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Autism Rising · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why we Do what we do. I am your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: advocacy host Abraham and.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I am your anti pseudoscience host Shane.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast, an anti pseudoscience psychology podcast.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: We are.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: We talk about all of the things that humans and
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: non human animals do, and sometimes we talk about specific
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: diagnostic conditions that humans experience that seem to be a
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: part of the human experience, which is what we're talking
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: about today.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, and so today we are going to talk about
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: not necessarily autism alone, but the current context and the
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: current discussions around autism as it pertains to the United
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: States and the United States government and how they're trying
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: to cure autism and all the things that go along
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: with that. We are going to unpack quite a bit.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: I think this will be a pretty hefty discussion overall.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if it's irony or coincidence or
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: neither of those things. That it's kind of funny. You
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and I both work in and got a lot of
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: our training in, and possibly even got our start in
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: our careers around autism and services provided to individuals with autism. Yes,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and that this is the first time that we are
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: really doing a pretty deep dive into this.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: We have touched on autism and several other contexts. We
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: talked about what happened to Asperger syndrome, which is now
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: no longer a thing. In when we did our series
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: of episodes on applied behavior analysis, we talked about autism
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: and several different capacities as it related to that, but
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: we haven't ever really done one where we just talk
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: about the history of this diagnosis. Although I think the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: important context, as you mentioned, is framing this around the
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: increase in rates of autism and what is being said
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: about and seems to be understood about autism more broadly.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Right now, right, that's going to be the main orientation
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: for the purpose and intention of our discussion today. But
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: if you're joining us for the first time, i'd like
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: to say welcome. I'm glad that you found us. I
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: hope that you enjoy what you hear in this episode today,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: and in particular, if you're someone with autism, I would
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: definitely love to hear from you. You can reach out
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: and talk to us directly by emailing us at info
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: at wwdwwdpodcast dot com or on the other social media platforms.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: We would love to get some autistic voices on this podcast. Yes,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: we've attempted to do this a couple of times, but
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: we will We will continue to keep that door open
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: because I think that would be really lovely. Yes, and
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: if you are a returning listener, then we are glad
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: that you are sticking with us and have found your
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: way back once more, and hope that you continue to
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: enjoy what you hear in this discussion as we go
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: through our very politically charged, albeit very scientifically situated conversation
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: that we will have. And either way, however, you are
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: choosing to find us, if you would like to support
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: what we do, we could certainly use the You can
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: support us directly by heading over to Patreon, where you
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: get all kinds of behind the scenes content and add
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: free content and whatnot, and I'll read your name at
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the end of our discussions. You can also leave us
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: a rating and a review like subscribe, tell a friend,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: pick up some merch at our merch store. And again
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I'll sort of come back to those things and elaborate
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: slightly at the end of this discussion today. But I've
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: been talking a lot, so I would just like to
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: take a quick pause and wish you all happy International
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Dylan Thomas.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Day, Yes, man with two first names. It's also national
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Buttermilk Biscuit Day is national dance like a chicken Day. Sure.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: It's also World Stationary Day.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: And relatedly it is International Chihuahua Appreciation Day. Relatedly, like
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: chihuala's our stationary or you can maybe write you can
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: write appreciation appreciative notes about chihuahua's on your stationary. Yes
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: that's true, or maybe this is stationary is and don't move.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever it is, just just turn it into a
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: way to celebrate your way. More than anything, this is
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: one that you don't want to turn into appreciating chihuahuas
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: in And that's Online Romance Day.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Fact. It is National Children's Day in the UK and
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I didn't look up what that means, but I wrote
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: it down because it is a holiday that was listed.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: That reminds me of the Washington rap if you've ever
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: seen that, where he says the one line is He'll
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: save the children, but not the British children. Eh So okay, yeah, No,
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: it's National Receptionist Day.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: It is National Third Shift Workers Day.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Ooh, it is National Decency Day, which should be every day.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Just be decent, you know, I.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Know, and be decent to the third shift workers and
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the receptionists and the chihuahuas. Yes, it is shades Day.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, get some tiny shades for those chihuahuas. It is
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Economic Development Week.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Oh well economic something weak anyway, Yes, yeah, it is
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: food allergy awareness.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Yes. And it is Hospital Week, one of the most
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: important inventions I think in human history, hospitals.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: True man, And we did a discussion on triage a
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: little bit, which is related to the idea of hospitals.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I thought that was a really good episode. And it
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: maybe has been out for five years now because apparently
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: time goes by so fast.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Does I don't like it?
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, but yeah, we've been doing this podcast now.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, this might be about the anniversary
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: of the eighth year of this being a cod a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: cod past, which is to say, a podcast. Oh no,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I do spoonerism so much language, my actual language. Eight
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: years of us doing this and we're finally talking about autism.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it took eight years to get here. How wild?
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: We have so much to talk about. There's just so
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: much to talk about.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so humans be doing stuff and we talk
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: about that stuff, and there's kind of a lot of it.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: So but we got here. I'm glad that we did.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: We've arrived.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Man, eight years, feel good about that. I do think
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: this is our eight year birthday. So cool.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Happy birthday, Happy birthday, Abraham.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Happy birthday, Shane. Thanks for the podcast. Yeah, all right,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: As I said, we're talking about this autism thing. What
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: we are going to describe as what autism is, I
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: think as importantly we will allude to what autism isn't specifically,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: we have the context, as I mentioned, of discussing why
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: rates of autism are increasing. This is a question I
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: get somewhat regularly from people when they find out what
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I do, and there is an answer that is very exciting. Yes,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: if you will. And furthermore, we are going to address
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: recent comments made by Robert F. Kennedy Junior, the dumbass,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: and so we're going to I imagine when he came
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: out and said all of this. The thing that occurred
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: to me is I imagine people are going to want to
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: hear what we have to say about this. Maybe not,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: but at least some people will. So may as well
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: weigh in and share our thoughts because oh, well.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot to say.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot, but I think that's what I
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: have to say for sort of opening remarks. Are ready
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: to jump into our topic?
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go ahead and dive in.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I think I missed a subject. I think I just said,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: are ready? But I should have said are we ready?
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Or are you ready? Am I ready? I think we're ready?
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: I think I ready?
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I ready? We ready?
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: We ready?
