Tracy Kettering PhD BCBA-D on Increasing Autism Numbers in New Jersey
By Anne Dachel
A story from New Jersey this week is proof, once again, that experts who actually admit something is wrong—that the unending autism rate increase might be a real increase, will never demand we stop it from getting worse.
Tracy Kettering PhD BCBA-D wrote the piece in the New Jersey Courier Post on May 9th entitled, New autism rates surprising? Not to us.
The numbers don't surprise her
Kettering has a doctoral degree in special education and behavior analysis from Ohio State University, and she is the Director of the Applied Behavior Analysis Center of Excellence at Bancroft. She’s an expert on autism and she's not bothered by yet another increase in the autism rate nationally or at home in New Jersey, where it's now ONE IN EVERY 34 CHILDREN, ONE IN EVERY 22 BOYS.
While Kettering did attribute the new rate to “diagnostic improvements,” she hinted that there might be something else going on.
“And let’s be honest: With all the remarkable research being conducted throughout the country, we still don’t know what causes autism, and it’s possible there also could be a true increase in prevalence of autism – not just better diagnostics.”
Kettering talked at length about the need to provide services and early diagnosing. Other states have to “be prepared for these increases”…because things are only going to get worse.
“What we do know is that autism cases continue to grow – and have continued that upward trend for decades. “
“It also means demand will be greater than ever for well-trained, highly educated, caring clinical staff, special educators and direct-support staff who provide the critical day-to-day support to support the children and adults served.”
My questions for all the experts like Kettering who acknowledge that THE INCREASE MIGHT BE REAL are these: When will the numbers be alarming? How bad do things have to get?
Although Kettering sounded satisfied that experts are hard at work on autism, I have to ask, what has the “remarkable research” on autism actually gained for us? ASD is still a complete mystery to every health official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In fact, no one at the CDC would ever concur with her that “there could be a true increase.” Each and every new rate announcement, including the latest one, has come with the caveat that there is no evidence that more children actually have autism. The new numbers were attributed to an increase in recognizing autism in black and Hispanic children.
My final question for Kettering is specifically this: What will you be saying when the rate in New Jersey is one in every 10 children? No one is saying that it's not coming.
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.
SPECIAL ED PERCENTAGE
National official average is 13 percent.
Hazelton, PA: 15 percent of students are sped.
Sioux Falls, SD: 15 percent of students are sped.
Worthington, MN: 15 percent of the students are sped.
Baltimore, MD: 15 percent of students are sped.
Rome, NY: 15 percent of students are sped.
New Haven, CT: 15 percent of students are sped.
New Bedford, MA: 15 percent of students are sped.
Caribou, ME: 15 percent of the students are sped.
Hartford, CT: 15 percent of students are sped.
Indiana schools: 15 percent of students are sped.
New Hampshire Public Schools: 15 percent of students are sped.
Spokane, WA: 16 percent of students are sped.
Bridgeport, CT: 16 percent of students are sped.
Fond du Lac, WI: 16 percent of students are sped.
West Virginia: 16 percent of students are sped.
Aberdeen, WA: 17 percent of students are sped.
Montclair, NJ: 17 percent of students are sped.
Oakland, ME: 17 percent of students are sped.
Duluth, MN: 17 percent of students are sped.
Fort Fairfield, ME: 18 percent of students are sped.
Red Wing, MN: 18 percent of students are sped.
Richmond, VA: 18 percent of students are sped.
Juneau, AK: 18 percent of students are sped.
Detroit, MI: 18 percent of students are sped.
Hackensack, NJ: 18 percent of students are sped.
Minneapolis, MN: 18 percent of students are sped.
Attleboro, MA: 18 percent of students are sped.
STATEWIDE ME: 18 percent of students are sped.
Akron, OH: 18 percent of students are sped.
South Portland, ME: 18.4 percent of students are sped.
Presque Isle, ME: 18.5 percent of students are sped.
Falmouth, MA: 19 percent of students are sped.
Brooklyn, NY: 19 percent of students are sped.
Reading, PA: 19 percent of students are sped.
Brainerd, MN: 19.5 percent of students are sped.
