O California!: What's going on with the autism rate in the Golden State?

In my native state of California, the number of individuals on the autism spectrum receiving services from state regional centers has increased twelvefold in the past decade, according to a study released by the state's Department of Developmental Services and reported in yesterday's San Jose Mercury News. That is, the number of individuals with an autism spectrum diagnosis who have received services from the state of California has increased twelve times in the past decade. As the San Jose Mercury News notes:

The statistics include only people who are receiving services through regional centers, which represents about 75 to 80 percent of the autistic population, the study estimates.

The numbers also include only those with classic autism. For the most part, people with other autistic spectrum disorders, including Asperger's syndrome and Rett's Disorder.

But fasten your seatbelt. Because you know, many will overlook the fact that the "twelvefold increase" is about the number of individuals who have gotten an autism spectrum diagnosis and gotten services via the state. There are most likely more individuals on the autism spectrum in the state of California (I can think of quite a few, personally) who have not received such a diagnosis and who are not seeking services from the state.

Indeed, it can be said that there have always been individuals in California who are on the autism spectrum; not all of these individuals have received services from the state's regional centers and not all of them might wish, at the present moment, to be counted as "autistic." Further, it needs to be noted that the services that presently exist, and that people might wish to seek out for their family members, did not exist in the past. There are a lot more people seeking autism services now because those services exist.

(Just as, there were a lot of people in California prospecting for gold around 1849 because someone had found some.......but the gold was always, has always, been there.)

Nevertheless......expect to see blog posts with titles like "12-fold increase in autism in California in the past 10 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!".

Consider some previous posts from when I was writing Autism Vox: How better diagnosis has contributed to people feeling that there is an 'epidemic' of autism.

And, the two hypotheses of the autism epidemic and diagnostic substitution.

And, diagnosing autism has itself evolved over time: Is autism now being over-diagnosed? misdiagnosed? or just better diagnosed??

And, is autism under-diagnosed in girls? (also consider posts by Elesia here on this topic).

Plus: Consider the analyses of the California data by Autism Diva at Left Brain/Right Brain and by Do' C at Autism Street, on the California's Invisible Autism Epidemic, as well as some posts about the prevalence of autism on Neurodiversity.

Just some things to keep in mind in case you see any of those "there's an epidemic of autism in California!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!-type headlines.