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the history of the diagnosis of autism.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, so, the extent to which the prevalence of any
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: condition can be calculated is based on A that condition existing.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: B they're being a clear set of features that would
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: identify that specific condition and see people knowing about the
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: condition itself.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Right, So, if we want to understand how prevalent some
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: condition is, we need those things, like people have to
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: know what it is, how to identify it, and have
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to do so. Otherwise we will have no
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: clue about the prevalence of that thing, and we won't
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: be able to speak to in any capacity the extent
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: to which it might exist.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Right. So, an example of somebody like depression. Depression has
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: likely been a feature of human existence for as long
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: as there has been human existence, so as long as
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: humans have existed with complex brains, depression has been there,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: and probably even with less complex brains, with different versions
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: and different like not different species of humans. Throughout the history. However,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: people were not diagnosing and tracking the rates of depression
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: for most of human history. This is a fairly new
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: development on the timeline that is humanity.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you could argue that there has been this
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: major increase in the rates of depression, and you could
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: also correctly argue that that's because we went from not
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: tracking it, which is to say we had zero instances
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  Speaker 1: of depression, to tracking it, meaning that we then had
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: more than zero instances of depression, and more than zero
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: is in fact more than zero just by definition. The
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: fact that there is ninc increase is just because we're
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: now writing it down and like keeping track of it
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: in some way, and there wasn't actually an increase, but
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: we had to start tracking it at some point after
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: it was already there. And so, and as you sort
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: of mentioned, like this depression seems like this is a
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  Speaker 1: thing that probably any species can have, Like we've seen
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  Speaker 1: this in non human animals as well showing what looks
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: like depressive behaviors. And so it seems like this is
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: just a thing that can come along with life, the
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: conditions of life, at least for many different species that
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: we have definitely observed some version of this in But
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: until you start writing down and counting instances in which
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: this occurs, as far as we know, there are zero,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: even though we know there are more than zero, and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: then we start tracking it and all of a sudden
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: we have a number.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Right. Further, the criteria for any diagnosis must be clear,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: and until the last half of a century or so,
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: at most two medical doctors were likely to give different
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: diagnoses to the same or different diagnoses to the same
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: medical can So if something has objective as objective as
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: biologically observable conditions lead to ambiguity in diagnoses, what chance
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: do practitioners have of agreeing on a diagnosis that for
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: a condition that can only be inferred. We're finding that
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: there are lots of issues with the way that we
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: have diagnosed historically. A lot of it comes down to
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: the ability to objectively define what that diagnosis is.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so if two medical doctors couldn't even agree
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: on like what you what your diagnosis was, Like, what
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: chance to do psychologists have on agreeing on a diagnosis
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: when they can't even directly observe it, right, at least
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the doctors can directly observe it in a cognitive or
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: some other mental diagnosis. We only have we all we
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: get is inference and part of when you're going about
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: doing a diagnosis, medical or otherwise. And obviously we're speaking
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: more about psychological diagnoses in because that's what we do
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: as a podcast. Have like a clear agreed upon definition
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: will be at least one of the most important things
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: for us tracking and counting instances of that diagnosis so
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: that we can get a sense of how common that is.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: And so when did we reach our current understanding for
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the diagnostic criteria for autism? Like our most current understanding
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: that we've all sort of agreed on is like, this
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: is the set of criteria we're going to use twenty thirteen.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: This is barely more than ten years ago that we
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: arrived at our current set of criteria for diagnosing this
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: barely more than ten years that's how recent this is.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Right, It's so recent. I mean it's unlike ads in marketing,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: though that's been around for a long time. So here's
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: an example of that particular thing happening today. Okay, so
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: the year twenty thirteen, we have come to a current
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: idea of what are our diagnostic criterion is, which you know,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I think is really important to note that it will
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: likely change in the coming years as we learn new information.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: That's the whole thing with like philosophic doubt and whatnot.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: But we're talking about current status, right, And autism has
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: likely been around for as long as humans have been around.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: An early description of what would likely have been identified
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: as autism by modern pediatricians comes from French physician doctor
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Jean Marc gaspar Uitard. That's as close so I'm going
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: to get to that. In eighteen hundreds, he cared for
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: a boy who was found naked and abandon in the forest.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: The boy didn't speak, didn't seem to respond to language
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: or other social cues, and would rock back and forth
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: or shell beans. So like, he wasn't really doing a
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: lot of like what you can describe as like interacting,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: like social interactions with folks. He wasn't responding to environmental
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: cues in the same way that maybe other people around
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: them have.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you know, this is two hundred years ago.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: We don't know if this would have definitely been an
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: autism diagnosis, but the description given does feel like it's
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: in line enough that that seems at least like a
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: reasonable plausible hypothesis that yeah, it was very plausible that
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: it could have been. And I think that's important for
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: just considering again this is a part of the human condition. Now.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Swiss psychiatrist Paul jugen Blueler was studying childhood schizophrenia in
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds, so we're now about a century
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: out from Ittar's doctor Etard's description of the boy he
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: found from the Forest and where Paul jugen Bluler and
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: he described autism as a symptom of schizophrenia and which
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: children had a quote detachment from reality together with the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: relative and absolute predominance of the inner life end quote.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: In fact, many children who likely would have been diagnosed
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: as autistic by modern psychologists were likely to have been
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: described as having psychosis or having schizophrenia at this time
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: was around, but it wasn't called autism. It was called schizophrenia,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: or it was called psychosis if it was identified at all.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Right, I think for a long time, schizophrenia was just
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: kind of a catch all. Yeah, Like it was like,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: we don't really know what this is, but like it
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: seems like it's probably schizophrenic. Yeah, you'll see that a
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: lot now. Russian born child psychologist Agrunya Sukhareva. Sukareva was
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: the first to describe autism pretty closely to what our
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: modern diagnosis would become. She published studies in nineteen twenty five,
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: one hundred years ago, Yeah, empathetically describing several patients with
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: autistic traits, including preferring solitude and struggling to adapt in
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: social situations and to behave authentically showing automatism and preference
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: for repetitive tasks, expressing flat, superficial emotions, fixation on special interest,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: and sensitivity to lights and sounds.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Right, and so, yeah, a century ago that was the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: closest to what aligns with sort of our modern definition there.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: But the this is also at a time when she's
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: in a different country, She's not necessarily this isn't necessarily
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: reaching other countries that speak different languages. There's no anything
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: even remotely approximating in Internet at this time. Males, like
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: just delivering mail is like barely a right, you know.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I mean it was clearly a thing, but like international mail,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I think was pretty difficult to have reliably occur in
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: that way.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Lots of boats, yeah, a lot of.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Boats, Yeah, camels, you know, packing the round. So that
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: was Sukariva or sukar Eva then born in Ukraine at
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the turn of the twentieth century. We get someone who
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: is more well recognized among the people who are maybe
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: familiar with the history of autism, Leo Kanner. He I
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: think was about thirty at the time that he immigrated
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: to the United States to study child psychology and in
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty three and afterward he started publishing studies with
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: descriptions and conclusions very similar to Sukhariva's work from two
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: decades earlier. Because we're now in the mid forties she
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: was publishing in the nineteen twenties. Canner has often given
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: credit for the first modern understanding of autism, although Sukharieva
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: probably deserves more of the credit, and of course, because
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: this is how scientists do things. Sometimes he called it
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Canner syndrome after himself, and Canner noted in his descriptions
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: here that the children he described as autistic were quote
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: happiest when left alone end quote. He also noted they
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: demonstrated repetitive speech and actions, they tended to follow routines
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: in a rote manner with an anxious adherence to sameness.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: And he also outlined difficulty with social cues, sensitivity to
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: visual gustatory and auditory stimulation, and echolaliam and for people
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: who aren't familiar with that term, this is repeating words
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: or phrases or snippets of songs, or repeating words or
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: phrases or snippets of songs, or repeating words or phrases
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: or snippets of songs. But Canner made no estimation about
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: the prevalence of autism at the time. He basically he
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: said he thought it was rare. But what does rare mean?