Ashland, NE: 20 percent of students are sped.
Mars Hills, ME: 20 percent of students are sped.
Norwin PA: 20 percent of students are sped.
Dayton, OH: 20 percent of students are sped.
Oakland, CA: 20 percent of students are sped.
Wahkiakum, WA: 20 percent of students are sped.
New Haven, CT: 20 percent of students are sped.
Rochester, NY: 20 percent of students are sped.
Muncie, IN: More than 20 percent of students are sped.
New Jersey: 20 percent of students are sped.
Fort Wayne, IN: 20 percent of students are sped.
Glen Falls, NY: 21 percent of students are sped.
Racine, WI: 22 percent of students are sped.
Princeton, NJ: 22 percent of students are sped.
Ellsworth, ME: 22 percent of students are sped.
Muncie, IN: 22 percent of students are sped.
Racine, WI: 22 percent of students are sped.
Waterville, ME: 23 percent of students are sped.
Leominster, MA: 23.4 percent of students are sped.
Fitchburg, MA: 23.5 percent of students are sped.
Rockland, ME: 24 percent of students are sped.
Staten Island, NY: 24 percent of students are sped.
Woodland Hills, PA: 25 percent of students are sped.
Ireland: 25 percent of students are sped.
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: 26 percent of students are sped.
(UK) Scotland: 27 percent of students are sped.
Commercial Township, NJ: 27 percent of students are sped.
Clark County, KY: 30 percent of students are sped.
When you see those words "Center of Excellence," run for your life.
Posted by: Rae | May 27, 2018 at 12:18 AM
@Shelly, and anyone else interested, the Highwire May 2 episode discussed the autism numbers with Dr. Seneff and the fact that New Jersey possibly has the truest autism count because of the reporting requirements. Dr. Seneff also said that if the autism rate is what is found in NJ, then we are actually somewhat ahead of 1 in 2 prediction by 2032 curve that she put forward in Vaxxed.
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | May 12, 2018 at 12:54 PM
New Jersey's horribly high prevalence of child autism (and concurrent other chronic disabilities) cannot reasonably be related to exposure to mercury emissions from coal-fired powerplants. According to NJ's public utility authorities 95% of power generation is from nuclear and natural gas.
Of course, as Blaxill and Olmsted thoroughly documented in their book Age of Autism, autism incidence in NJ blasted off from near-zero pre-1990 to what we have now, with the implementation of the Thimerosal-laden hepatitis B and Hib vaccines injected into just-born babies joining the Thimerosal-laden DTP vaccine already (insanely) in place and "setting the table" to tip babies over the edge to the catastrophic autism spectrum.
The Authorities will ALWAYS blame anything BUT toxic vaccines.
Posted by: David m burd | May 12, 2018 at 07:41 AM
Mike Luckenbach,
Thank you(!) for providing the incredibly thorough references that we can pass on to the vast majority of our fellow citizens (and medical professionals) who have lied to and conned by "mainstream media".
Again, thank you.
Posted by: David m burd | May 12, 2018 at 06:34 AM
Thank you for providing figures of these horrors.
Staten Island, NY: 24 percent of students are sped.
Woodland Hills, PA: 25 percent of students are sped.
Ireland: 25 percent of students are sped.
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: 26 percent of students are sped.
(UK) Scotland: 27 percent of students are sped.
My God.
Posted by: Mary Maxwell | May 11, 2018 at 05:10 AM
The US of A has been in a war of some kind since about 1990 ... and it does not look to be over anytime soon.
They now have to use vaccines because people will no longer allow themselves to be loaded onto railroad cars.
Posted by: go Trump | May 10, 2018 at 09:42 PM
Yes AnneDachel. The NJ rates are the true rates of Autism in the United States or Encephalitis rates. If we were to look at just the younger children from 2-6, the numbers will be worse. I think about this nearly everyday. How sad this parallel universe is.
