1 in 50 vs 1 in 88

This is getting just plain ridiculous. Really.

The CDC did a phone survey of parents and determined that autism numbers are higher than originally envisioned. Scary, really scary.

Bias? Heck yes! Autism is more common, but not one in 50. That means in an elementary school with 300 students, six have autism. At the same time, it does make sense too, as I've seen in schools special classrooms for those with autism and there's usually about six students in those self-contained programs.

I am going to have a slight meltdown if autism is the new ADHD, the "designer" pediatric mental health disorder. Bring back the one in 88. At the rate things are going, every child born in the US will have autism. And that's just nuts. I'm sorry, but I think it's closer to 1 in 100. I bet you some of those children are just developmentally delayed and they are just using the autism label.

Or for the HFA/Aspergians/Aspies out there, why don't we just say we have a communicative and social processing disorder. I've worked too hard on autism advocacy just for the CDC and other groups to say "By the way, you're not autistic". So you're saying that years of struggling to make friends, sometimes a slight lisp comes out, obsessive interests and sometimes inappropriate social behaviors means I'm not autistic? Either it really is an epidemic and the water is messed up or there are children being misdiagnosed.

Communicative processing disorder. Long name, not-so amazing results. At the same time, it puts us non-neurotypicals in a safe category just in case we're "kicked off" the spectrum (meaning that some of us on the spectrum no longer meet the criteria.) And that's scary for me. Social interaction and communication is something I struggle with every day. 

So how do I say this? The medical community can pry my autism diagnosis from my cold, dead hands. Nonetheless, the signs are here: autism is more prevalent than it was years ago, and I can't escape that.