Of all the questions that readers of Freakonomics ask me to explore, understanding the explosion in autism is at or near the top of the list. I haven’t read the original study, but this news report offers an interesting hypothesis about the rise in autism: older fathers. Don’t tell Dubner I’m citing Wikipedia, but there is a nice entry there devoted to the frequency of autism.
Because the term autism covers such a wide spectrum of diagnoses, even pinning down the simplest questions like “how much has autism risen?” or “what fraction of the rise is due to changing standards of diagnosis?” are hard to answer.
I’ve been asking myself lately whether an economist could bring anything useful to the study of these questions? So far I’m not sure what the answer is to that question.
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And peanut allergies. What’s going on with those? NOBODY had them when I was a kid, now it seems like every third baby has one.
And peanut allergies. What’s going on with those? NOBODY had them when I was a kid, now it seems like every third baby has one.
as to how economists may be usefull in this kin of research: if you can think up of a valid instrument for age of father at marriage i would be an obvious improvement on the endogeneity ridden estimates reported in the cited paper (I would expect men with higher levels of human capital to marry later, and thus have kids latter. If HK is related to some unobservable characteristic (say “mild autism”) the estiamte will be biased upwards.
as to how economists may be usefull in this kin of research: if you can think up of a valid instrument for age of father at marriage i would be an obvious improvement on the endogeneity ridden estimates reported in the cited paper (I would expect men with higher levels of human capital to marry later, and thus have kids latter. If HK is related to some unobservable characteristic (say “mild autism”) the estiamte will be biased upwards.
A poorly formed question: Is there such a thing as a fad rating (how popular something is at a given time), to what extent does its fad rating effect the frequency of its occurrence, the frequency of its study, and the frequency of its reporting. How are the diagnoses of Autism, ADHD, and so on, subject to the current fashions of diagnosis. Surely there are historical antecedents, (“neurosis”, for example) of diagnoses that had their day and now are scarcely mentioned.
The “mildly autistic” children I’ve met recently reminded me very much of what we used to call “weird kids”
A poorly formed question: Is there such a thing as a fad rating (how popular something is at a given time), to what extent does its fad rating effect the frequency of its occurrence, the frequency of its study, and the frequency of its reporting. How are the diagnoses of Autism, ADHD, and so on, subject to the current fashions of diagnosis. Surely there are historical antecedents, (“neurosis”, for example) of diagnoses that had their day and now are scarcely mentioned.
The “mildly autistic” children I’ve met recently reminded me very much of what we used to call “weird kids”
110phil, great question on the peanut allergies, I know exactly what you mean. Never heard of it once as a kid, now it seems to be in every classroom.
110phil, great question on the peanut allergies, I know exactly what you mean. Never heard of it once as a kid, now it seems to be in every classroom.