When I first heard that one in fifty school age children were on the autistic spectrum, I thought “surely not!” I believed the one in eighty-eight number, but one in fifty? Since our son has autism, I tend to hang out in the special needs community, so it’s hard for me to judge the general population. Still, the number seemed high. I heard some dismissed the findings, feeling there were families who simply wanted to jump on the autism bandwagon.
Even with my faint skepticism over the numbers, I wondered why anyone in their right minds would want to be on this particular bandwagon. For the massive amounts of educational support? Hardly. The school systems are under-funded to meet the enormous needs. For the lavish healthcare benefits given by insurance companies? Not. Despite legislature in some states requiring coverage for autism, most families are still paying significant amounts for therapies and medical fees. Because the future is so bright for their beloved child? I wish. Maybe because an enlightened and aware society is now supportive of autism? Check out http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=5fTBM_3sdwE&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D5fTBM_3sdwE
But I digress. Suffice it to say that although I couldn’t fathom a reason any thinking person would want claim autism if they didn’t have to, I doubted the one in fifty numbers. But I didn’t think about it much.
Until I went to a family reunion. Those numbers lived with me in the lodge for the weekend, ate special foods with me, stimmed with me, were their own charming, neuro- unique selves with me. My son, aged 17. His cousin, aged 8. Among the fifty-six people at the reunion, two cousins had autism. Not one in fifty. Two in fifty-six.
But wait, you may say. Perhaps there is a genetic anomaly which links these cousins and autism.
Not so. They are cousins by marriage, not blood. There isn’t a shared ancestor between them. In fact, though they have both been raised in the U.S., they’re from two different countries. Coincidence? It’s possible, but with the one in fifty number being widely reported by reputable agencies, not probable.
It’s time we wake up and realize the rise in autism is not a case of more accurate diagnosis. If that’s the case, why didn’t I see recently diagnosed, older cousins with autism at my family reunion? I know the family history- we don’t have one in fifty cousins living in institutions somewhere because they have autism but were never diagnosed. Neither do we have undiagnosed older relatives living at home.
I believe we are dealing with many different causes: different toxins on different levels effecting different people in different ways. Unless we want our future population to have increasingly large percentages of people with autism, we need to start funding massive research.
In closing, autism came to the family reunion, and we all had a great time. My son and his cousin have enriched our family.
D'Ann Renner 