Posted by: Shelley Tzorfas | May 10, 2018 at 08:43 PM
Anne: Thank you for keeping us abreast. This is absolutely shocking. In my elementary school days, in the 1950's, there were some slow learners, but no special ed class. One case of asthma. The nurse mainly treated playground injuries. The future is indeed dark. Add to this the economy, which Clinton and Dubya tanked, and Obama did nothing to fix, things are going to get ugly. Scary things are beginning to happen in the EU, as well. I met a young French couple on my hike this week, and they are concerned, as mandates are coming to France, as well as Italy.
Posted by: Gary Ogden | May 10, 2018 at 07:33 PM
If the increase probably isn't real, I think special education should go back to the level in the 80s because it's too expensive to be throwing taxpayer money away on something that's basically imaginary. Let's just see how things go without it.
Posted by: Carol | May 10, 2018 at 07:13 PM
Shelley Tzorfas: "The REASON that NJ has a higher Autism rate is because NJ is the only state REQUIRED to REPORT It, PERIOD!"
Imagine that the New Jersey rate is standard for the whole country.
Imagine, as Dr. Kettering predicted, things are going to get even worse.
The future is very dark.
Posted by: Annedachel | May 10, 2018 at 05:37 PM
"In medicine, the most important clue to resolving the cause of a disease is to identify the trigger. In the case of autism, the exponential increase in the epidemic began in the 1990s is readily documented. In California, the autism prevalence rate increased 600% between 1990 –2002. Is it sheer coincidence that beginning in 1991, CDC recommended universal vaccination of newborn infants with thimerosal-laced Hepatitis B vaccine? This was the first in a series of three vaccinations to be administered during the first year of life. The argument that correlation is no proof of causation has been used to prevent meaningful research that could identify the triggers of the autism epidemic. Instead, the focus of vaccine research has been tightly controlled to searching for a genetic cause, or population surveys in epidemiological studies, neither of which have come close to identifying the triggers for autism."
http://ahrp.org/laffaire-wakefield-shades-of-dreyfus-bmjs-descent-into-tabloid-science/
Posted by: Mike Luckenbach | May 10, 2018 at 05:03 PM
Autism is also brain inflammation. I do not see how therapy could address that. If you have an inflamed brain you will have problems.
I think it is cruel that they try to keep children away from biomedical interventions that could help with that.
I think they promote therapy so much because it is a passive approach to that problem. They really keep things as vague as possible. I do not think they want that it is viewed as a medical problem and have people focus on what is wrong with the children.
More pseudo-solutions, more therapy, more screening, more feel-good stories, more acceptance
The causes need to be as vague as possible, some cryptic genes no one understands, old parents (shaming and blaming ) etc.
Posted by: pharmster | May 10, 2018 at 03:46 PM
JT, as a "high-functioning" autistic adult, I've been horrified by the videos and programmes I've watched on ABA and other so-called therapies for autism. They display a complete lack of understanding of the difficulties we experience, and seem to be intended to heighten the egos of the teachers involved. It seems to me that this person with her PhD is just hoping to create a new job for herself - teaching lots of new special ed teachers.
Posted by: Grace Green | May 10, 2018 at 03:21 PM
The REASON that NJ has a higher Autism rate is because NJ is the only state REQUIRED to REPORT It, PERIOD!
Posted by: Shelley Tzorfas | May 10, 2018 at 02:42 PM
Thank you for your excellent research. This exponential increase can no longer be put down to “better diagnosing”. It is absurd. I notice that these reports almost always call for more therapy and earlier intervention.
Truth be told , I have not seen anyone on the spectrum make substantial gains through therapy. Even the most ‘high functioning’ individuals I know who do participate in society are desperately unhappy and make others miserable.
What are you really thoughts on therapy and early intervention? What is realistic?
Posted by: JT | May 10, 2018 at 11:08 AM
Consider that many families move to NJ to get better autism services than they find in most other states. This could be among the reasons NJ has such high rate of autism among school-age children. Would be a worthy topic of investigation.
Posted by: Barry Stern | May 10, 2018 at 08:52 AM
“What we do know is that autism cases continue to grow – and have continued that upward trend for decades. “
If there is an upward trend that lasts decades what makes them think it will stop?
If they think it will not stop why do they believe 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 boys is not alarming?
Posted by: pharmster | May 10, 2018 at 07:32 AM