Additionally, practices good data analysis skills, the data you have in "my clients with high ACE scores have kids with Autism compared to my more privileged relatives and acquaintances" is only children identified/diagnosed, and we know from the autism community that non-diagnosis or late self-identification of autism is extremely common.
There other issues, like under-diagnosis of autism by gender. So there's good reason to not fully trust data on autism counts, even from non-anecdotal sources.
Put another way, the autistic identifications you "know of" might not be an accurate reflection of the actual count of the individuals involved. It might, it might not, and it's important to know that serious questions exist around such topics.
This occurs all the time in mental health. There's issues with over-diagnosis of borderline personality disorder in women due to misogyny. There's conceptual issues with diagnosis as a concept unto itself.
I stand by what I said. An important an extremely under-utilized source of knowledge in the lived experience on the individuals themselves. If you want to learn more about autism and autism parenting, consider looking at such sources as...
Neuroclastic Resources for Parents
https://neuroclastic.com/categ...sources-for-parents/
Our Neurodivergent Life (blog and community discussing autism parenting)
https://www.facebook.com/ndivergentlife
And dozens more of other such resources from the #actuallyautism community. Stop reading just the textbooks, start engaging with the community itself. Help empower the community to rewrite the textbooks.
