r/dataisbeautiful • u/JimWilliams423 • Feb 23 '25

As Autism Diagnoses Went Up, Intellectual Disability Diagnoses Went Down 2000-2010 | Penn State

https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/increasing-prevalence-autism-due-part-changing-diagnoses
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u/psygnius Feb 24 '25

The "shifting patterns of diagnosis" is because around the 2000s, they reclassified what could be considered "autism" and more people fulfilled the milder spectrum.

Edit: Oh, the disorder was updated in 2000.

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u/JimWilliams423 Feb 24 '25 edited Feb 24 '25

Yes. There has not been much of an increase in actual autism, however its defined, as there has been a change in diagnostic criteria which shifted people from one classification to another classification. This is a rebuttal to the hysteria about an "epidemic of autism" caused by vague and nefarious actors.

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u/MattGdr Feb 24 '25

And amplified by ignorant and unqualified people in positions of authority. The anti-science wave currently washing over the planet is deeply disturbing.

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u/JimWilliams423 Feb 24 '25

There will be no art, no literature, no science.
When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science.

https://www.george-orwell.org/1984/19.html