Showerthought: I used to think autism was super rare until I saw the CDC's 1 in 36 kids stat.

I found that number on the CDC website last month and it completely shifted my view on how common neurodiversity actually is, so has anyone else had a fact like that totally change their understanding?

3 comments

3 Comments

linda6582mo ago

My friend's son got his diagnosis last year at age seven. The school kept saying he was just shy or badly behaved, but his mom knew something was different. Getting that paper was like a light turning on, it explained so much about his struggles. The old number of 1 in 150 from when we were kids meant a lot of people just slipped through the cracks. I see the new stats as us finally starting to see people who were always there.

spencer_moore391mo ago

It's not just kids either. I've met grown men on job sites who clearly have the same wiring but were just called "difficult" or "bad with people" their whole lives. Better spotting means those folks can finally understand themselves too.

jordansmith2mo ago

That number gets thrown around a lot, but it makes you wonder how much of the rise is better diagnosis versus something else. The way they define and look for it has changed so much over the years. Feels like we might be over-medicalizing normal kid behavior sometimes.