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: He didn't have the data, so it makes sense that
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't guess, but he just said that he thought
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: it was rare.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Right. And now this brings us to Hans Asperger, who
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: was working in Germany and also started publishing on a
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: similar set of observations in nineteen ninety four or in
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four nineteen forty four, different year during World
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: War Two in Nazi Germany. Now he observed that his
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: study participants quote struggled to form friendships, struggled to follow
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: social cues, had special interests, and had below average motor
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: skills end quote. And as we mentioned in our what
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Happened to Asperger Syndrome nostalgia episode, recent revelations indicate that
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Asperger likely sent many children to Nazi Children's use in
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Asia clinic because of their quote disorder. So he was
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: not a particularly good guy. Seems like pretty evil.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, And there are people who have come
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: out in his defense saying that the evidence is not
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: clear enough to say that he did that, but there
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: is evidence to say that he did, and that has
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: enough people say like, maybe we shouldn't We just shouldn't
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: honor this person and the legacy as it relates to
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: this specific syndrome. So all right, we're working of the
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: timeline here, so we're all the way up to nineteen
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: forty four with Hans Ausburger. Now, autism was officially added
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: as a subclassification of schizophrenia in the ICD, which is
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the International Classification of Disease, and that anyway, is one
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: of the other sort of prominently used systems for diagnosing things.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: But yeah, Not until nineteen sixty seven was autism added
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: to that, which meant that people were not going to
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: be diagnosing autism at least not according to any specifically
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: outlined criteria until it was in a reference manual that
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: they could then use to assign that diagnosis, or at
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: least they weren't doing so commonly right now.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: By the nineteen eighties, diagnostic criteria became standardized in the
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: DSM three with the criterion of specifically impairment in social interactions,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: lack of responsiveness to others, limited or absent use of
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: non verbal communication, and difficulties with relationships.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: As well as delayed or deviant language development at galalia
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: and lack of spontaneous language, restricted and repetitive behaviors such
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: as repetitive movements, insistence on sameness, and a narrow and
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: intense interests, and that this is present before the age
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: of thirty months. So in the nineteen eighties we get
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: that diagnostic criteria from the DSM three.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Now, in nineteen eighty seven, when I was exactly one
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: year old and started studying this, Ivar Lobas published a
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: landmark study demonstrating a behavioral intervention to increase language motor
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: and skill social skills in children diagnosed with autism to
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: a greater degree of success than any practitioner before him,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: with about forty seven percent of children achieving quote, normal
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: intellectual and educational functioning with normal range IQ scores and
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: successful first grade performance in public schools end quote. Now,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: this episode is not about Ivar Lobas, Okay, and I
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: think it's really important to remember that. And I think
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: that that's a whole different episode to unpack all the stuff. Okay,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: we're just saying right now, this is this is the
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: context in which this diagnosis has been framed in a
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: lot of the work that we've done.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean and similar in a way that we
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: talk about Asperger's work without necessarily honoring him because seems
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: like he was a Nazi. He euthanized children, but he
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: did publish things that were irrelevant to the sphere of
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: discussion here. Yes, we're trying to separate the fact that
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: we have information from the fact that this came from
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: a potentially problematic source.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: And I think it's also fair to say that the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: children who would receive an autism diagnosis around the time
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: that this was happening in the eighties, that essentially was
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: a diagnosis that, like, your kid is never going to
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: not be like this. That was what that meant. And
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: it was at this time I to find the most
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: profound and extreme cases of the criteria outlined in these
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: diagnostic systems, right, and not the sort of outlier fringe
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: cases that were like they kind of have some of
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: these but not others. And we'll get to more of
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: that in a moment here. So when someone came along
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: with any kind of I guess you would call it therapy,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: any kind of intervention, any kind of approach to handling
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: or providing supports for this population, that resulted in forty
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: seven percent, almost half of them essentially being placed in
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: traditional sort of school settings. That was pretty groundbreaking for
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: like a lot of families and a lot of insurance providers,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the medical establishment. Like that was a big thing. And
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: so that definitely changed the i think orientation and view
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: around autism and understand and like how people sort of
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: felt about it, for better or for worse, Like it
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: had a lot of complicated things that came out of it,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: But that is a thing that happened. Sure, So let's
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: go ahead and take a quick palate cleanser by ingesting
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: some ads, which will do the opposite of cleanser palates.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: But like it's like eating garlic sur butt after dinner.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: That might be delicious.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know, that's probably pretty good.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe licking the garbage disposal Yeah, let's go. Yeah,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: there you go. That works ads licking the garbage disposal
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: it beck. It would be really funny if the advertiser
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: was for a garbage disposal company.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or like hefty trash bags or something like that.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and in particular if it emphasize the taste
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: of their projects.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: New better tasting trash bags.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Anyway, before we left off, we were sort of just
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: describing essentially what was believed to be the case for
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: people who received autism diegosis in the eighties.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So currently we're operating on the DSM five, which
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: means there's been multiple revisions to the DSM and multiple additions,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: but the current diagnostic criteria for autism according to the
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: DSM five are as follows. First, you've got persistent deficits
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: in social communication and social interaction across multiple context as
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: manifested by the following currently or by history, one of
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: them being restricted or repetitive patterns of behavior, interest, or
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: activities as manifested by at least two of the following
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: currently or by history, which you're gonna see that a
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: lot in the DSM.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, And every time it says manifested by the following,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: they give specific examples, which I felt like it wasn't necessary.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, I could include them, but for the sake
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: of time, I was like.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: It's too much.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: It's just it's a lot. So you have deficits in
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: social communication and social interactions as one, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: or activities as another the third one. Here, symptoms must
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: be present in the early development period but may not
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited or maybe
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: masked by learned strategies later in life. And symptoms cause
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: clinical significant impairment and social, occupational, or other important areas
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: of current functioning. And that is a criteria you're going
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: to see in many, if not all, diagnoses, is that
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: if you have a diagnosis that warrants some kind of intervention,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: it is because it is clinically significant and causes impairment
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: in various aspects of life that include things like occupation,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: social possibly education that sort of thing.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Right. And further, this is also something you need to
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: see or at least similar across diagnoses into DSM, and
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: that is that these disturbances or this diagnosis is not
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: better explained by X. Right, and so in this situation
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: for autism, it is by intellectual disability, intellectual developmental disorder,
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: or global developmental delay. Intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: frequently co occur. To make morbid diagnoses of autism spectrum
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: disorder and intellectual disability, social communication should be below an
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: expected that expected for general development level. So you're going
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: to see that across diagnoses as well, where it's like
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: this condition is not better explained by some other condition.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: So that is the history of autism diagnoses. However, as
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I as we mentioned before, and I'm going to repeat
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: because it's very important, autism has been around forever. This
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: seems to be a part of the human condition. Just
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: because we started diagnosing it less than a century ago,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: matter of fact, only a few decades ago, doesn't mean
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: that it didn't exist before that. I saw a really
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: good post that someone sort of mentions that, like, we
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: didn't discover Pluto until like nineteen twelve or something like that.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that Pluto wasn't there until nineteen twelve. Right,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: it was there. We just weren't calling it autism, and
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: we weren't measuring it or classifying it in a way
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: that it was likely to be tracked, right, exactly. Nevertheless,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: it does seem like the rates of autism is on
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: the rise, or at least that's what the headlines will
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: tell you. We will explore all of that. So let's
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: disc but what is happening here with the increasing rates
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: of autism diagnoses?
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is such a I love talking about this
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: because I think it is just such a testament to
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: measurement and not epidemic. Right, So, like we'll get into it, right. So,
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty six, Victor Lotter published the purported first
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: epidemiological study using Canner's diagnosis and concluded that there were
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: four point five autistic people for every ten thousand people.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: So I don't know where they keep half people though.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: That's an interesting thing.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or half autistic maybe? You know, what was the thing?
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Why wouldn't they say nine for twenty thousand? I know,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: give me a whole number. What are we doing here?
