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Is Autism Spectrum Disorder overdiagnosed?

April 11, 2014 by SharpBrains

Autism illustration1 in 68 Chil­dren Now Has a Diag­no­sis of Autism Spec­trum Dis­or­der. Why? (The Atlantic):

“The stag­ger­ing increase in cas­es of ASD should raise more sus­pi­cion in the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty about its mis­di­ag­no­sis and over­diag­no­sis than it does. The sci­ence stacks up in favor of catch­ing and treat­ing ASD ear­li­er because it leads to bet­ter outcomes…What gets lost in the debate is an aware­ness of how the younger in age we assess for prob­lems, the greater the poten­tial a slow-to-mature kid will be giv­en a false diag­no­sis. A 2007 study out of the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na at Chapel Hill found that over 30 per­cent of chil­dren diag­nosed as autis­tic at age two no longer fit the diag­no­sis at age four…The lat­est data exam­in­ing pedi­a­tri­cians who have launched them­selves into prac­tice reveals that 62 per­cent of them feel that men­tal health issues were not ade­quate­ly cov­ered in med­ical school. These fig­ures hard­ly inspire wide­spread con­fi­dence as regards rely­ing on pedi­a­tri­cians to accu­rate­ly diag­nose ASD…Early screen­ing and treat­ment for ASD must remain a top pub­lic health pri­or­i­ty, but the num­bers make it clear that pro­fes­sion­als would ben­e­fit from famil­iar­iz­ing and re-famil­iar­iz­ing them­selves with the broad range of what is con­sid­ered nor­mal ear­ly child­hood devel­op­ment, and with how young boys and girls dif­fer in behav­iors that resem­ble autis­tic phe­nom­e­na. Oth­er­wise expect the ASD num­bers will rise, yet again, with a pool of slow-to-mature chil­dren being false­ly diagnosed.”

Relat­ed articles:

  • Inside the Mind of a Child With Autism (NYT)
  • Will EEG Data Analy­sis Help Diag­nose Autism?

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: autism, autism spectrum disorder, diagnosis, Mental-Health, public-health

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