Autism Rates Now 1:110

I'm not really sure about that. I'm thinking that based on my experience it's more like half of all kids are autistic. And if you want to spread that diagnosis out to just the "mildly" affected kids, we might just get up to five out of every six.

Could you imagine having a hundred and ten children, and only ONE of them being affected by autism? Ok, moms... just picture it. Just one. The other hundred and nine, I guess, are a piece of cake to raise. I mean, I see some of these blogs about poor Jonny having the old ADHD and thinking that these parents need to quit their whining. They're in a 4,000 square foot home, have two kids and a dog, but boo-hoo Jonny got into trouble again for sassing the teacher, and waah, life is so crazy and busy...

Whatever. I wish I had enough spare change to purchase some of these people a clue.

But if autism affects 1:110 kids... where are all the schools for autistic children? You would figure that in a school district like this one of about 10,000 kids that about 800-odd are autistic? But there are no schools for them here?

Another thing: The study based this on diagnosed eight-year-olds. Based on "more complete analysis of reports from 11 states." Let me tell you something: there are a good plenty of us who homeschool because the schools don't help, so they might not be in the statistics anyway... And there are also a good plenty of us who don't pursue a diagnosis because the kid is functioning just fine in his homeschool, thankyouverymuch.

Yep, my now-eight year old USED to have an ADHD diagnosis and we were told to come back later if he had trouble in school. Well, he was suspended twice in his first week of kindergarten. SO we pulled him out to homeschool him.

Now he has no trouble in school! WOW! It's like magic.

So he probably wouldn't qualify for any sort of a diagnosis now, despite what odd strangers say to me when I tell them I have several autistic children and they zero on Emperor as **THE ONE** absolutely fer sure right away. LOL, nope. *Just* because kids are socially odd, have no concept about personal space or the fact that we shouldn't spin and bounce off walls, doesn't mean that these kids are autistic. Necessarily.

Kids are autistic only with the special and very MAGICAL diagnosis from a trained professional.

Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Oddly enough, Elfie is having a hard time qualifying for special services because he functions SO WELL in his environment. You know, the environment in which he is homeschooled and rarely sees other children? That one? If we didn't have the magical diagnosis given to us by the trained professional, our kid "who acts so normal" would never get help at all.

Ok, I don't even know where to start with that one. Autism is a normal thing here. Everyone else is weird. *Shaking my head.*