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: So this is nineteen sixty six that latter published that,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: and he did a couple different studies similarly. In nineteen
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: seventy nine, Lorna Wing and Judith Gould published several epidemiological
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: studies using Canner's diagnostic criteria, and they reported about five
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: in ten thousand people with an IQ of seventy or less,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: and so five and ten thousand is very similar to
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Latter's four point five and ten thousand. But they did
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: other studies as well and looked at just different ways
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: to classify these data. They found that fifteen out of
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: every ten thousand children struggled with social interactions, communication, and imagination,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: although not otherwise meeting the entire definition as laid out
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: by Canner. So that's like three times more people if
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: you simply look at other aspects of this diagnosis and
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: not the strict sort of gamut of it has to
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: meet all of these features and nothing else right now.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Following this, they proposed that there seemed to be a
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: spectrum for this condition in which some symptoms were present
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: to a greater or lesser degree, while other symptoms might
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: not be observed at all. So, for instance, one child
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: might have an IQ of less than seventy struggle to
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: communicate and engage in repetitive tasks, and also love being
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: around people, and showed no sensitivity to lights and sounds.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so like that. It would be a case where
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: they showed a lot of the critical hallmarks of what
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: might be an autism diagnosis, possibly the most important ones
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: in terms of what people are looking for when they're
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: thinking about what counts as an autism diagnosis, but then
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: also missing a couple of really important ones that other
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: people thought we really were relative relevant and important for
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: calling it autism. And so if you start to include that,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: that changes your data understandably, because you're counting things now
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: that you weren't counting before. So, in more of the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: research and more of their sort of data analysis, the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: total gamut of children with special needs with symptoms related
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: to but not strictly diagnosed as autism were observable in
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: twenty out of every ten thousand kids, or you could
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: also think of it as two in a thousand, because
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: that's how math works. Right now, we're at the point
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: where it's almost five times higher than the original epidemiological
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: study done by latter in nineteen sixty seven.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Right, So, and you'll see this trend happen a little bit. Right. So, now,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: before the Lobos study, in the addition to the DSM,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: a child would have likely have been diagnosed with mental retardation.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: But now we're being diagnosed as autistics. So for many years,
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: schools had no way of tracking or reporting instances of diagnosis,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: and again would have increased from zero to more than
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: zero as soon as they started actually tracking it. So
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: it's going to look like there's a rise simply because
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: they're observing this phenomenon.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: And have infrastructure to count it and like report on
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: those numbers. So, before there was a specific diagnostic criteria,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: autism was difficult to diagnose as there was no system
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: by which to apply a diagnosis. Right, So, at least
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: in the United States, actual cases of diagnosed autism would
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: have gone from zero to about two per thousand children
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty by a virtue of the fact that
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: we weren't counting it, and then we were, and then
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: we applied like those criteria. In nineteen eighty nine, the
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: APA published a study finding a prevalence rate of up
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: to seven in one thousand children. So now that's almost
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: four times higher than the last one, and as research
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: and awareness continued, rates climbed to one in two hundred
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: and fifty children in two thousand and three, to one
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: in one hundred and fifty two children in a CDC
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: study back when you could trust the CDC with a
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: sort of data handling, and to one and around fifty
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: children in twenty ten to as high as one in
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: thirty one in some very recent surveys from very unreliable sources.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I think that like for now, we can safely assume
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: one in fifty until we get real scientists involved in
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: this again. And I'll go ahead and say that right
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: now you cannot trust information that you get from the
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: National Institute of Health and the CDC because this is
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: being run by Charlatans who have an agenda, who are lying,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: and they are cherry picking their data, and we can't
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: trust them. And that's a really disappointing place to be
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: in the history of this country, that we can't trust
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: our science institutions. And I want to make clear that
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: the reason that we can't trust them are because of
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. And the reason RFK Junior was ever put
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: in this position which he should never have even been
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: considered for is because of the Republicans in Congress and
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: the President and by extension, the people who put him there. Right. So, like,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: the reason that we cannot trust data anymore and we
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: can look at our websites and know that we're being
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: lied to is because of those people. And just remember
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: that as we move forward in time, that those are
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the people who got us here and we are worse
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: off for it.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Right. So I guess maybe a key point in that
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: is remain skeptical, Yeah, until we can re establish those
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: better parameters. Now, yeah, let's go back and look at
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: the purpose of a diagnosis, right, So we talk about diagnoses,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: and people have all kinds of things to say about diagnoses.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: The purpose of a diagnosis is used by researchers to
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: ensure they are actually measuring a phenomenon of interest and
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: must use some objective as much as we can possibly
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: make objective some objective criteria to do so. A diagnosis
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: maybe use to project a likely trajectory of pathology for
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: a condition. What should we expect from this condition over time?
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: A diagnosis is used by clindicians to prescribe what kinds
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: of supports may be necessary for a given individual across
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: the lifespan of whatever that particular diagnosis might be.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's kind of those three main purposes for
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: a diagnosis. It's like, use it for research, we use
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: it to predict what's going to happen, and we use
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: it to recommend supports that we can we can provide.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Right further, we are in one of the weirdest, most
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: severe bouts of like mental health self diagnosis that may
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: have ever existed in all of human history. There's a
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: lot to say about this, but self diagnosis is not helpful.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: It's so not helpful. It's to the point of being
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: probably counterproductive. And I would say that if you need
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: support for your condition, like go see a professional diagnostician
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: and get the help that you need. Like, I want
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to make sure that people there are people out there
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: who do need this help. Otherwise, the people who are
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: self diagnosing are really saturating the conversation and diluting access
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: to limited resources that are supposed to be made available
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: to people who really need them. So like, just please stop.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's an element of this I w wain. Personally,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I find it kind of offensive for people to be like, hmm,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I think I'm autistic now and I'm like, come on,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Like what First of all, what does that do for
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: you right now? Like, are you trying to figure out
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the trajectory of what your diagnosis might be? Are you
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: trying to get some kind of access to supports that
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: you think you need? Like is it just because you
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: like want to go on social media and say, hey, everybody,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: I'm autistic? Like again, remember the purpose of a diagnosis
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: to begin with, and like, if you do think you
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: have that, like you might like go get a diagnosis
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: and like then you'll have accesses to support you need,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: supports you need. But there are so many people who
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: self diagnose based on something they saw on social media
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: that isn't even accurate. To begin with. There was a
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: recent trend of people who were like diagnosing themselves as
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: having ADHD because someone said, I like listening to the
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: same my favorite song over and over again, right, Like,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: that condition is called having working ears and being a
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: human being like yes's and no diagnostic criteria for ADHD.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Has it ever been that you like a song Like
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: that is absolutely absurd and again to the point of
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: it being counterproductive to people who actually have ADHD and
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: would benefit from supports for their condition. And that's where
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: I get really upset about this whole thing of the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: self diagnosis, is like there's just this craze about it
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: right now, and it's so unhealthy and so bizarre, and
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: it takes away from the people who need that support.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: So that's that's why I fall in that. But feel
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: free to disagree with me.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: I think there's a discussion inside of there too about
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: like the affordability of going to a diagnostician, so like
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: I know that sometimes it's not covered by insurance or
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: people don't have access to health insurance, and that creates
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: some unique problem forgetting the appropriate diagnosis. So I think
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: that's a fair thing too. And I think the other
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: side too, is like and we'll talk about this, I'm
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: sure a little bit where our diagnostic criterion sometimes miss
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: the mark for certain populations, so like they are norm
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: to like usually like like white boys and white kids, right,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: So we know and we know that to be true
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: with autism specifically, where like girls and women are often
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: underdiagnosed because symptoms might present it certain ways. So there
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: are I think it's really important to note that, Like,
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: on one hand, yes, self diagnosis is a significant problem
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: because it does diminish the experience of folks that have
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: like the actual diagnosis. Like, yeah, I do think that
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: that does create some problems. And what happens is you'll
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: find folks that are self diagnosed that becomes like like
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: loud vocal advocates for groups that they are actually not
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: a part of, and it creates problems kind of muddies
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: the waters of those discussions too. So I think there
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: is that side of that as well that creates like
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: some unique problems, and so I think that there are
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: I think the self diagnosis thing is a significant concern.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: I think the solution to that is making assessments and
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: diagnoses more available and more accessible for folks to get
