If they could read or do comparisonal analysis or could formulate higher-functional abstraction in their frontal lobes, this would really make them think.

Remember Covid, don't report on things = they stop existing.

If I remember correctly, it fits the same overall curve of the number of reported left handed people over time after society stopped forcibly making people use their right hand. Shockingly, actually making an attempt at diagnosing people and tracking those diagnoses makes numbers go up.

I mean, it says the source right there, it's the CDC...

I'm convinced my mom is on the spectrum and my grandparents

It is the same story as gay infecting children's minds.

They are selling awareness as something to be afraid of. Which is yet another layer od evil.

Instances of autism have skyrocketed since the discovery of autism and effective testing for it.

Clearly these tests are causing the autism. It's a conspiracy by Big Autist to make the world a quieter and more curious place. The railway companies are in on it too.

Sorry, it's actually a "best fits our narrative" line. I can see how you might have been confused.

Anti-vaxxers: No.

Mandating helmets for the boys at the front is resulting in many more head injuries!

Yeah, this is like saying “skin cancer rates have increased dramatically in the past 30 years!” Well yeah, because now we have the technology to detect it earlier. That “things increased” stat ignores the complementary “but deaths decreased dramatically” stat that immediately follows it. Before, we didn’t know people had skin cancer until it was killing them. But now, with preventative screenings, public awareness campaigns, etc, people are more likely to get checked before it is a life threatening issue.

It’s the same thing. Detection models got better, so detection rates went up.

I'm a woman in my 40s who is probably autistic, but back then I was the wrong demographic and "too well behaved" to even consider diagnosis. I'm a typical example people think of when thinking about under diagnosis.

On the other hand, I work with people who have severe learning disabilities who also evaded diagnosis, or were diagnosed well into adulthood as diagnosis is difficult in someone so impaired. In another time, they would have been labelled with a grossly offensive term and just left. Better treatment of disabled people is probably another reason we see rising rates of diagnosis.

Before you get more downvotes, it's a reference folks: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

Im confused, it's got both axis labeled and seems pretty easy to read.

Maybe points off for having the labels on the outside rim of the graphic.

Doesn't change the fact that classification of autism also changed over those years, but the graph itself is okay.

Yes. This is an artifact of a destigmatization coupled with better diagnostics for evaluating ASD. More people aren't autistic, more people are being diagnosed and receiving counseling for coping with the neurldivergence in a cold and uncaring neurotypical world.

That's the era they want to drag us back into, even if it costs us suicide and/or substance abuse.