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Another Perspective
Playing With Words
Is 1 out of 88 American children really autistic?
Would anyone work to support themselves or their families — and then turn over a chunk of that hard-earned money to somebody else, just because of the words used by that somebody else?
A few people may be taken in by the words of con men, here and there, but the larger tragedy is that millions more are taken in by the words of politicians, the top-of-the-line con men.
How do politicians con people out of their money? One example can be found in a recent article titled “The Autism-Welfare Nexus” by Paul Sperry in Investor’s Business Daily.
Genuine autism is a truly tragic condition, both for those afflicted by it and for their parents. Few people would have any problem with the idea that both voluntary donations and government expenditures are well spent to help those suffering from autism.
“Autism,” however, has been sweepingly redefined over the years. What was discovered and defined as autism back in 1943 is just one of a number of conditions now included as being part of “the autism spectrum.” Many, if not most, of these conditions are nowhere near as severe as autism, or even as clearly defined.
The growing number of children encompassed by a wider and looser definition of autism has been trumpeted across the land through the media as an “epidemic” of increasing numbers of cases of autism. Before 1990, 1 child out of 2,500 was said to be autistic. This year, it is said to be 1 out of 88.
As Paul Sperry points out in IBD, “the number of language disorder cases have fallen as autism cases have risen, suggesting one disorder has simply been substituted for another.”
Having heard, over the years, from many parents of late-talking children that they have been urged to let their children be diagnosed as autistic, in order to get either government money or insurance money to pay for language problems, I am not the least bit surprised by Sperry’s findings.
Every dollar spent on children falsely labelled autistic is a dollar lost — and urgently needed — in dealing with the severe problems of genuinely autistic children. But money added to the federal budget for autism is money that can be given to people, in the expectation of getting their vote at election time.
Another example of words substituting for realities was a front page story in the May 24th issue of USA Today, showing that the official statistics on the national debt only count about one-fourth of what the federal government actually owes. Even the staggering official national debt is literally not half the story.
Under ordinary accounting rules and laws, the money promised to people as pensions when they retire has to be counted as part of the debts of a business or other organization. But, since Congress makes the laws, the trillions of dollars owed to people who have paid into Social Security do not have to be counted as part of the federal government’s debts.
When you or I owe money, we are in debt — and face consequences if we don’t pay up. But we are not the federal government and cannot write our own accounting laws.
Perhaps the biggest frauds committed by redefining words are the many fraudulent uses of the word “poor.”
For most of the history of the human race, there was no problem in defining who were “the poor.” They were people without enough to eat, often without adequate clothing to protect them from the elements, and usually people who lived packed in like sardines in living quarters without adequate ventilation in the summer or adequate heat in the winter, and perhaps also lacking in such things as electricity or adequate sewage disposal.
Today, most of the officially defined “poor” have none of these problems, and most today have amenities such as air conditioning, a car or truck, a microwave oven and many other things that once defined a middle class lifestyle. Americans in poverty today have more living space than the average European.
About the Author
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (26) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 6.6.12 @ 7:06AM
Plenty of children who are labeled with "Syndromes" are victims of the fact that their parents never had any responsibility for younger siblings and don't know anything about the vast spectrum of normality among chldren. I was foster grandmother to a little boy once whose mother had adopted him and had no experience even babysitting; she read books and labeled him with every kind of syndrome, when in fact his main problem was that he was a highly energetic little boy who was not the sharpest knife in the drawer regarding schoolwork but who had many other talents and abilities that would serve him well...once he was given an outlet for his excess energy. I'm sure many other children are labeled autistic who are simply high-energy kids.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 6.6.12 @ 7:31AM
I think that you may be correct, though I believe the high energy children get labeled as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD), and the ones we used to call shy or quiet are the ones being included with the truly autistic.
c. j. acworth| 6.6.12 @ 8:07AM
That was my thought as I read the article. An ungodly number of young children (mostly boys) are being given powerful mood-altering drugs because thier teachers are to lazy to deal with a bit of high spirits and maintain order on thier own, and the parents are only too happy for the diagnosis of ADHD because it qualifires Johnny for extra tutoring to boost his grades. And the drugs keep him quieter at home, too.
c. j. acworth| 6.6.12 @ 8:11AM
And if you check my spelling in the above comment, you will probably think I was on drugs in school. (thier, qualifiers, for heavens sake!)
Nina in MA| 6.6.12 @ 1:47PM
You all have a pretty good opinion. I agree along with the rise in diagnosis of autism, the rise in ADD/ADHD. I agree with appleby too that too many parents don't know how to parent, read books and think it's supposed to be either black or white, no gray areas....and it's unfortunate because that's what children are...gray areas...they can go either way and with the right encouragement and education, and parents knowledge, go the other way. Anyone remember Dr. Spock with his idiotic rationalizing with a 2 yo!? I've seen many parents trying to reason with a toddler about why they shouldn't be doing something like eating rat poison (not really rat poison) or something just as ridiculous instead of taking the child out of harms way....and instead of using their own good judgement or intuition, they read and read and then think if their child shows ANY sign of what they are reading about, then their child has it!
