How Increased Autism Diagnoses Are Changing the Way We Think About Neurodiversity

KQED's Forum

KQED

News Commentary, News, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Autism spectrum disorder can be found in 2.2% of the population, but for women and girls, as well as many adults, autism is a diagnosis that is often missed. We look into who is underdiagnosed and why — and how our conceptions of autism and neurodivergence are changing. As Trump’s health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. portrays autism as a “tragedy,” we’ll talk about ways in which many people with autism are living and thriving. Guests: Mary HK Choi, author and editor, she recently wrote The Cut article "I Was Diagnosed With Autism in My 40s. It Gave Me a Lot of Answers." Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief, Science family of journals; Thorp is the former provost of Washington University and prior to that was chancellor at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His recent guest essay in the New York Times is titled "I Was Diagnosed with Autism at 53. I Know Why Rates Are Rising." Christine Wu Nordahl, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UC Davis; Nordahl is the Director of the Autism Phenome Project and the Beneto Foundation Endowed Chair at the MIND Institute Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.3	From KKU.D. in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:48.3	The way autism is viewed by the medical establishment, by the broader culture, and by people on the autism
0:55.8	spectrum themselves has changed tremendously. Long seen primarily as a condition that some boys
1:02.7	and men experienced, far more girls are being diagnosed now as clinicians have begun to
1:08.6	understand how symptoms present in women. Even as the Trump
1:13.1	administration's Robert F. Kennedy Jr. portrays autism as a tragedy, the understanding
1:19.4	and acceptance of neurodivergence are also rising. It's all coming up next, right after this
1:25.4	news.
1:37.8	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:39.4	So much has changed in how our society understands autism spectrum disorder scientifically and socially that I want to just get right to our guests and have them lay out the new reality of this type of neurodivergence.
1:53.7	We're joined this morning by Holdenthorpe, editor-in-chief of the science family of journals.
1:58.8	He authored a New York Times essay. Sorry, RFK, there is no
	...

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