps the actual correlation is not with wealth but with age of the mother. If they recorded the ages of all the parents in this study they could go back and look at the data from that angle.


Not only that, but people are more likely to have children if they're sure they have enough money to support them.



StuartN
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22 Sep 2010, 2:32 pm

There is quite a good article and discussion here http://autistscorner.blogspot.com/2010/ ... thier.html

The original paper is here http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Ad ... ne.0011551

Personally, I am not convinced - "The [ADDM] surveillance program incorporates abstracted data from records of multiple educational and medical sources to determine the number of children who appear to meet the ASD case definition, regardless of pre-existing diagnosis. Clinicians determine whether the ASD case definition is met by reviewing a compiled record of all relevant abstracted data." - I do not see that impartial screening was conducted on all half-a-million children, I see that clinicians made a judgement based on the available health records. To me, that would seem to incorporate any potential source of bias that make affluent people more likely to be diagnosed.

But it is an interesting paper, and certainly an important discussion.



Janissy
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22 Sep 2010, 3:31 pm

StuartN wrote:
There is quite a good article and discussion here http://autistscorner.blogspot.com/2010/ ... thier.html

The original paper is here http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Ad ... ne.0011551

Personally, I am not convinced - "The [ADDM] surveillance program incorporates abstracted data from records of multiple educational and medical sources to determine the number of children who appear to meet the ASD case definition, regardless of pre-existing diagnosis. Clinicians determine whether the ASD case definition is met by reviewing a compiled record of all relevant abstracted data." - I do not see that impartial screening was conducted on all half-a-million children, I see that clinicians made a judgement based on the available health records. To me, that would seem to incorporate any potential source of bias that make affluent people more likely to be diagnosed.

But it is an interesting paper, and certainly an important discussion.


That's a good point. As your linked blogger points out, their attempts to control for better health care access probably got confounded by using school records. Teachers in richer school districts will be less over-burdened and better able to take the kind of behavioral notes that can stand in for a formal diagnosis.



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22 Sep 2010, 4:55 pm

Degenerated aristocracy was a phrase Dr Hans Asperger used in his initial description of the syndrome

In which kinds of children does it occur?

In children of a wide variety of character, and along the entire spectrum of intelligence, from apparently highly able with an originality bordering on genius, to deeply ret*d and severely socially handicapped, mechanical and robot-like. The several hundred cases studied that displayed the condition were all boys though; In girls, social handicaps were seen that resembled some of the symptoms of Autistischen Psychopathen, but not the full condition, and in some of those girls these symptoms apparently resulted from early encephalitis rather than being congenital. However, Hans Asperger noted that the mothers of the boys in several cases did display the condition. In lack of an explanation, this led Asperger to speculate that either the condition is rarer in girls than in boys, or perhaps in females is expressed only after puberty.

He further calls it "an extreme variant of the male character", reasoning that girls and women tend to be better at concrete, illustrative, practical, and instinctive matters, while boys and men are better at logic, abstraction, and accurate thinking and formulating.

In all of the cases where it was possible to verify this, the child's symptoms could be recognized in relatives. Noteworthy is that the fathers, even if from modest background, often had intellectual professions or, if they had not, appeared to have missed their vocation. In many cases there had been several generations of intellectuals in the families. Often the children came from families of prominent scientists or artists, of whom apparently mainly the whims, the deviance, had remained. These facts speak with certainty for the heredity of the condition, and for the persistence and uniformity with which the traits express themselves throughout generations.

The children were predominantly only child. Asperger says this is a result of the generally autistic character of one or both of the parents, which tends to lead them to desire no more than one child. Also, in marriages of autistic persons, the inevitable problems and tension are such that there is no room for a larger number of children.
Comment

Nowadays girls do receive the diagnosis of Asperger's Disorder, although still several times less frequently as do boys. This increased prevalence of girls may be related to the current diagnostic criteria, which cover only part of the symptoms observed by Asperger, and are therefore less restrictive and allow for more and lighter cases to be diagnosed, including many girls. When reading Asperger's article, one can not escape the impression that the children he considered to have the condition would be the more severe cases within the group that now has the diagnosis of Asperger's Disorder.

Nevertheless it also is plausible that this condition is in actuality increasing in both sexes in populations of technological societies, as an evolutionary adaptation to the requirements such a society puts on its citizens in terms of coping with complex technology. A possible increase is apparently seen in areas with much technological industry, and some think this is because the people who live and work there are often technology-oriented intellectuals like computer scientists and programmers, who are more likely to get Aspergoid or autistic children. This is currently a theory, but given the advantage such personality types have in dealing with technology, the strong heredity of the condition, the relation with intellectuals in the family observed by Asperger, and the importance of technology and necessity to deal with it in modern society, it makes sense that with every generation there would be more individuals like this, intellect-oriented rather than instinct-driven. That is, as long as a good number of them achieve sufficient adaptation to succeed in breeding.

One should note well that the condition as understood by Hans Asperger was not limited to those of normal or higher intelligence, contrary to the current concept of Asperger Syndrome. There is no mention of it occurring more often on one side of the intelligence spectrum than on the other. Although there is the connection with intellectuals in the family history, the sufferers of the condition themselves were not as a rule highly intelligent, again contrary to the current popular image of Asperger Syndrome.
Does the condition differ, depending on character or intelligence of the child?

Hans Asperger emphasizes repeatedly that the symptoms are remarkably constant across the spectra of intelligence and character, that the condition is unmistakably uniform. However, the children themselves, their problems, and their life prospects vary greatly, depending on intelligence and character.



Janissy
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22 Sep 2010, 5:31 pm

Surfman wrote:
Nevertheless it also is plausible that this condition is in actuality increasing in both sexes in populations of technological societies, as an evolutionary adaptation to the requirements such a society puts on its citizens in terms of coping with complex technology. .


The evolutionary adaption argument gets brought up a lot. However, evolutionary adaptions take more than just a few generations to happen. It is downright Lamarkian to say that Asperger's Syndrome is an evolutionary adaption this quickly. But assortative mating can explain it genetically and without having to resort to Lamark-style warp speed intentional evolution.



hyperlexian
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22 Sep 2010, 5:57 pm

i recall reading that the age of the father, in addition to the age of the mother, correlates with increased cases of autism. when i think about it, it does make me wonder if a great deal of the parents may in fact have AS... i wonder if AS people are more likely to marry and have children later in life? so that the increased risk of autism is not caused by age, but rather caused by one or both parents possibly having AS.

just some random speculation. i don't even know if having AS leads to higher risks of children with autism.


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momsparky
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22 Sep 2010, 6:00 pm

Janissy wrote:
Surfman wrote:
Nevertheless it also is plausible that this condition is in actuality increasing in both sexes in populations of technological societies, as an evolutionary adaptation to the requirements such a society puts on its citizens in terms of coping with complex technology. .


The evolutionary adaption argument gets brought up a lot. However, evolutionary adaptions take more than just a few generations to happen. It is downright Lamarkian to say that Asperger's Syndrome is an evolutionary adaption this quickly. But assortative mating can explain it genetically and without having to resort to Lamark-style warp speed intentional evolution.


Um...crimeny, I'm feeling awfully neurotypical at the moment...but if I follow you, that's kind of what I said?