Brooksifier | 6.6.12 @ 2:15PM
Sowell is an economist, not a scientist.
Dave Williams| 6.6.12 @ 3:55PM
....and that makes the rightness of his comments suspect how?
Typical lefty response -- can't challenge the substance, so you go make the personal attack. Troll.
Drunken Sailor| 6.6.12 @ 4:03PM
So what? your a troll and not a idiot but we still let you post. I'll take Dr. Sowell's opinion over yours anyday.
Brooksifier | 6.6.12 @ 5:42PM
"I'll take Dr. Sowell's opinion over yours anyday."
Oh WOW! then you must really like the old coot.
Autism is a very scientific topic, don't even think about it without a science background.
Drunken Sailor| 6.7.12 @ 8:36AM
Why yes, I do like him very much. Glad to see his regular contributions. Your's? Not so much. By the way Economics is a science you bufoon. What is your scientific background?
Ruckweiler| 6.6.12 @ 10:25AM
Sounds like the scam that was the number of "Homeless "on the streets, global warming, or other such contrived issues. If it's really autism then that is sad but re-defining the issue to get more money from the taxpayers is intellectual fraud. Follow the money.
TLP| 6.6.12 @ 3:46PM
I saw a questionnaire about ADHD that said: If you answered Yes, to 3 out of the 10, you have ADHD.
I answered Yes, to all of them.
My Grade School Teachers told my Mom that I was a Day Dreamer.
I'm not sure, but I think I have a Lawsuit.
Brooksifier | 6.6.12 @ 5:49PM
"Sounds like the scam that was the number of 'Homeless' on the streets"
Homelessness doesn't bother me: most of the homeless I meet (80 percent) are Rightwing extremist white trash who would only bring their booze, ciggies, and bad sex, bad religion, bad politics into a home if they had one-- so why not just remain 'homeless' and drink, smoke, and ball white trash hos? No worries about losing the key if a white trash Rightist nut is 'homeless'.
I watch them, they have a good time-- "Party Hardy, Marty (hic)"
TLP| 6.6.12 @ 8:42PM
Really?
Cause most of the homeless that I meet, are Black, or Hispanic, or Liberals who actually bought into the Liberal Crap, that you can sit on your ass, and somebody else will take care of you.
You know, like The Muslim.
Cobalt| 6.6.12 @ 11:26AM
A study has linked fetal testosterone levels with autism in children. Fine.
However, not all children act the same at a given age of 3 0r 4 0r 5, etc. So how can you control children, and "modify" their behavior? Drugs.
Little boys are different from little girls, even if some feminists don't approve of this difference.
Germaine Greer (Australian feminist), "I think that testosterone is a rare poison."
Bill84728| 6.6.12 @ 11:46AM
Autism has ALWAYS been a loosely-defined and amorphous condition. There are certainly people who suffer from a disability that makes them impossible to participate in social settings and makes them self-destructive to the point where they have been institutionalized and made to wear football helmets to keep them from battering their heads against the wall. Those are the obvious cases. Then we have the "Rain Man" cases that are not so extreme. Beyond that, we're treading near or across the boundaries of antisocial personalities or borderline personalities.
Given the history of psychology and psychiatry in the past, I'd be VERY VERY careful about classifying people as autistic if they're not banging their heads against the wall compulsively.
TrueBlue | 6.6.12 @ 1:28PM
Careful, Conservatism is the next big psychological condition on the board. They'll just meld it into one current definition or another to "prove" we're all actually crazy.
Bill84728| 6.6.12 @ 2:11PM
It's already being said that conservatives are excessively rigid and cling to outmoded ways because they find new ways too bewildering. It's not all that far for a certain kind of psychological thinking to take the rigidity and resistance to change and turn it into one or another form of paranoia.
JD| 6.6.12 @ 3:31PM
They would never do that. Doing that would require them to give us some of our tax dollars back! Diagnoses are restricted to those to whom they want to give money.
JimH| 6.6.12 @ 2:20PM
If we cure everyone with Autism or Asbergers, who will program the computers and go to Comic-Con?
TLP| 6.6.12 @ 8:44PM
Obviously, you've never been to Comic-Con.
It's a scene, man.
JimH| 6.7.12 @ 8:12AM
I am myself a programmer and a charter member of the MMMS (ask Occam if you don’t know what that is). The point of the comment was that people who may only act a bit different socially are now being diagnosed with mental conditions.
Trish Trotter| 6.6.12 @ 4:02PM
I have not been diagnosed with autism YET, but I am, according to my psych, bi-polar, and I have a "touch of Tourette's," as he puts it. Interesting article, shithead.
Bob K| 6.7.12 @ 10:27PM
This article was about words and the ideas they create and the changes they make by the people who make a living from them.
Autism was the one the author chose to discuss.
The great contemporary historian John Lukacs observed that "the history of ideas (indeed, of all human thought) is inseparable from the history of words." From 'Democracy and Populism' page 117. Published 2005 Yale University Press.
This article illustrates that observation about as well as good be.
Bob K| 6.7.12 @ 10:29PM
Please make that "good" be in the last sentence "could" be! It is getting late!