Clinic Notes: Increase in Autism: Real or Better Diagnosis?

With the new CDC figure saying that 1 child in 88 now has autism a controversy has started hat we have heard before. Is the increase real or is diagnosis getting better? Every time I hear this I get a little irritated. What difference does it make? We don’t know what causes autism so we can’t change the numbers. Perhaps the increase generates new hypotheses, but unless we can correlate the increases with something else and then prove a causal relationship the increase is not meaningful. No government planning is going on. And as far as therapy if a child has problems you treat those problems no matter the diagnosis. My waiting list is always getting longer no matter what the number say.