Autistic Daily

Jewish Times

John Arking is an assistant professor at the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he works to identify genes in diseases like autism.

The Baltimore Jewish Times recently did an interview with Arking to get his thoughts on the disease.

Arking thinks there’s not necessarily been an increase in the numbers of autism cases over the years, but rather medical professionals are beginning to recognize the disease better.

Has there been an increase in autism?
You have to be careful [to make a distinction] between incidence and prevalence. Incidence is how many new cases occur. Prevalence is how many cases we find. Prevalence has gone up, but studies so far have not found a rise in incidence.

The feeling is, we have better surveillance and my personal opinion is, there is a willingness to call someone autistic. That used to be a negative, although now they can get help.

So the public perception of autism has changed?
That’s the situation in all mental illnesses. There was a stigma, more so than physical illness. The issue [for autism] is that in the 1960s, the mom was being [identified] as emotionally distant. There was a stigma attached to the family. That’s not the case anymore.

There’s a feeling that we can help children with autism. Diagnosis is usually made at 2 to 3 years old. [That gets into] behavioral therapy, the earlier you get them into therapy, the better. The data I saw [about that] was quite striking.

Read the rest of the interview with Arking at jewishtimes.com.

via Autism and Parenting Examiner

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