Utah study: Expanded definition finds more disabled kids with autism (i.e. no Autism "Epidemic")
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54378594-78/autism-utah-definition-expanded.html.cspThe Salt Lake Tribune
One reason for the dramatic increase in children diagnosed with autism in Utah is the expanded definition of the disorder, according to a new study.
University of Utah researchers applied today’s criteria for autism-spectrum disorders to children who were considered challenged in the 1980s and who participated in an autism study at that time. The new study found a majority of those kids would now be classified as autistic
Bilder believes — speaking only for herself and not the co-authors — that increased awareness and an expanded definition is key.
"I’m not convinced yet this is truly an epidemic," she said. "Rather, we are much more aware of it. We identify it in much more higher-functioning folks than we recognized before."
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Whole article contains statistics and conclusions. But, yes, apparently changing our autism definitions leads to more autism diagnoses. Who woulda thunk?
= new reply since forum marked as read
A careful researcher makes clear the distinction.
Disciplines can be relatively averse to advocacy and politics (here: "involving policies"
or embrace them.
In both kinds of disciplines researchers identify with their ideas and theories and become greedy for funding sources. In the former kind of discipline, though, it's easy to self police: If string theory or the Higgs boson fails to materialize, you'll get people jumping ship because the truth is more important. Some won't--and they may be right. But most will when the data strongly hints that they're wrong. Most researchers know that their fights are in a small universe; "power" involves being able to guide the careers of perhaps a dozen people, help get the right (wo)men appointed in a dozen positions. Scientific fraud happens, but only for small-beans personal gain. It's easy to design experiments to falsify your hypothesis once you have one.
In the second kind, where policies matter, attracts those after power because if you have a fairly convincing theory you get power. You help dictate how thousands or millions of people live. You control parts of society. You're personally responsible for the lives of millions, and you are aware of your importance. You may be humble before your greatness, or not. But because of the importanceo f the work, scientific fraud is more palatable. It's hard to design experiments because, dammit, something needs to be done! Think of the children!
If string theory is right, if the Higgs boson isn't found, it's exciting for science. We've wasted money in falsifying hypothesis or wasted time in trying to come up with testable hypotheses. If the increase autism is found to be an artifact of nomenclatural and clinic diagnosis, then no harm's done--think of the children who got additional help and special care, that's a good thing that any researcher must be proud of. But if the increase in autism is real, then, well, think of the children! We must help them at all costs. And if we do, then we're good people and think highly of ourselves; it's a side effect that we grant money, that we help determine policy, that we can help the environment and help save wretched humanity from themselves.
I like your boldfaced sentence. It's useful to assume that there's an increase in autism. Useful for whom? For what purpose? How is this to be used? Nah,"usefulness" is good. It has no goal.
And for now it's right to try to figure out why this increase is happening. That's what the sentence presupposes is true. I'd have assumed that it would be more important to identify IF it's happening, not why this hypothetical increase is actually happening. Because, well, the goal of science isn't actually truth, it's social usefulness and achieving social goals.