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: the accurate diagnosis so that they can actually have something there.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Like a perfect example this is for a long time,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: I suspected that I had an anxiety disorder. I went
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: and got diagnosed with this officially, though like I was
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: not walking around saying that I have generalized anxiety disorder.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: I said I think I have this, and then I
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: went and I got it formally diagnosed, the same thing
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: with my hypermania. So like I went and got those
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: I got evaluated for those things and got that formally,
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: but I had access to that care too, So I
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: think there's just a there's a lot of discussion with it.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: But I do think to your point about you've got
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: folks that don't have a formal diagnosis that are actually
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: participating in studies, like they're participating in studies as saying
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: that they are formally diagnosed and they're not, and that
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: dilutes the participant pools for studies. That makes it so
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: that there's other concerns and other issues that like lead
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: from the diagnosis portion itself. Like I think that that
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: I think it does create a lot more problems than
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: people realize.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I think you're exactly right that those are great points
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: that the solution, probably the best solution is to make
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: diagnostic assessment as widely available as possible to ensure that
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: we are correctly and accurately capturing the rates of this
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: so that we have a good sense of like what
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: kind of resources our need for how many people and where.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: And all of that.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: The other thing, as you mentioned, is that like, yeah,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: if there's a study that's going on, and like they
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: they're going to try and vet diagnoses if they can,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: but like there are like protections that say like, you
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily need to show your like history of diagnosis
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: for things, right, and that might mean that they then
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: aren't able to actually get that information. But then just
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: imagine what happens when they conduct the study that is
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: based off of a person who doesn't have that diagnosis
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: but claims that they do. That study is then going
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: to walk away with incorrect information about what to do
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: for people who have that diagnosis. Like if it's a
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: study about some kind of support and say like, all right,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: we see that these people who have this diagnosis need
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: this kind of support. Let's see how that works to
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: alleviate their symptoms, like or whatever. We then see that
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: for this person who doesn't actually have that diagnosis and
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: wouldn't get one, because even if they went to a diagnostician, like,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: their response to that treatment is going to affect how
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: someone else who does have that diagnosis would respond to
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: that treatment because they have incorrect data. So yeah, I
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: think that that's a really great point.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: And another thing, this is something that really grinds my
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: gears when it comes to this Everybody going around and
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: saying like, well everyone's a little autistic. That is so
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: abjectly false, like it is so incorrect, Like it is
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: so it's so demeaning to the people who had the
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: experience of being autistic, Like like, no, not everybody is autistic.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Do you have quirks? Sure? Quirk is not a diagnostic criterion. Yeah,
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: do you have special interest? Absolutely? I'm sure that a
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: lot of people do. I bet there's a lot of
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: people out there who know every nook and cranny of
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: the Harry Potter world and that you're listening to this
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: and going like, yeah, I'm a Slytherin. Well, you know what,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that you're autistic. It just means that
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: you found something you really like and you spend a
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: lot of time studying it. Now, is that part of
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: the criterion. Sure, but it is part of the criteria.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: And if you don't mean any of the other indicators
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: or any of the markers, you are not autistic. So
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: I think it's really important for everybody to remember that.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Like phrase is like yeah, yeah, everybody's a little autistic
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: is actually kind of harmful to the folks that are
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: actually autistic, that are actually struggling with the diagnosis or
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: maybe having like you know, the experience of that diagnosis.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: And it also dilutes like the experience of folks that
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: have profound autism, and like the severity of some of
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: the diagnoses that go along on that side of it too.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: So I think it's really important to kind of like
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: for everybody who's listening here to drop the bullshit of
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: saying that, oh, everybody's a little autistic, because that is
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: not true. Everybody is a little bit human, sure, but
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: that's that's as far as that goes, and I think
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: it's really really important for the messaging around that to stop.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I think that that's great, and what a good time
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: to like take a quick AD break.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: I would take a breather. Yeah, all right, we're back.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: I think we kind of blew through an AD break,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: so we'll have to see how this next part, like
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: I think almost made it to our another AD break before. Anyway, Yeah,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: we'll be all right. So we're right to about the
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: main point here, which is talking about these rates of
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: autism and whatnot. And again I would like to start
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: by saying, autism has been around forever. This is part
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: of the human condition. I'm just going to say that
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: over and over again until it stinks in because that
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: is just the thing. Autism is part of the human condition.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: It is here to stay. Now, why are autism rates
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: on the rise? We kind of outlined that a lot
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: for you. That's part of why it was useful. It's
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: walk through the history of this is to understand that,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Like there are kind of clear reasons that you can
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: see just by looking at the diagnostic history, and one
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: of the biggest ones is increased awareness. This is the
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: fact that like more doctors know about this awareness. So
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: when they're evaluating someone coming in, they now are going
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: to think to look for autism specifically, They're like, let's
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: run this autism assessment battery. They're going to look at,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: you know, a particular performance to say that kind of
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: looks like autism, Like I should I should assess for
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: that thing. Specifically, someone might come in, like the families
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: are aware of this, They're going to say, this looks
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: like autism. I'm going to go see a doctor and
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: see about getting a diagnosis. So, like before this was commonplace,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: a doctor who didn't necessarily hear about autism or wasn't
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: really made aware of it might not even run an
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: assessment for that because as far as they're considering in
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: terms of what they understand about diagnosable conditions that was
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: not even on the radar, Like why would you assess
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: for a thing that you're not thinking about right, right,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: And so the awareness piece is a huge reason that
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: there has been an increase in the rates of diagnosis
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: is because more people are looking for it, more people
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: are measuring it. This is true of this has happened
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: over and over and over again with other diagnoses, both
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: medical diagnoses and cognitive or psychological diagnoses. Is that once
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: people are made aware of it, they start looking for it,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: and they then start actually tracking it, running it down
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: and going to places where they study that sort of thing.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean it wasn't there. It just means
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: that they weren't counting it as part of their overall
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: like reporting system, if you will.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Right. Another factor that we have to account for too
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: is funding. So in the last few years, a lot
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: of like autism advocates worked with commercial insurance and funding
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: to get funding for services, at least in the United States.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: And so what you're finding is that an autism diagnosis
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: will unlock a level of funding that you can't get
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: with other diagnoses. So what you might find is that
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: compassionate doctors, diagnosticians, families that are really pushing for this
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: are going to push for an autism diagnosis rather than
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: the actual more accurate diagnosis because they can't get the
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: level of service or funding they need under those other diagnoses.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Like as a perfect example, you know Florida Medicaid, when
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: they opened up their Medicaid funding for ABA services, At
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: first it was only ASD, it was only autism spectrum disorder,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: and then they open it up for a whole host
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: of other diagnoses, like you had intellectual disorders, you had
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: generalized anxiety disorders. It opened up to the Medicaid funding
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: for ABA open for every diagnosis under a certain age,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: and that changed how people were diagnosing, and that changed
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: a little bit of the numbers for the prevalence of
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: autism in Florida. So access to funding is going to
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: push people into certain diagnoses or trying to seek certain
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: diagnoses because that's the only way they can get those supports.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: That it don't exist elsewhere.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: And we don't know how prevalent it is, but like
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: it it would be a measurable amount, and like no
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: doctor is going to own up to like, oh yeah,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: I fudge the numbers because I wanted to just make
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: sure that these people got services because they could probably
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: lose their license in many of those spaces exactly having
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: done something like that. But like that does happen. It
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: absolutely happens that It's like I could run this battery.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: They're like not quite meeting the criteria for this diagnosis.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: But like if I say that they have this other
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: diagnosis or they have nothing at all, then you'll receive
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: zero support where you definitely could benefit from some versus
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: if I say that you do, I'm like, let's just
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: push it a little bit into the category of like
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: across the threshold. You do meet that diagnosis. Now you
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: will get the access to supports that are needed for
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: this individual. As just sort of if you sort of
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: alluded to simply a making funding available for services as
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: they are needed would mean that we would get more
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: accurate diagnoses and more accurate tracking of those, because there'd
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: be no reason there'd be no incentive to diagnose something
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: other than what it was. If that meant that that
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: family was going to be able to get support for
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: whatever the condition is that they were dealing with. Right,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Another major one here, and this is kind of related
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: to this idea of the awareness is the diagnostic criteria,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and that's real. That's really important because when autism was
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: described by the DSM three and then eighteen eighties and
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: then in the DSM four, we had a few different
