http://www.thinkingautismguide.com/2018/08/are-co-occurring-conditions-part-of.html
When a medical condition often accompanies another medical condition, this is called "comorbid." Depression and anxiety tend to be comorbid with autism, for example, as I can well attest.
So it's interesting to see a scientific study work on quantifying all these conditions, and trying to find incidence rates. I, like the article's author, found the incidence rates surprisingly low... but considering they're studying children under the age of 10, and only going by DSM criteria, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. Still, it's valuable information, and I'm glad they're making efforts to study it.
The definition of autism is still somewhat debatable. In theory, medical professionals would have solved this a long time ago, but in practicality, decades have gone by and we have no answers. In the meantime, autistic people have grown up, developed opinions, and theorized on our own.
In general, parents tend to categorize "everything abnormal about my child" as autism, and leave it at that, whereas autistic people tend to say, "okay, this stuff is autism, but my depression, my gut problems, and my epilepsy are not."
As a rule, I tend to agree more strongly with the autistic consensus. The article goes into the why of that idea, a bit, and I strongly recommend paying extra attention to that part.
All in all, another excellent piece by Maxfield Sparrow.
When a medical condition often accompanies another medical condition, this is called "comorbid." Depression and anxiety tend to be comorbid with autism, for example, as I can well attest.
So it's interesting to see a scientific study work on quantifying all these conditions, and trying to find incidence rates. I, like the article's author, found the incidence rates surprisingly low... but considering they're studying children under the age of 10, and only going by DSM criteria, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. Still, it's valuable information, and I'm glad they're making efforts to study it.
The definition of autism is still somewhat debatable. In theory, medical professionals would have solved this a long time ago, but in practicality, decades have gone by and we have no answers. In the meantime, autistic people have grown up, developed opinions, and theorized on our own.
In general, parents tend to categorize "everything abnormal about my child" as autism, and leave it at that, whereas autistic people tend to say, "okay, this stuff is autism, but my depression, my gut problems, and my epilepsy are not."
As a rule, I tend to agree more strongly with the autistic consensus. The article goes into the why of that idea, a bit, and I strongly recommend paying extra attention to that part.
All in all, another excellent piece by Maxfield Sparrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment