Allysia Finley: What's Behind the Rise in Autism Diagnoses?

Whatever else it is, I say: the romanticism of certain kinds of mental illness, popular with the young since at least, well, Romanticism + social contagion, largely via social media + practical incentives like academic "accommodations"--now given out to enormous numbers of students with little gatekeeping.

   Currently, about 15% of my students get "accommodations" like extra time on exams and a special, extra-quiet "testing environment" (though, interestingly, most students who cand take such "accommodations" don't avail themselves of them). Some such accommodations are patently unreasonable--our "Office of Disability Services" once told me that it was a violation of the ADA to give pop quizzes. (I told them to get bent.) Another time I was told that a student had been granted the following "accommodations": (i) an assigned note-taker, (ii) permission to record the class, (iii) access to all my overheads. (Again, I told ODS to get bent. I don't give out my overheads. (Well, sometimes, but not routinely).)

   As one of my colleagues recently argued in the Chronicle, there are basically no checks on "accommodations." High schools grant them liberally to avoid getting sued...and colleges accept whatever "accommodations" a student got in high school. It's mostly a big scam, and anyone not zombified by bleeding-heart progressive groupthink knows it. Which mean many academicians go along with it because [insert appeal to pity here]. Awww.... Think of the children!

   I mean, go knows what poison we're breathing, eating, drinking...but I'll bet it's mostly the other stuff.

   And maybe screen time, too. That's probably fucking kids up right and left.

   He says, shooting from the hip and knowing nothing about it all...