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: conditions of this. We had autism, we had Asperger syndrome,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: and we had PDDNS, which was pervasive developmental disorder and
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: then not otherwise specified. So you had multiple things that
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: someone would be diagnosed as that was not autism. So
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: if you were to count rates of autism, you would
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: then not be counting Asperger syndrome, you would not be
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: counting pdd NOS, and you would not be counting other
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: diagnoses that were very similar but had a technical other
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: name assigned to them. And so that meant that, like
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: any way that diagnoses were being doled out and split
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: in a bunch of different ways, would reduce the number
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: of overall rates of what were being tracked as autism,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: because again those are not showing up as autism diagnosis, right,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: And then that changed, which we'll get to in a second.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: And so now you've got that, and then you've got misdiagnoses,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: people who are being diagnosed and they don't have it.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: And then you've also got this issue of collapsing diagnoses
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: into one another. Right. So in the DSM five, tr
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: Asperger's was eliminated, right, And so now you have a
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: situation where Asperger's is no longer a diagnosis. It has
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: been folded into autism spectrum disorder, and that is going
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: to by itself increase the rates because Aspergers wasn't really
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: included in the previous rates, right. So you've got that situation,
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: and then you've also got situations where people are getting
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: diagnosed with quote unquote less severe symptoms or less severe cases. Right, So,
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: like you're going to have folks that maybe have their borderline,
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: they don't quite meet that mark, but they are going
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: to get pushed into that diagnostic category by you know,
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: for lots of factors and lots of reasons, but they
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: are going to be less severe and sometimes they're going
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: to be doctors are going to base that on self
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: report rather than following something like an ADOS or doing
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: the actual assessments for the folks too. So that's I
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: think just really important to keep in mind as we go.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think just going back to one of
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the things you said of like I think you said
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: DSM five. I think it was just the DSM five
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: where they collapsed them down, but in the TR I'm
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: sure that they didn't expand them back out again. But like,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: let's take let's say, for example, that you had a
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: thousand kids who had autism, and then you had a
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: thousand kids who had PDDNS, and then you had a
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: thousand kids who had Asperger syndrome, and then the diagnostic
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: criteria says, well, those are just now all autism, right,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: you just went from having a thousand kids with autism
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: to three thousand kids with autism, and nothing changed about
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: those kids, Like they're just whoever they were at the
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: time that they had their original diagnoses. But now we're
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: just saying they have autism spectrum disorder or ASD. And
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: so the rates just went from a thousand to three thousand,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: so they tripled as far as what it looks like.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: But all that happens we changed the diagnostic labels associated
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: with those individuals, and then, yeah, what the other thing
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: that's happening related to this awareness piece here is the
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: fact that we are we're diagnosing adults like adult autism
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: was not a thing for very long time. So that's
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: relatively new, and so that increases the tracking that we
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: have for what we're counting as things as autism. You
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: also had the cases that, as you mentioned, were like,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: you had a lot of people that they might call
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: high functioning autistic is a term that you probably would
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: have heard more a long time ago. But mostly what's
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: to say is that the way that autism showed up
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: for them was pretty different for the kids who are
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: usually being identified, like mostly they were identifying kids with
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: really severe cases where they had significantly underdeveloped language, they
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: were not meeting language milestones or other social milestones. But
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of kids they did meet those language milestones
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: and they did meet those social milestones, but they still
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: had a form of autism that just didn't follow into
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: like the most easily identifiable conditions, and so they sort of,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: if you will, slip through the cracks. And we're catching
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: those now. So most of the new diagnoses that we're getting,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: or like the ones where we're seeing a huge increase
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: in rates, are catching the conditions where they were less
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: obvious than the condition that were being caught before.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: That's actually hugely important.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd say that's one of the key points here.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: Actually, Yeah, I mean this, this is true, and especially
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: over the last few years, where diagnostic practices were not
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: capturing loutism spectrum disorder for women and girls, right like,
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: so we were finding that we hugely unrepresented in that population.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: You always heard that it was like, oh, like one
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: and four autistic folks are women, and that actually wasn't
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: the case. We're actually finding it's actually probably pretty equal.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: But we're just finding that symptoms might display differently across
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: women versus men and stuff like that.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Adh was kind of similar. Actually that was the one
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: where and actually going back to the whole medical thing,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: heart attacks were very commonly misdiagnosed or missed as diagnosis
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: for women because they present differently, like medically, they present differently,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: but they are heart attacks like right, and so they
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: weren't being treated as such. And now it seems like
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there's this huge increase in the
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: rate of heart attacks. And it was like, actually, we
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: got better at identifying this because we modeled this on
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: white men, and like, it turns out like this might
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: present differently for people who are different than white men,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: right right, and that that shouldn't be the archetype of
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: how we define those things. So that's the thing is, Yeah,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: it's one of the most critical things to understand here
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: is like why it looks like rates are increasing as
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: largely has to do with awareness, It has to do
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: with a better diagnostic net, and it has to do
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: with funding sources. It has to do with collapsing diagnoses,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: and a small amount it has to do with self diagnosis.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: Although I don't know that that's being tracked very much
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: into there, it is a problem that I think does
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: need to be addressed in some way or another. One
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: way being making diagnostic assessments more readily available to anybody
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: who might need them. So that's a great point for
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: us to take a minute and play some advertisements for
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: something and then get to talking about the jackass.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're back. As I said, one of the things
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: that we wanted to respond to his comments made by
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Robert F. Kennedy Junior, also just called RFK Jr. And
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: so we're gonna read his quote. And I think if
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: you know little about him, then good on you. I
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: wish I'm envious of your position.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: I wish I didn't know about him.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, this is a bad person, and I say that
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: as someone who thinks like there are no bad people,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: there are bad circumstances. The bad circumstances has produced a
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: bad person. He is not irredeemable, Like I think he
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: could be a good person, but right now he is
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: doing terrible things that are hurting a lot of people.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: He is a hardcore anti vaxxer. That might be his
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: most defining characteristic. That's aside from the fact that he
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: has a worm eating his brain and that he has
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: killed many wildlife for some reason and then left them
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: in public places. But yes, he is an ardent anti
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: vaccine proponent. Is one of his biggest things, and all
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: of his positions, all of his policies, all of his
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: opinions about things, largely stem from this position of doubting
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: the very clear objective science in favor of vaccines. He
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: is denying the science here like that is what an
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: anti vax position is. But this is definitely his position,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: very explicitly is he is an anti science person. Yes,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: which is a bad thing.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Right, It's a bad thing to have in a place
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: where he is in charge of making policies and decisions
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: around medical science.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And the only reason we have medical science is
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: because of science. The science part is really important, Like
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: without science, we don't have modern medicine.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: We don't right exactly, So here's what he said. This
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: is kind of where what's deenmed a lot of the conversation,
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: and just to be fair, I want to be really clear.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: This is going to be as well. You'll hear the
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: quote from him, and I think it's really important to
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: know that we do not agree with them. Okay, So
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: he claimed that before becoming autistic, children were quote fully
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: functional and quote regressed into autism when they were two
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: years old. And these are kids who will never pay taxes,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: write a poem, they'll never go on a date, and
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: many of them will never use a toilet unassisted. End quote.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: Now horrifictly misinformed. I'm going to say a couple things here. First,
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: there are children who do regress at two. That is
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: often captured under PDDNOS when it is diagnosed. Something that
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: does happen as people do regress, and it's fairly rare. Second,
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: I've worked with folks, and most of the folks I've
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: worked with have been able to go out and get
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: a job to create art, to be able to date,
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: they've done all the things. And also, most of the
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: kids I've worked with don't even want to play baseball.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Like I love baseball, but they don't even want to
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: play baseball. It's not that they could, and it's that
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: they don't want to. So like, it's just a weird,
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: weird stance to take, and so like, the most charitable
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: way I could say this is that maybe he's talking
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: about severe, profound cases where individuals are severely impacted by
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: their diagnosis. But he doesn't say that, and he's not
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: explicit about that, and every and all of us history
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: indicates that he's not at all interested in separating out
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: less severe and more severe. He's simply talking about the
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: diagnosis entirely.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, he is treating the diagnosis of autism as if
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: all cases of it are the most severe, which is
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: blatantly aggressively wrong.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: Second, here is and I want to speak to this
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: point of regression, because at two years old, what does
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: regression really mean?
