According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), the prevalence rate of autism is approximately 1 in 88, which represents a 600% increase in prevalence over the last 20 years – yes, it is pretty clear that most people would view these numbers as an ‘explosion’. At the same time, there is debate about the cause for such as increase in prevalence; one possibility being that the criteria for diagnosis has been largely expanded in recent years to create the illus

One crucial piece of information is that there is no biological marker of autism. This means that a doctor cannot do a blood test as one might with diabetes, for example, or ‘see’ the disability on a chromosome like one can with Down’s Syndrome. The nature of the diagnosis of autism is different in that it comes down to a trained professional’s best judgment in conjunction with the DSM criteria (see #1) and other standardized questionnaires or tests. This trained professional

There is no known cure for autism – that’s the bad news. There is good news however… it is possible that a person with autism can reach a point (usually after ongoing and intensive intervention targeted to the challenges of the specific individual) where they no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for the disorder that is described above (e.g. Google the name ‘Temple Grandin’). This is one of the biggest misconceptions about the disability and this is why: autism is a spectr