Listen now: Is there an epidemic of autism?
May 3, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Right now, 3pm CT/4pm EST, anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker, the parent of an autistic child and author of the book Unstrange Minds, joins Kerri Miller on Minnesota Public Radio to discuss his research and his views on the alarming number of children being diagnosed with autism.
I skipped the forum because we were going to hear him and got to talk with him and meet him at his presentation last night at our state’s autism conference. He was fabulous. He said that at the forum, someone challenged him on “the epidemic”, saying that if it wasn’t an epidemic, then there would be more adults with autism. Richard said that while he was trying to think of an example (and hadn’t spoke yet, but was thinking about commenting that schizophrenia is 1 in 100) a gentlemen in his 60’s stood up in the crowd of around 200 and said proudly “I have autism”. Then Richards said another adult stood up in their 40’s and said “I have autism”, and yet another adult in his 30’s stood up and said “I just finished my masters at the U of M and I have autism”. Hmmmmmm……more than met the statistics there in the forum. But, as my grounded husband said, it was specifically a forum on autism, so sampling must be considered.
Still, that must have been something to witness.