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Essentially, what we're talking about is you are meeting a
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: lot of the milestones you would be meeting, and then
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: what happens is you kind of go laterally and you
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: are now no longer meeting milestones. Never have there been
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: there been a case we have a student, a kid
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: who's like fully social and talking and engaged, and then
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden they're not. You have a kid
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: who like is developing a lot of these social milestones,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: and then they start to turn their attention inward and
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: they stop really participating in those those social and language
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: behaviors that they were and engaging in. So regression is
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: almost more like a like, it's not that they actually
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: went backwards. They didn't go to a fetal state, right,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: they stopped progressing along the sort of intended trajectory and
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: started doing things that were less social than they were
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: doing before. Is a better way to think of it.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: And like thinking about this too, of like what he's
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: trying to imply here specifically is that autism always has
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: environmental causes. That's what he's trying to get at. This
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: is the anti VAXX rhetoric. Here is the belief that
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: autism is caused by circumstances in our environment. And we
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: didn't talk about this in the history here, but initially
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: one of the proposals around where autism came from was
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: the idea of refrigerator mothers. And this was like mother's
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: Like is the mom's fault because she was cold and
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: uncaring to her child and that's what caused their autism.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Like that is a thing that people believed. It's insane
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: and it's wrong and it's based on nothing, and it's
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: very stupid. But anyway, this whole rhetoric is around this
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: idea that there are environmental triggers that are avoidable and
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: that that's why they regress, which they don't right in reality,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: but that's their proposing that they do. And that's why
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: they're proposing their increasing rates. That's not why they're increasing rates,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: but they're using that as their sort of hook, if
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: you will, to say, like rates are increasing, must be
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: environmental and that these and then as you said, the
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: most profound cases, most of the rise in case are
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: not most but a huge reason for the rise in
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: cases is like the addition of things like the adult autism,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: to including less severe cases, to adjusting our criteria to
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: account for how this presents in females and other races
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: and in cases in which people just like didn't require
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: as much supports. So again important to point out like
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: the rhetoric here is specifically aimed at this idea of
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: environmental causes and that that must be vaccines is where
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: they're coming from, right.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: And then the other side of this too is that
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: the statement of will never do anything, we'll never pay taxes,
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: will never play baseball, we'll never write a poem, that
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: will never suggest that there's no intervention to support aiding
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: in those to be able to help support somebody playing baseball,
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: which the last case I worked with, the last client
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: that I worked with, that was part of my job
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: was to actually help him play baseball. And you know what,
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: he's playing baseball and he's doing great, nice, so you know,
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: shut up about it. And so like the idea is
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: like that when he says we'll never that assumes that
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: there is no intervention and no support. And I think
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: it's really important to point out that here we are
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: talking about somebody who simply cannot understand how to interpret data,
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: how to interpret science, how to interpret any of the
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: stuff that he has no critical thinking around. How we
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: have arrived at this stage. Do we know a cause
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: for autism right now? No, we don't. We're still investigating that.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: But we have to let science do that, and we're
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: getting closer than we were. He is way off the tracks.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: This is kind of like what he's doing is going, hey,
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: you know what this person's ill? You know, I know
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: we have modern science and we have scientists and experts
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: that do this like that know this ever day. You know,
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: what we should go back to is blood letting. That
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: seems to work. You know. Maybe maybe the cause of
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: autism is the humors are off. We should make sure
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: that they're humors. Like, that's what he's doing right now,
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: and I think it's really important to point that out.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: Like what he's doing is going, there's nothing wrong with
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: being skeptical a lot of science. I think it's really
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: important to be skeptical about science and to continue to
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: question the answer. I think that's fine.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: It's skeptical about everything.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: It'd be skeptic about everything. Yeah, But I think what
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: he's doing is going, there's a reasonable explanation for where
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: we're at right now, and he's going, no, not even close. Yeah,
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: Like that's not even that's not even all what's happening.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: And that's why I like to say it's not it's
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: not skepticism, it's denial. Yeah, denial is like you have
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: the the facts, you have the information, and you're still
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: saying it's not true. Like flat arthurs are not skeptics,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: they're deniers. The Earth is a sphere. I mean it's irregular,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: spheroid or whatever the det it. It's like your head.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: It is a head. It's not flat, like at the
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: very least we can say it's flat. So like they're
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: not skeptics. They are deniers climate change. Like they're not
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: skeptics about climate change, they're denying the science. Like that
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: is what they're doing. They have an agenda and motivated reasoning,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: and they're pursuing that agenda Like yes, all all those things.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: So I think RFK Junior his whole agenda is this
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: long con anti vax campaign to kill as many children
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: as possible. He seems to hate children with a passion
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: and vigor matched only by Hitler's hatred of the Jewish people.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: And I say this not lightly, like I know that's
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: going to sound like I'm being hyperbolic, but like RFK
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Junior is vehement Like not only is he vehemently fighting
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: to reduce and remove and dilute access to preventative medicine
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: like vaccines, that would save many, many children's lives. But
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: he is also under his policies ended access to suicide
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: prevention services for LGBT youth. He has advocated for and
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: is pushing for, policies to return to what you might
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: call school health policy that historically have led to more
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: children ending up in juvenile hall or prison or homeless
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: or dead. This guy hates children, hates them, wants them
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: all gone, and he is working so hard to get
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: rid of them, and doing so while saying he loves them.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: I'm like, and I people are going to call it
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: libel and slender. I'm like, I don't know how else
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: to describe a mass genocide of children other than hating
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: that group of people, right, and don't do it out
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: of love. I'm like, I've never seen love genocide.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: He's a public figure, so we can lob criticisms at him.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so in case you ever listen to this, go yourself,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: RFK Junior.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's what we're saying. That's the whole purpose
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: of this one. I mean, besides talking about the diagnosis
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: and like giving that some space, but also yeah, go
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: yourself RFK.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: Yes. Oh, and one thing I almost forgot to mention, like,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: you're right that we don't know the causes of autism,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: but they have identified I think forty genetic markers so far,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: and they can even tell for many cases of autism.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: They can tell from like neurological scanning and biological testing
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: in utero. Like, that's how close we're getting to understanding
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: this better. So it is clear that the biological basis
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: of this is the foundation.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly, Thank you for that.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: You're very welcome. Okay, great, well, very impassioned one of
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: our impassioned episodes. There is one implication I do want
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: to add to this, because he's talking about this like
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: this will they will never think this like seriously suggests
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: that like autism is like the worst thing that could
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: happen to you. That that is really the implication here, right,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: And I think it is a horrendously offensive disservice to
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: autistic people to reduce their lives to like a problem
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: that must be solved. Yes, that's just it's so gross.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: We've worked with and met a lot of autistic people,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: and a lot of them like would benefit powerfully from
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of supports that are like things to just
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: help them gain independence and be able to advocate for
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: themselves by being able to communicate effectively with people. And
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: I think what we don't need to change, and we
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: talked about this in our ABA episodes, is like, I
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: don't think we need to necessarily change like quirky behaviors
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: that they do, Like there was this idea for a
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: long time of being indistinguishable from your peers, and like,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means, Like everybody is
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: weird and everybody is different, So who cares if like
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: that happens to show up. However it shows up for you,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: Like there's no archetype of the right way to be.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: But there are people who like they can't advocate for
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: themselves because they just never they never developed those language milestones,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: and they struggle to gain a lot of independence, and
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: so they're really dependent on others, which could be problematic
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: for their safety. And so I think, like I would
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: advocate for support in those domains because that means that
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: they are likely to survive and thrive as much as
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: could be expected for anyone, you know, let alone someone
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: in their own circumstances. So that's where I think we
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: come from on this, is that like OURFK Junior treats
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: this as it like it's just the worst thing to
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: be autistic, and we love autistic folks. It is not
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: the worst thing to be autistic. And I think what
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: we want to look at is like, where can we
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: provide supports to make your life as easy as possible?
