From the perspective of the Lindy principle it is weird.
I have an eighteen-month old child and have been reading a lot about child rearing since my wife got pregnant.
It’s taboo to say this, and I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but I suspect that a lack of adult attention in the first three years of life is a principal factor in the rising autism rates we’re seeing in modern economies. This would explain why autism seems to “cluster” in upper class homes, where the parents work nonstop.
It turns out this hypothesis was put forth by Kanner in the 50’s and is as old as autism itself, but it was rejected for political reasons and it is not refuted by the science.
I first heard this hypothesis from the lectures of Gabor Maté, and it makes a lot of sense to me. If you look at what autism treatment actually is, it’s all just play therapy where you give a child attention and teach them that if they bid for an adult’s attention they will respond empathetically. This treatment only makes sense if they didn’t already learn to do this as an infant.
> On the contrary, Kanner held tightly to his original proposal that autism was an innate condition, which was widely understood to mean it had a genetic basis. His behavioral observations of parents contributed to a breakthrough concept that is wholly consistent with genes being a key part of the autism story. Instead of parenting causing autism, Kanner’s idea — which has since been validated — was that autism (and its genetic roots) underlies some of the behavior in a subset of parents.
quote: He wrote that, overall, the parents seemed perfectionistic and preoccupied with abstractions, rather than showing a genuine interest in people.
I find this sentence interesting in comparison to the phrase "dumb people talk about people, average people talk about things, smart people talk about ideas" that I've seen in various forms on the internet.
Hot take: People are over-optimizing for grand impact, while neglecting the more profound impact on the local level. Most people will not be senators, but I think many people, with some work, can run for office as an alderman, mayor, or county representative.
I can think of some rather obvious reasons why Kanner would reframe his position publicly. It's just way too taboo.
Kanner said that his believed autism had a genetic basis. I think it's a cop-out, as I don't think it makes any sense to blame genetics for the sudden appearance and dramatic rise of autism (and other childhood disorders) over the timespan of a few decades, even if genetics may certainly play a role in our susceptibility to these disorders.
In any case, this is merely my suspicion. I'm not a researcher on this subject.
The reason why I wrote that comment is because the stakes are high and the evidence is suggestive enough that this merits more of a discussion.
Every parent has to decide how much attention their child gets. How many parents would do things differently if they knew the impact it could have? Reading the research definitely opened my eyes and changed my opinion on how to raise our child.
From the article and his papers it seems he never changed his opinion, but that he was being misrepresented 180 degrees, and that you, in good faith, believed that was his position.
I also don't see evidence he claimed it is only genetic reasons.
What he hypothesised (supported by current scientific understanding according to [1]) was that both autism and parenting behaviours have a common cause (genetics) making it a prime example for correlation does not imply causation.
I won't quibble. The larger point is that there are potentially devastating consequences if a child fails to attach to a loving and attentive adult, and that this is not adequately discussed or appreciated in our society.
This is a huge tail risk that every parent should understand. If you are a parent or ever become one, you have the information to look into it and come to your own conclusions.
I suspect that a lack of adult attention in the first three years of life is a principal factor in the rising autism rates we’re seeing in modern economies. This would explain why autism seems to “cluster” in upper class homes, where the parents work nonstop.
Upper class parents don't necessarily need to work non stop, and when they do, they can afford to have an adult give their kids attention. To make this claim, you have to show that upper class parents neither give their kids attention nor hire a nanny/au pair/have a grandparent looking after their kids.
A simpler hypothesis is that "upper class people" are getting married later and having kids later. Higher parental age is associated with autism (among many other things).
I also saw some research suggesting that engineers are more likely to have Autistic kids. The increased social mobility of women has undoubtedly lead to more "power couples" (in the modern sense), I wonder if perhaps there is some effect that people with slight Autism risk factors are more likely to mate with each other these days?
Totally spit-balling, but I guess the larger point is there are a lot of possible explanations for what OP describes (if it's even true, diagnosis may just be more likely in those families)
> This would explain why autism seems to “cluster” in upper class homes, where the parents work nonstop.
The diagnosis of any mental health condition has causal factors outside of the presence and severity of the underlying condition. Specifically, there needs to be enough stress/maladaptation that diagnosis is sought in the first place, sufficient resources and access to care to seek diagnosis, and a support and care system that is otherwise unable to handle the patient.
It's not as simple as "has disease" => "get diagnosis". Bill Gross, the "Bond King", was too busy running mutual funds to get an autism spectrum diagnosis until a psychologist mentioned Asperger's in a dinner party in his seventies, whereupon his wife commented along the lines of "yeah, you obviously have it". If you don't get demands placed on you that you cannot meet, you don't get diagnosed.
Anyhow, my point is that upper class families are far more likely to A) place additional demands on their children, B) be able to seek professional diagnosis, and C) contract out childcare to workers in lieu of DIYing it and just putting up with their child behaving differently. This all is more than enough to predict the gap in diagnosis without any causal link between adult attention and autism. It's also the sort of thing to explain the correlation between diagnosis and low IQ - if you're autistic and smart, you're more likely to get enough pieces of your life right that nobody ends up putting in the effort to generate an official diagnosis.
> I suspect that a lack of adult attention in the first three years of life is a principal factor in the rising autism rates we’re seeing in modern economies.
My suspicion is that modern economies are a lot more atomized, and people suffer a lot more for not fitting into the square holes that are increasingly the only thing on offer. This also explains the rising diagnosis rates for other mental health conditions, especially ADHD.
I'm a layman, but I have a theory it's related to noise levels in modern environments (especially always-on TVs). Curious what your thoughts are, since you seem to be somewhat familiar with the literature.
There's a correlation between parents who are both "systemizers" and their child having autism.
I've also heard the theory that Austism is basically what we've been genetically selecting for over the last 100 years or so - the world wants brainless consumers - what is better than someone with sensory disorders, who can be primed to get up and buy with a simple prick?
>the world wants brainless consumers - what is better than someone with sensory disorders, who can be primed to get up and buy with a simple prick?
That's a pretty broad and inaccurate generalization of autism spectrum disorders. If anything I think people on the spectrum are far less likely to be convinced to buy products through advertisement. Autism is a sort of innate stubbornness.
I have an eighteen-month old child and have been reading a lot about child rearing since my wife got pregnant.
It’s taboo to say this, and I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but I suspect that a lack of adult attention in the first three years of life is a principal factor in the rising autism rates we’re seeing in modern economies. This would explain why autism seems to “cluster” in upper class homes, where the parents work nonstop.
It turns out this hypothesis was put forth by Kanner in the 50’s and is as old as autism itself, but it was rejected for political reasons and it is not refuted by the science.
I first heard this hypothesis from the lectures of Gabor Maté, and it makes a lot of sense to me. If you look at what autism treatment actually is, it’s all just play therapy where you give a child attention and teach them that if they bid for an adult’s attention they will respond empathetically. This treatment only makes sense if they didn’t already learn to do this as an infant.