This is an interesting npr article about how educated parents are much more likely to have autistic children than uneducated parents:

• Listen to the article at npr.org

The folks talking about the topic come to a conclusion which is a fairly standard misconception: "Other kids must have the illness and are just slipping through the cracks."

I remember at the university, the field that offended me the most was the field of psychology - and especially developmental psychology. There are some really serious flaws in the way that these people reason about how the mind works. The best way I can approach talking about this is to say that the mind is not static - it's dynamic. The mind is not a thing that can be studied like a rock. It can't be broken apart and it's nature understood by looking at its component parts. People are dynamic - they have wills, they have perspectives and worldviews. And they act within that world which they see around them.

The absolutely worst thing you can do to anybody - a child, a spouse, or even yourself - is to believe that the person "has a problem." A hindrance can exist, ineptitude can exist, a puzzle can exist - but to say you have "a problem" is to adopt the belief that you have a quality about your person that makes you unable to excel, or to succeed in your endeavors. And this is simply not true.

The worst kind of problem you can believe that you have - is a problem thinking - a problem with your mind. If you believe you can't think or reason well - that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, so to speak. You need to have faith in your fundamental ability to think, in order to do it halfway decently, and to learn how to do it better. That's how the mind works. Think about this one: if a person were swimming across a lake, and were to suddenly doubt his or her ability to swim - what would happen? That person might drown. If you have no faith in your ability, you cannot pursue the task - and this kind of task is a very important undertaking - and in that case, one's immediate well being depends on keeping your head above water, and reaching the other shore. And so, I reason that placing a label on a child is one of the most abusive things adults can do to that child. Parents need to believe in their children. They need to see them as those who are changing and growing and coming into their own. Now, certainly there are special circumstances where a child has a serious developmental problem - cerebral palsy, for example... but those are very rare situations.