Social Class May Influence Autism Diagnosis

Social Class May Influence Autism Diagnosis

Even as autism prevalence has increased, new research finds that the likelihood of getting diagnosed with the developmental disorder remains largely tied to socioeconomics.

Children from lower income neighborhoods are less likely than those from wealthier backgrounds to be diagnosed with autism, according to findings published online this month in the American Journal of Public Health.

The study looked at data on 1.3 million 8-year-olds in 11 states that was collected between 2002 and 2010 through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network.

The article continues:

Researchers cross-referenced this information with data from the U.S. Census Bureau on poverty, median household income and educational attainment, among other factors.

No matter what metric was used, the findings indicated that lower socioeconomic status was consistently tied to a reduced odds for autism. That held true even as prevalence of the developmental disorder more than doubled during the eight-year period studied.

So I wonder what is at the root of that? Economic predation or neglect because of economics?

a reply to: loam

Richer people have better medical Insaurance so can afford to get their child diagnosed with autism. That's the best explanation I have.

a reply to: loam



Probably has something to do with autism being over diagnosed.

This totally stands to reason. One of the pastimes of the idle rich is to pathologize their own children, when those do not live up to the parents' expectations for whatever reason. Rather than give then what we need, we give them diagnoses and drugs. And it doesn't work that well -- except, being labled as different medically, can get you a break or two in life, especially if your parents can afford private education. My kid is in a Steiner school. Thank God[dess].

My two cents worth: being on the spectrum kind of sucks, but not being there sucks even worse in a way.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Probably has something to do with autism being over diagnosed.

Probably. But remember it is a "spectrum". It is normal for some people to be 'not normal'. That is the nature of the human genome, even in the best of circumstances. Our (American) culture has very little tolerance for nonconformity, and no place for oddballs. We have only so many cookie-cutter socioeconomic roles for people to fill. That is our problem, our limitation. All our other so-called "freedoms" are compromised by our own ignorance, lack of education, and dearth of culture. This is why "autism" is a problem -- why it is diagnosed as such, in most cases.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: loam



Probably has something to do with autism being over diagnosed.

I said this in the other thread. Autism, like ADHD is over diagnosed. Autism has become a defacto excuse for a child being weird or socially inept. Upper class parents also tend to be more involved in their children's lives to the point of forcing a diagnoses that doesn't exist. You'll find every upper class parent thinks their child is above average and if they aren't for some reason, they will find a way to diagnose why their child isn't above average.

In some social circles, having your child diagnosed as austistic is almost fashionable.

There are most certainly some kids who don't have all cylinders firing in order and they should be diagnosed properly, but I believe the vast majority are just normal kids doing normal kid sh*t. Unfortunately, that doesn't always lead to your child being considered a genius or being socially popular and a lot of upper class parents can't deal with that reality.

a reply to: ShiveredIce

Richer people have better medical Insaurance so can afford to get their child diagnosed with autism. That's the best explanation I have.

For sure. It can help. Going to school with regular (unkind, aggressive, judgemental) children, without a measure of accomodation and protection from those, can be really damaging. But becoming isolated from those challenges is even more damaging, usually. Otherwise great lives fail to be lived, get wasted in a state of fear and retreat from other people's unpleasant habits and unfaceable challenges. This is the neurotic place that many autistic adults end up in, through no particular choice or fault of their own.

This may come across wrong but maybe it has to do with the fact that if you're poor you have to try harder. You don't have time to sit around wallowing in your mental illness because you have to deal with #. How many poor families have the time to take their kids to get diagnosed and go through the process of different doctors for therapy and such. Especially in America where you have to pay for all those things. How many poor families even havr the time to notice or even deal with the fact their kid's autistic?

Meanwhile, from my personal experience entering and working inside rich peoples home's during the day, there's typically a parent who doesn't work and an autistic overgrown manchild that's never moved out or had a job. Poor people don't have time for that #. There also seems to be this overprotective attitude rich people seem to have for their kids. When I did wildlife work we used to keep a newspaper clipping up on the wall about a group of rich mothers that flipped out on a nature guide because she had their kids touch dirt and plants. When I was a kid we were told to go play in the forest because it was cheaper than doing things.

I'm pretty socially #ed and likely would have been diagnosed with something by some doctor if my parents had really wanted to take me and go through with all that. Personally I just learned to deal with people better and understand how my behaviour affects others and learned how to act reasonably. I'm really glad no one wanted to take me to doctors or anything i'd probably far more #ed up now.

Richer people have better paying insurance and have money to blow on all the therapies they say are necessary. They also tend to believe in the medical specialists more, so they wind up with kids that are considered autistic, some of the kids of the less fortunate people wind up working regular low class or low middle class jobs, they probably do better.