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: Like That's what I've always thought of when when people
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: I know, we're like way past time here, but like
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: there have been like interviews on like I've listened like
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: NPR and they have a guest come on, like what
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: do you do? And they say, I'm a behavior analyst
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: And they say what does that mean? And they say
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: I work with kids with autism. And I'm like, no,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: that's never what that's meant. Right in my mind, the
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: way that I was trained, the way that I've always
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: understood it, behavior analysis is a science to help people
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: live the lives that they would like to have, yes,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: and to do so by changing their behavior because they're
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: doing something that is or they're like there's a skill
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: that they don't have that they would benefit from, or
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: that they're doing too much of something that they'd like
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: to be doing less of, or any combination of those things.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: And so that I think is the job that we've
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: sort of taken on.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely one percent.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, well that went way past another ad break, so ads, ads,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: let's just do one more. All right. We have some
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: things to recommend that are mostly unrelated to OURFK Junior
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: or autism. And I'm sorry you had to hear his
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: name so many times. Takes all us in the fact
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: that we we are not taking his side on anything
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: here ever, I guess yeah, all right, As I said,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: we're gonnacommend some things, which is really fun. Before we
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: do that, I would like to do the credit parts
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: of this now, try and keep it short and sweet,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: because I kind of did it long at front, which
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: is that if you like to support us, you can
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: join us on Patreon. You get early episodes, add free episodes,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes content, and it helps us keep being
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: a podcast. And we appreciate that. There's also a community
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: over on our discord server, so you can chat with
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: the other folks who've taken on supporting us. And then
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: I will also read your name on each of our
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: discussions because I so appreciate the generosity that these people
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: have taken in like just being supporters of ours, and
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: that's like really amazing and really generous. So thank you
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: so much to Mike m Megan, Mike T, Justin, Kim Brad, Stephanie, Brian, Ashley,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: and Kiara. Thank you all.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: Y'all are the best and we love you.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, thank you of course to everyone else who is
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: listening as well, because we do need you here to
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: keep being to podcast. But of course thank you to
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: so much to my team writing and fact checking from
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Shane and myself. Thank you for recording with me today.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: Shane, Hey, thank you for having me.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson. And the person
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: who makes sounds good is Justin. He does all of
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: the audio editing engineering and if you hear music, that's him.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: Too, yes, and he does always make sounds good.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: He does all right. Am I missing anything before we
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: transition to our recommendations?
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: No, I don't think, so let's hit it all right, recommendations.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to recommend a movie that I just
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: got to see, and it is Thunderbolts Asterisk, the new
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Marvel movie that's out, and it is a lot of fun.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: It is just such a great fun jaunt into the
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: world of Marvel. And you know, the thing, the thing
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: that is really great about this is it does answer
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: quite a few questions too, Like it's not just like
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: a filler movie that's like, oh, you know, here's just
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: like story to tell. Like there's a lot that it
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: does to help build the world a little bit more,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: and it like advance the story of like currently where
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: the Marvel universe is. Like it explains like what happened
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: to the Avengers Tower, and like the struggle of like
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: how people are like navigating some of that world. And
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: you know, you just kind of feel bad for all
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: the New Yorkers because they just deal with so much,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: so much nonsense, right, like superhero nonsense. But it is
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: really great. It's a lot of fun. I think it's
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: a better version of Suicide Squad that DC does, Okay,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: I think it's Marvel's version to that. And it's just
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: a lot of fun. It brings back some really cool
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: characters that you know, you could have left them in
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: the in the back in the past, but it's nice
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: to see them all back and interacting together. It's it's
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: a lot of fun.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Nice. Yeah, it's good, all right, very good. I'm very
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: much looking forward to seeing that, I hope sometime and
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: in your future. I'm recommending an out. This is for
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: people who really like metal, Yes, like heavy metal albums.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: This is a band called Deaf Heaven. They have been
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: around for some time, like I think probably good at
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: least ten or twelve years thirteen, something like that, maybe
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: more than that. They had done some kind of weird
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: stuff with their albums lately, and then this most recent
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: one they put out is a much more in keeping
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: with Like if you got into them early on and
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: that was like the genre of music you were excited about,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: this is that sure, and it is fantastic. The album
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: is called Lonely People with Power. I absolutely loved it.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: I've listened to it at least three times and strong
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: recommend if you're like a connoisseur of heavy metal, as
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: we tend to be. Yes, Yeah, this one's quite good.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: Deaf Heaven Lonely People with Power. It is banned in
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: the album.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: Really really good. It's a really good listen if you
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: I'd also like to share a bonus recommendation. Since we
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: are talking about the impact of autism and how that
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: might impact families, I do think it's worth checking out
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: Profound Authism, which is you can find at Profound autismsummit
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: dot org. They are an organization that does support families
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: that are highly impacted by autism diagnoses. So and they
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: do work on like public policy and whatnot as well.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: So I do think that this is going to be
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: one of the more out and loud groups fighting against
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: what RFK is doing. So I think I think it's
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: worth checking out this organization and just being able to
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: provide them any sort of support you can.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I think to that point it is worth.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: I should have probably brought this up when we were
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: talking about RFK Junior, but all of the advocacy groups
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: for autism and like the autism groups have come out
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: really against what he has said about autism. Yes, he
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: has quite thoroughly created enemies out of the autistic community
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: with his words.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: Which is not a group that you want to be
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: enemies with. No, they are loud advocates and like in
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: a good way. I want to say that, like I
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: say loud and that's out that's got bad connotations. They
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: are vocal advocates and they like the autism is the
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: reason why there is commercial funding for behavior analysis services
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: and autism. So like they do amazing work and so
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: he has struck the wrong wasp nest if you will.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, these are good people who fight hard for
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: the people they love and for a community that they love,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: and right good on them, like, definitely big support. Yeah,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: as you said, the Profound Autism Summit really really good.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: So yes, all right, awesome, Well we went very long,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: so we should wrap this one up here. Thank you
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: so much for listening. Is there anything that you would
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: like to added that I forgot before we wrap this
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: one up?
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: Shane, not today? All right, this is Abraham, This is Shane.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: We're out.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: So yep, you've been listening to Why We Do what
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: we do.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: going to WWD WWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: and we hope you have an awesome day. The