Kids Today! Now with 23% more Autism! {Special Needs Ryan Gosling weighs in}

     Extra extra, read all about it; CDC says Autism numbers are on the rise & kids in the US are at a 1 in 88 child chance of being diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder! At first I thought to myself:

  • Autism must be the new IT thing! Ha! My kid was autistic before it was trendy...wait...that's not right.
  • Maybe like an info-mercial: Kids In The USA, Now with 23% More Autism!...wait...that's not right.
  • 1 in 88 Kids in 2012; It's Not Your Grandpa's Autism!...still not right...oh well.



     A while back everyone was talking about this great idea that they are working on with the new DSM that will cut our Asperger's & a lot of kids who are high functioning that will no longer fit the "New" DSMs guide lines for being "Autistic". Not only does this smack kids & parents right in the kisser as far as getting services, what little funding is out there, IEPs for school, & other stuff like that but it seems like it will also "help" in lowering the number of kids out there considered Autistic driving down the numbers that we are talking about today. Or at least that's how it seems to me anyway! You can read my post on the new DSM here. It's times like these you wish there was just one guy, one guy in an office in Washington or your State Capital that was just bein' a dick & screwing these kids out of the services & help they need. Just one guy that you could find out about &, in some peoples case, write a strongly worded letter to him. In other peoples case, maybe wait till he is headed out to lunch & shove him in the trunk of his own car & call it a "therapy compartment"! Unfortunately there isn't just one guy being a dick, there are a bunch of them! Unfortunately there are more dicks than there are trunks "therapy compartments".
     So as I finished reading the news about the new CDC numbers & how its changing everything or how we "have to find out the root of autism" I think, how does all this effect me & my kids today.... It doesn't.  I read these articles or little news blips, especially this time of year coming up on April, about Autism as a diagnosis or Autism as a Disorder or even much to my dismay Autism as an "epidemic" and all of this boils down to when we get up in the morning Jayden is still going to be the same. We are still going to do the same as we always have for him. It's easy for me to get hung up on the news stories & mad about changes but I'm really starting to try to just go with the flow. That being said if they do change the DSM, while I don't think my son will be effected, I would be willing to rent a bus & drive us all around to each on of the Doctors who signed off on it to introduce them to the "Therapy Compartment".
     Through all of this news about the rising number of kids with Autism thankfully my friend Sunday over at Adventures In Extreme Parenthood has introduced me to my biggest advocate, Ryan Gosling. Check out all the Special Needs Ryan Gosling memes submitted by different bloggers over on Sunday's blog.

4 comments:

  1. I'm not so sure Ryan didn't mean that as a come on. He looks pretty damn sincere in that pic.

    Also, I love the therapy trunk idea. We need to make that happen PDQ!

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  2. I feel like when those statistics are put in the news people respond by saying "oh wow" and then nothing happens. I agree with you...whatever the media says or the government or the schools ... I'm still gonna be a mom to an Aspie kid for the rest of my life....so I have to make sure I try my darndest to do the best job I can, and right now - by myself. Our small town as NO resources

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  3. For the government or any other entity to cut any funding or support for any child on the spectrum is crazy and will only lead to adults being on the system when intervention at a younger age would have helped a autistic child function better as an adult. My Son is low functioning but showing signs of coming out of the "autism bubble" every day, but it took more than me and my wife to get to this point.

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  4. We recentley cut out our cable and our TV viewing is soley based on Netflix and Hulu so I feel like I am quite behind now in the news of the day! 1 in 88! That's crazy! I remember when O first got diagnosed it was 1 in 166.

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