If somebody has coping strategies that effectively mask their autism (in the early childhood/developmental stage specifically), they DO NOT HAVE autism, because autism is defined by others perceptions of you particularly as a child. You're going to have to change how autism is diagnosed if you don't want this to be true, which would be a great idea, the DSM approach to diagnosis is fundamentally flawed.
How SPECIFICALLY are these additional people getting diagnosed? Is there special training diagnosticians get to unveil the secret masked signs of autism? What are these scientific advances I've heard vaguely cited for the rise in autism diagnosis over the years? Why is it even possible for a diagnostic criteria that hasn't changed to result in dramatically different diagnostic rates over time, doesn't that prove the diagnostic process is fundamentally unreliable and thus fundamentally scientifically invalid?
The fundamental cause of the rise of Autism is that both schools and parents both financially benefit from a child being labelled as "Autistic" and because the diagnostic criteria is so vague to begin with you can interpret it as it suits you. The driver isn't "science", there aren't scientists and doctors marching into schools outraged at improper diagnostic practices and making changes happen. It's driven by parents and schools looking for money, money is the dynamo driving this, autistics are rainmakers. Then schools will often restrict some of their resources to those with special needs or whatever, which only drives up the need for other parents to play the same game. I've seen how the sausage is made too, with parents and teachers and doctors outright committing fraud to ensure a child looked appropriately disabled on paper, downplaying their ability as much as possible, which further jades me regarding how "scientific" this all is. I've also seen no analysis on if this practice actually helps kids, which you really think there should be because all these kids we labelled as disordered all reported being suicidal later in life.
How SPECIFICALLY are these additional people getting diagnosed? Is there special training diagnosticians get to unveil the secret masked signs of autism? What are these scientific advances I've heard vaguely cited for the rise in autism diagnosis over the years? Why is it even possible for a diagnostic criteria that hasn't changed to result in dramatically different diagnostic rates over time, doesn't that prove the diagnostic process is fundamentally unreliable and thus fundamentally scientifically invalid?
The fundamental cause of the rise of Autism is that both schools and parents both financially benefit from a child being labelled as "Autistic" and because the diagnostic criteria is so vague to begin with you can interpret it as it suits you. The driver isn't "science", there aren't scientists and doctors marching into schools outraged at improper diagnostic practices and making changes happen. It's driven by parents and schools looking for money, money is the dynamo driving this, autistics are rainmakers. Then schools will often restrict some of their resources to those with special needs or whatever, which only drives up the need for other parents to play the same game. I've seen how the sausage is made too, with parents and teachers and doctors outright committing fraud to ensure a child looked appropriately disabled on paper, downplaying their ability as much as possible, which further jades me regarding how "scientific" this all is. I've also seen no analysis on if this practice actually helps kids, which you really think there should be because all these kids we labelled as disordered all reported being suicidal later in life.