There are varying degrees of autism, many people have autism genes, triggering the genes can result in more pronounced symptoms. Diet can help with the milder autisms, a person can be pretty normal and still be autistic. I would bet that a quarter of our society has some autistic tendencies. Only lately were these people considered abnormal, that used to be the normal. Some people think we are all supposed to be rocket scientists, we do not need to be rocket scientists.

I like interacting with all kinds of people, even autistic people. Those who think they are highly entitled, I try to avoid, it is a catchy disease, they feel that they are better than others. Just because a person is wealthy does not mean they fit into this catagory of super entitled, I see a lot of lower middle class and even poor showing these traits. I had some rich people I have been friends with over the years, not super rich like trump, but wealthy compared to others around here. They were good people, they actually lived a more frugal life than many of the poor, they gained wealth by saving and starting businesses and it took them many years to get rich. They paid their help a decent wage by the standards of local economy and they tried to keep their product affordable while keeping their help employed.

Some autistic people are fun to talk to. As long as they don't believe they are just damaged goods they seem decent. Some have some social tendencies that you have to understand to deal with them, they can't properly express their feelings, so you have to try to adjust the way you communicate when you talk to them. I have been at functions where there are kids that are pretty strongly autistic and the parents seem protective and I do not feel I should start talking to the kids even though I really would like to talk to them. The parents treat them like damaged goods or keep telling everyone that their kid is autistic right away, So it is probably not socially acceptable to talk to them. We have a screwed up society I have to live in.

a reply to: loam

Well, obviously if you can't afford to get properly diagnosed by a psychologist/psychiatrist, you will have lower numbers of diagnoses. That doesn't mean, though, that less 8-year-olds in lower-income economic brackets actually have Autism.

My son is on the spectrum (Asperger's), and we didn't even think to have him tested until he was in between 3rd and 4th grade, and the initial reason for a diagnosis was because we suspected ADHD. He passed (failed?) that test with flying colors--the psychologist said that his attention span was one of the quickest to peter out during the test that she had seen.

It wasn't until months later, while he was undergoing behavioral therapy (he's 14 now and we've refused medication for 99% of his life for ADHD) that I initiated the discussion with my wife about there being "something else" going on. She agreed--we were both thinking the same thing.

So we all did the questionnaires and they came back positive for autism, but under the Asperger Syndrome moniker. He was 8 when all of this was going down, almost 9, so a similar age as the kids in the study.

The problem, though, is that for his first four years of schooling, we just thought that he was an unruly child who didn't like to listen or raise his hand, or just liked being the class clown by making random noises and getting up out of his seat at inappropriate times. He would always get in trouble for touching other children in passing (just innocently, like on the arm or shoulder), and not being able to stand in line.

Luckily, my wife and I have the intelligence and ability to research these symptoms and realize that more was going on, and we had the health insurance that made diagnosis and visitations relatively manageable.

But not all people have that, and don't know what to look for in symptoms, and don't even realize that they should seek out a possible diagnosis.

So, I'm uncertain that there's much to be gained from this study, other than for me to think, "Well, no sh*t."

But I don't think that the findings indicate that autism is less prevalent in lower socioeconomic families.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: loam

Probably has something to do with autism being over diagnosed.

This is a point worth contemplating as well. I don't think that it's as over-diagnosed as ADHD, but there are definitely cases of misdiagnosis. But, since there's no medication for autism, I would argue that the field has less motivation to over-diagnose this particular disorder (but that's why we went to a psychologist, not a psychiatrist...we didn't want pills pushed on us for anything that they diagnosed).

being poor the diagnosis would be your just a little shy, be rich and you can leave a bomb on a train and claim you don't understand because assburgers.

a reply to: loam

Reminds me of something I read as a kid and has always stuck with me. I was totally happy to find this on Reddit when I just googled it:

a reply to: loam

Your OP is interesting and thanks for that, but..............the article you referenced is one of the worst reads I've seen of late.

Are they saying that poverty reduces the chances of having autism or are they saying the the children of poor people are less likely to reported/tested for autism because they lack the resources?

There was no socioeconomic correlation in France/Sweden so methinks............its a function of lack of access to medical care?

a reply to: loam
Higher socio-economic classes tend to have children when they are older, resulting in a higher prevalence of ASDs. The causes for this are currently unknown.

Autism isn’t over diagnosed at all, the ‘symptoms’ are pretty clear cut.

originally posted by: ShiveredIce
a reply to: loam

Richer people have better medical Insaurance so can afford to get their child diagnosed with autism. That's the best explanation I have.

I agree with you. However, even in countries with social healthcare (freely accessible to all) we also see a higher autistic diagnosis in the middle to upper classes: in the UK, for example, a majority of children with autism have parents with higher salaries (and higher education levels). Source 1

What I like about this study is that it's another proof of vaccines having nothing to do with autism, as free vaccination programs mean there is practically no difference between social classes immunization rates: in the US, for example, high income kids rates for MMR are 94% and for lower income 91%. Source 2