First US study of autism in adults estimates 2.2% have autism spectrum disorder

[conuly]

Or, in other words, an increase in diagnoses was never the same as an increase in incidence.

This isn't really news, but take the article anyway.

Edit: Bad Connie. I didn't read past the headline - they just assumed a flat incidence rate rather than proving it. Which is fair, I assume that too.

Comments

[steorra]

"For the survey of adults, the CDC team used estimates of autism among children and they projected that into an adult population using state data on mortality."

Wait, did they actually evaluate adults?

I wish news articles linked to the studies they discuss more regularly.

EDIT: Found the article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-020-04494-4

[conuly]

Wait, did they NOT evaluate adults? Well, fuck, nobody else is gonna read past the headline, just like I sure didn't. I'll still spread it around - I'm tired of that one British study where they did and, surprise surprise, came up with the same results anyway.

[steorra]

It looks like they're *assuming* a constant incidence and modelling adult prevalence based on that, not providing evidence for it.

(I mean, yeah, I agree with you that there's good reason to think that the incidence is more or less constant. But a paper that assumes it can't be used as evidence to prove it.)

[conuly]

It shouldn't be used that way, but trust me, none of the people talking about this who you'll be tempted to pull it out on will be smart enough to catch it.

[steorra]

OK, let me rephrase, "a paper that assumes it isn't evidence for it" :-)